Believe It Or Not, Ina Garten Totally Failed Her First Party

Ina Garten fans would probably do just about anything to get an invite to one of her dinner parties. After all, she's an expert on all things food, including how to host a crowd — but she wasn't always an expert. In fact, in her newly released memoir "Be Ready When the Luck Happens," Garten confesses that her first party did not go well, to say the least.

Garten's first mistake? Inviting about 20 people who didn't know each other, which she called a "bad idea" because there was very little for guests to chat about. Her next big mistake was choosing the absolute worst meal to make for her guests. Garten wrote, "I had decided to make an omelet for each person, which of course had to be prepared one at a time, so I was stuck in the kitchen for the entire party." 

While she didn't say how the food turned out, we imagine it was difficult to make the perfect omelet when she was rushing to crank out twenty. For one, the guests wouldn't eat all at the same time, and she explained further that "Jeffrey was in the living room trying desperately to keep the conversation interesting." All in all, Garten called the party a "total disaster," but noted that there was one silver lining: "I learned what not to do."

Ina Garten certainly learned from the disastrous dinner party. During a September, 2024 interview with NPR, she explained that she now thinks the ideal dinner party consists of six guests, who sit together at a circular table, specifically — she says that guests are seated too far apart at long, rectangular tables. She said, "I like when everybody's knees are almost touching and it feels very intimate, with a dark room and a candle in the middle."

Additionally, Garten will never make a customized omelet for each guest again. Instead she recommends preparing meals that keep things stress-free, and keep hosts out of the kitchen on active cooking duty while guests are lingering in the living room or at the table. In fact, Ina Garten has easy menu suggestions for hosting dinner parties that will help you avoid her first-ever party mistake.

She also thinks it's more important for the host to be able to keep their cool and enjoy themselves, rather than be focused on making an overly impressive meal. To solve that problem, Garten has some default dishes for easy and elegant dinner parties too. Thanks to her first, disastrous experience, she went on to become the "contessa" of cooking for a crowd — and we're all better hosts for it!