-- Shares Facebook Twitter Reddit Email In the conclusion of her new memoir, “Be Ready When the Luck Happens,” Ina Garten reveals the inspiration behind her book title. The title, she writes, can be credited to a chance meeting with Oprah Winfrey back in 2010. “I spoke about how lucky I was at each phase of my career because it seemed whatever I was most interested in doing was exactly what the world wanted at the time,” she writes of the speech she delivered while accepting the Matrix Award for Women in Media.
“I was lucky that I was interested in food and cookbooks at a time when the world was interested in food and cookbooks. I was lucky that Food Network was looking for home cooks when they found me, and lucky that they refused to take no for an answer. Lucky.
” Afterward, Garten took her seat on the stage “right next to Oprah,” she writes. “Immediately, she turned and smacked me on the arm, saying, ‘You weren’t lucky. You make your own luck,’” Garten recalls Winfrey telling her.
“‘Actually, I have been lucky,’ I started to say,” she writes. “And then she smacked me again.” Related Sorry, Ina Garten, you're wrong this time: The subtle power of the bay leaf Garten then says Lesley Stahl referenced Garten’s conversation with Winfrey while introducing the next guest on stage.
“‘Why do successful women always say they’re lucky, and successful men say they got there by the force of their talent?” Stahl said, per Garten. The topic .
