'Barefoot Contessa' Ina Garten Appears at PlayhouseSquare Today

The Barefoot Contessa, New York Times No. 1 Bestselling author and Food Network Host Ina Garten will appear at PlayhouseSquare today, March 12, 2013, with fellow New York Times bestselling author Michael Ruhlman as host.

"A Conversation with Ina Garten" takes place at PlayhouseSquare's State Theatre for one 8 pm show, Tues., March 12. Tickets on sale at the Ticket Office, playhousesquare.org or 216-241-6000 for $75, $65, $45 & $10 Smart Seats.

While working for President Carter as a White House nuclear budget analyst in 1978, Ina Garten saw an advertisement in the New York Times for a specialty food store in Westhampton, New York. The next day, she and her husband Jeffrey drove up to see the small store. Two months later, to her surprise, she had left her White House position and was now the owner of a 400-square-foot food store called "Barefoot Contessa." Her dream of working in the food business had become a reality.

Eighteen years later, the Barefoot Contessa had moved and grown to a 3,000-square-foot store in East Hampton, New York, and Ina decided it was time to shake things up. She sold the store to her chef and manager to try her hand writing cookbooks. The first book, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, (1999) became one of the bestselling cookbooks of the year!

She has since gone on to write seven more phenomenally successful cookbooks: Barefoot Contessa Parties!; Barefoot Contessa Family Style; Barefoot in Paris; Barefoot Contessa at Home; Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics; Barefoot Contessa, How Easy is That?; and her current offering, released last fall, Barefoot Contessa , Foolproof. Ina has also been a monthly columnist at House Beautiful , and, in prior years, at Martha Stewart Living, and "O", the Oprah magazine.

In 2002 Food Network approached Ina to create a cooking show based on her cookbooks and her love of entertaining. Initially she was reluctant but decided to challenge herself to do 13 shows. That was 11 years ago, and her Emmy- winning cooking show, Barefoot Contessa, is one of the highest-rated shows on Food Network.

In 2005, Ina, with her friend and business partner Frank Newbold, started a company called Barefoot Contessa Pantry, which produces the highest quality baking mixes for distribution to thousands of specialty food and gift stores around the country.

Ina makes her home in East Hampton, New York with her husband, Jeffrey, a Finance & Business professor at the Yale University School of Management and Chairman of Garten Rothkopf, a global consulting firm.