“Honestly, the first month I was there I thought, ‘This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life,'” Garten told Sifton. “I’d never been in the food business; I didn’t know how to do anything. But Jeffrey said, ‘If you could do it in the first week, you’d be bored in the second week.”‘
Garten worked 18 hours a day to turn Barefoot Contessa into a success, bringing on a chef, Anna Pump, to help.
“Mom was hired to cook, but the beginning of a beautiful friendship began,” Sybille van Kempen, Pump’s daughter, told Business Insider. “Mom and Ina motivated each other. They shared ideas and supported each other’s growth.”
Garten credits Pump — who went on to run the popular Loaves & Fishes Foodstore in Sagaponack, New York, and died in 2015 — with teaching her “so much about cooking.”
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