Ina Garten is one of America’s most impor­tant enter­tain­ers: she has taught mil­lions of Amer­i­cans how to throw a par­ty, pro­vid­ing us with the con­fi­dence, reas­sur­ance, and straight­for­ward recipes we need to host dear friends and fam­i­lies. In her vivid new mem­oir, Be Ready When the Luck Hap­pens, Garten describes the aus­tere kitchen she was raised in, her rela­tion­ship with her sweet­heart, and how she became one of America’s most respect­ed food personalities.

Smit­ten with her col­lege boyfriend, Jef­frey, Ina Garten (née Rosen­berg) real­ized that food can be more than just nutri­tious — it can be ​“an expres­sion of love.” (Thank you, Dun­can Hines cake mix­es, for encour­ag­ing Garten’s start!) Over the next three hun­dred pages, Garten gives read­ers a front-row seat to this adorable and ador­ing cou­ple. Yet Garten’s jour­ney has not always been easy. She opens up about her mar­i­tal strug­gles and shares dif­fi­cult child­hood mem­o­ries of her emo­tion­al­ly unsta­ble Jew­ish par­ents. Despite these hur­dles — many of which took place dur­ing Garten’s first few years run­ning The Bare­foot Con­tes­sa in the Hamp­tons, while Jef­frey was liv­ing in D.C. — the couple’s love and full sup­port for each oth­er is ironclad.

As the title indi­cates, the real sto­ry of how Ina Garten became the Bare­foot Con­tes­sa is full of serendip­i­ty. But it wasn’t sim­ply luck; it took a whole lot of chutz­pah and hard work. Answer­ing a tiny ad in a news­pa­per, Garten decid­ed to leave a fine gov­ern­ment job and buy a gourmet shop in a sum­mer vaca­tion town, where she learned how to work on her feet for over eigh­teen hours a day, bake hun­dreds of brown­ies at a time, and pre­pare over a thou­sand baguettes every morn­ing. Despite these gru­el­ing days, the Bare­foot Con­tes­sa was tru­ly happy.

In every chap­ter and sto­ry, Garten pro­vides prac­ti­cal advice for liv­ing a mean­ing­ful and deli­cious life. She encour­ages read­ers to take on chal­lenges and work on new projects. If we don’t take risks, she says, we won’t grow into our true poten­tial. Garten also writes that fla­vor and tex­ture ought to be our start­ing guides for mak­ing any dish; if we can add some col­or, all the bet­ter. Ulti­mate­ly, she imparts the mes­sage that host­ing meals gives us the oppor­tu­ni­ty to nour­ish peo­ple and make them feel loved.