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NEW YORK (AP) – Long before Barefoot Contessa Contessa’s little empire of cookbooks and hit TV shows ever began, she found herself at an airport, eager to learn to fly.

It was the late 1960s and she was a newlywed in Fayetteville, North Carolina. She and her soldier husband, Jeffrey, often passed by a small private airport and Garten was intrigued.

He marched into the terminal to find out how to take flying lessons. “I’m very sorry,” the man at the desk told her, “but we don’t have anyone who will teach a girl how to fly.”

Do you think that stopped Ina Garten?

The story of how she refused to budge until she was given cockpit lessons is included in her new memoir, “Be Ready When the Luck Happens”, which distills stories from her life into lessons for those who n eat and eat food, alike.

“I wanted it to be fun to read because otherwise nobody would read this,” he told The Associated Press. “I wanted it to be stories from my life, but I also wanted each story to have a point – in the way you could take a recipe away and make a chocolate cake, I want you to take the idea away and be able to use that in your life.”

Revisit key moments and her wedding

The biography – written with the help of author Deborah Davis – is full of stories about Garten pushing for her vision, not least when she saw an advertisement in the New York Times in 1978 and on a whim bought a small specialty food store in the Hamptons from the name barefoot Contessa.

At the time, she was 30, writing policy on nuclear power in the White House and had never worked in food, outside of reselling Dunkin’ Donuts to hungry students in her college dorm room. .

“It sounded a bit crazy, but I was out of my mind with excitement. I didn’t know if it would be the best decision or the worst mistake I ever made,” she writes of the shop, named after the 1954 Ava Gardner film but which perfectly sums up her philosophy of elegance and earth.

Garten, of course, would turn it into a global, attractive brand thanks to her keen eye for quality and dedication to sourcing the best ingredients. She also put in the long hours, learning every meal and even sleeping in the shop.

“The process of writing the book really kind of gave me confidence that this wasn’t just luck – that I had worked really hard for it with determination and vision,” he said “I stuck to what i wanted And my life has turned out so much better than I could have even dreamed.”

Fans already know much of her story as her cookbooks are full of personal anecdotes, but they may not know about her cold Connecticut childhood.

She describes her father as abusive at times, a man who told her when she was 15 that no one would ever love her. Her mother was distant and used food as a source of control, serving chicken or broiled fish with tinned peas and carrots. “I spent my early life searching – nay, begging – for taste,” she writes.

That early nightmare helped him down the road. “My childhood, because it was so painful, it gave me tremendous empathy towards people,” he said. That meant he could read customers, putting himself in their shoes.

Readers will also learn for the first time about his six-month separation from Jeffrey, which took them to the brink of divorce. Their relationship has recently been heralded on social media – #couplegoals or #relationshipgoals – as an ideal partnership, but Gartner reveals that it needs work.

After finding her new career path, Garten rebelled against the traditional domestic chores expected of her – cooking, cleaning, shopping, managing. “When I bought Barefoot Contessa, I broke down our traditional roles – took them with a baseball bat and left them in pieces,” she writes. After some time apart, the couple agreed to meet each other halfway.

“There are lessons that any reader can find throughout, specifically about persistence and trusting yourself and your instincts and also taking chances,” said Gillian Blake, executive vice president, publisher and editor-in-chief of Crown & Currency.

“I think there’s a thematic connection between the way she’s taught people how to cook and the way she draws attention to these inspirational lessons for life’s bigger questions.”

Taylor Swift, Elmo and courage

Garten may be known for her approachability, but she admits she has a stubborn streak – “to me an obstacle is not a stop sign; it’s a call to action,” she writes – and she’s no blushing flower. He once worked in the back room of a strip club.

She writes that she faced a robber at gunpoint who wanted $50 and a bank officer who would not make a loan for her business because she was a woman and likely to have babies soon.

There are also lighter stories about a memorable dinner with Mel Brooks, and meeting Elmo, Jennifer Garner and Taylor Swift, as well as a hot story about playing a beer bong with football star Abby Wambach.

There are practical lessons — like standing up for yourself, even when it’s difficult or taking a risk. Find just one person who really believes in you, she argues.

“People who are well known and successful are not there because they are smarter, more creative. It’s because they hit a wall and they just say, ‘I don’t even see the wall. I’m going to go around the wall. I really want to do this and I’m going to figure it out,’” she said.

“One thing I learned while doing the book, which surprised me, is that I have much more courage than I thought I had. And I realized that those things I bravely did were the making of my life.”