Martha Stewart and Ina Garten have known each other for decades. Not surprising, considering they’ve built their respective NY-based brands in similar fields, though Ina has kept her focus on cooking whereas Martha sought dominance over home arts at large. As fate would have it, both of them have biographical projects coming out next month: Ina’s memoir Be Ready When the Luck Happens on October 1, and the Netflix documentary Martha on October 30 (whether the real Martha likes it or not). So these women are knee-deep in promotional duties, to the point where they’re even overlapping. The New Yorker recently ran an article on Ina, and they called on Martha for some comments. This is standard practice for profiles, and it’s generally understood that the people contacted offer positive anecdotes on the main profile. But not our Martha! Instead Martha told the magazine that Ina snubbed her when she went to prison, and that it was terribly “unfriendly” of the contessa.
“When I was sent off to Alderson Prison, she stopped talking to me,” Stewart said. “I found that extremely distressing and extremely unfriendly.” (Although she maintained her innocence, Stewart was found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction and two counts of lying to investigators related to her involvement in an insider trading scandal in 2004. She was sentenced to five months in prison, five months of home confinement and two years of supervised probation.)
While Garten “firmly” denied Stewart’s recollection of the end of their friendship, Stewart’s longtime publicist, Susan Magrino, maintained that Stewart was “not bitter at all” about the fallout.
“There’s no feud,” Magrino, 62, told The New Yorker.
Stewart and Garten first crossed paths in the early ‘90s after Stewart was shopping at the latter’s now-closed Barefoot Contessa store in East Hampton, New York.
“We were in a gigantic black Suburban,” Chip Gibson, who was head of Crown Publishing at the time, told The New Yorker. “And suddenly she veered almost crashingly to the curb and said, ‘I’ve got to get lemon squares.’”
“My desk was right in front of the cheese case and we just ended up in a conversation,” Garten told TIME of their meeting in 2017. “We ended up actually doing benefits together where it was at her house and I was the caterer, and we became friends after that.”
Stewart later connected Garten with an editor, who would go on to work with the future Food Network star on her first cookbook, The Barefoot Contessa. Nearly one decade after meeting, Stewart introduced viewers to Garten during a 1999 episode of her Martha Stewart Living.
Stewart also penned the foreword of Garten’s cookbook, in which she wrote, “It took a while, but I finally understood what motivated Ina, realizing that here was a true kindred spirit with really similar but unique talents.”
Additionally, Stewart’s production company tried to help launch Garten’s television career on the Food Network with a show whose working title was Someone’s in the Kitchen With Ina. However, after a director called her out for taking a bite of food on camera and speaking with her mouth full, Garten said she decided TV wasn’t for her and the show was shelved.
She would later go on to star on the network’s hit cooking show Barefoot Contessa, which ran from 2002 to 2021.
Though rumors of bad blood between the pair have plagued them for years, Garten hasn’t shied away from praising Stewart.
“I think she did something really important, which is that she took something that wasn’t valued, which is home arts, and raised it to a level that people were proud to do it and that completely changed the landscape,” she previously told TIME. “I then took it in my own direction, which is that I’m not a trained professional chef, cooking is really hard for me — here I am 40 years in the food business, it’s still hard for me.”
You know who I feel for? Martha’s publicist! “There’s no feud! Martha’s not bitter! Nothing to see here!” I don’t think this story will damage either Ina or Martha’s reputations; if anything I think each woman comes out maintaining her publicly-perceived image. But I must ask, what was Ina expecting?! I mean, we’re talking about the same Martha Stewart who criticized Ina for being pro cosmo-drinking as we were all muddling through the pandemic (a comment Martha made while launching a chardonnay line, btw). The same Martha Stewart who’s ready for her friends to die so she can date their husbands. I think it’s fair to say that if you’re turning to Martha for a character reference, that gamble is entirely on you. The real scoop of The New Yorker article, in my opinion, is the account of Martha nearly crashing into the Barefoot Contessa yelling, “I must have lemon squares!!!” I need a dramatization of this event put on screen STAT.
PS — I simply adore the title Someone’s in the Kitchen With Ina.
photos via Instagram and credit: Jennifer Graylock-Graylock.com / Avalon
I was never a big Martha fan I don’t like how she comes across but that’s just me. I did watch some of Ina’s shows and I found them to be I nice lesson on how to make something. Yes she can come across snobby while she is cooking in her Long Island fancy home but I liked her recipes so I watched. As for their feud I believe Martha started it. I don’t think she liked that Ina was doing so well.
The lemon squares anecdote is so Martha! I love that part too.
Martha is such a diva. I can’t help but like her, or at least be fascinated by her. Garten has her niche and flourishes in it, but Martha is next level. She actually grew up not far from my hometown in New Jersey. What she has accomplished is incredible.
I’m so glad Martha has found success after that embarrassing jail stint, but no need to mean girl Ina and publicly air past grievances lol, but who knows, maybe they cleared this beforehand for some funny publicity.
Martha Stewart started the big cooking, housewares, lifestyle OmniMedia.
Martha is the original Queen.
Remember the tshirt?
“I wanna be Martha. That B*tch has 5 houses!”
Technically she wasn’t the first. Julia Child had the women in the 1960s and 1970s and after in a chokehold with her show, and books and would sell out cooking wear she suggested.
Martha is here today because of Julia Child same with the rest of them.
Why you’re asking Ina asking Martha ??
Ina always looks good compared to her, and Martha bring engagement that Ina want
Martha is always been a bit of a mean girl, and that doesn’t appeal to me. Snoop Dogg has helped her rehab her reputation, but she was much snobbier in her previous years. I have always liked Ina‘s recipes. I really admire her career that started in the White House before she opened her food shop.
She made people work on site during the whole pandemic. She is nasty. Poking fun at remote work showed her age and ignorance.
I appreciate both Ina and Martha. Martha is gonna call it how she sees it, especially at this point in her life. She opened a lot of doors for Ina, professionally. From a professional standpoint, Ina has always spoken highly of Martha too. Friendship-wise? I imagine all of that gets complicated when it comes to small communities like the Hamptons, Food Network, fame, power imbalances etc, so who knows? Only the two of them really know, so I agree – the poor publicist!
I much preferred Ina’s recipes to Martha’s, but I don’t like either of them, really. Martha’s never been the nicest person – she got that from her mother who was…ooof – and is absolutely a snob (the spinoff Everyday Food was much better and also had much better recipes), though I think she’s a bit (A BIT) humbler these days. Ina has a less combative personality and can be genuinely nice, but she reminds me of Nigel Slater – very happy in her ivory tower and content to leave the rest of the world to its own devices.
Team Ina ’til I die!!!!
I like both women very much, but neither of them are perfect; and of course, no one has to be. Both women are, needless to say, doyens of the lifestyle industry. And Ina owes a tremendous amount of her success to Martha. To have Martha pen a forward to Ina’s first cookbook, is no small feat. But Martha can be petty when she feels a bit of competition heading her way; and Ina is a snob. Ina is not the first person in this industry that’s drawn Martha’s ire because of competition. I recall that Gwyneth Paltrows Goop took off when Martha’s OmniMedia was in financial trouble. A few years later, Gwyn and Chris announced their divorce. Martha, who’s husband left her for her own assistant, thought it was a good idea to chide Gwyneth for her divorce. As for Ina, for two straight years, at least, I never missed a single episode of her show. But the recipes got repetitive and a bit lack luster. Than later, she was caught in a scandal because she refused to honor a make-a-wish foundation request. So, I soured on her, until the trolls came after Ina for posting an Instagram support of Harry’s book. Than I was back in Ina’s corner. There’s plenty of room for both women on my bookshelf. And, as Martha’s rep says, there’s nothing to see here.
Yes Martha and gwyneth have quite a history. I remember her constantly (it seemed) complaining when gwyneth first published a cookbook. It was all ‘Girl you’re an ACTRESS. Why don’t you stick with that? Stay in your lane!’ This was before GOOP came along not to mention every actress (and actor) getting into side hustles.
The quote about the lemon squares made me laugh out loud. I wish I could have seen it.
She was convicted of a crime and went to jail. Of course people with a public reputation to protect are going to stop contacting her. Duh.
Yeah, I totally get that.
Folks — I’m old enough to have started in cookbooks when Martha was first coming up. The jail thing was ridiculous — but she got singled out in large part because she spent the first 30 years of her career by being STUPENDOUSLY demanding, bitchy and unpleasant. As far as Martha is concerned, there is only room in the world for ONE American cookbook queen, and it’s her.
My guess, having left that biz by the time Ina came up, is that Martha was bitchy to Ina, Ina like a lot of people in the Hamptons was glad to have Martha gone for a while, and didn’t reach out.