Ina Garten has worn many hats — cook, TV show host, cookbook author, shop owner, etc. — and she just added "longform writer" to her repertoire. As a student at Syracuse University — a campus that suffers cold winters — Garten purchased a fur blanket from a friend's father.
It was the end of fall semester, which meant temperatures were dropping and finals season was arriving. The friend's father told her to pay when the blanket was delivered, and between ordering and receiving the blanket, she had forgotten to muster the money. When the blanket arrived, she found herself with a meager pocket and an expectant bill.
Unsure how to move forward, she pulled inspiration from a 1950s sitcom. "I had to find some way to pay for that blanket," Garten recounts in her memoir. "I came up with an "I Love Lucy" solution that turned out to be my first foray into the food business.
" Before Barefoot Contessa, she was a Doughnut Dealer As they try to remain awake into the wee hours of the night to study for their finals, most college students will take any fuel they can snag. "Then, I went door-to-door in the dorm, selling them individually (at a significant markup) to all the students who were desperate for sugar," she wrote. (And .
) It was a success. Clinging to anything that could keep them focused, her dorm mates bought all of the doughnuts. So, she restocked and sold more, eventually making up her debt.
All the while, she wrote, she learned about unit pricing and profit, which becam.