Ina Garten Reveals She Was Once Offered Cocaine as a Tip After Catering a Party

Cash or card is just fine for Ina Garten.

In her new memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens, the Barefoot Contessa host drops a whole lot of bombshells, including her reaction to learning one of her catering orders had come from a Long Island drug lord. And she just shared even more insight into the shocking experience.

“He said, ‘We want all the caviar, all the smoked salmon, everything,’” Ina recalled during an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers Oct. 30. “You know, the really expensive things that I could make.”

The beloved chef said she gave her staff instructions to fulfill the order, but when she arrived at the event, none of the food had been eaten.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, they hate my food,’” she continued. “My employees, the waiters, were like, ‘No, no, no, don’t worry. They’re busy in the bedroom right now.’ And I was like, ‘What? What kind of party is this?!’”

When Ina, 76, returned the next day to collect her platters and get paid, she said the client offered her an unlikely tip.

“He said, ‘Come back to the bedroom,’” she recounted. “I’m like, ‘Come back to the bedroom?’ But like an idiot, I went with him, and he said, ‘Do you want some blow?’ I was like, ‘Excuse me? Who’s tipping who here?’ And then I realized he was talking about cocaine. I was completely confused.”

Ina hasn’t held back in sharing previously unknown aspects of her life with fans. Elsewhere in the book, the TV star—who wed husband Jeffrey Garten in 1968—also revealed her successful specialty food store nearly caused the end of her marriage.

“When I bought Barefoot Contessa, I shattered our traditional roles—­took a baseball bat to them and left them in pieces,” she wrote. “While I was still cooking, cleaning, shopping, managing at the store, I was doing it as a businesswoman, not a wife. My responsibilities made it impossible for me to even think about anything else.”

As Ina contemplated their future, she suggested they see a therapist together to push past their “traditional ‘man and wife’ relationship” expectations, which turned out to be the breakthrough they needed.

“Jeffrey’s willingness to see the therapist was as significant as anything that might happen during their session,” she shared. “He was that determined to convince me he was serious about making our marriage work.”

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