Martha Stewart has revealed how her former friendship with Ina Garten fizzled when the cooking giants first met during a lemon tart emergency.
Stewart told The New Yorker that Garten, whom she had mentored and helped grow into a star, turned his back on her after Stewart was jailed in 2004 for insider trading.
“When I was sent to Alderson Prison, she stopped talking to me,” said Stewart, who claimed the scandal marked “the end of their friendship.”
“I found that extremely hurtful and extremely unkind,” Stewart said, though she insists she is “not bitter at all” about the aftermath some 20 years ago.
Garten strongly disagrees that Steward is being ignored.
Stewart, now 83, was found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and two counts of lying to federal investigators. He was sent to Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia to serve a five-month sentence.
Chef Ina Garten and Martha Stewart’s friendship never recovered after the TV star was sent to prison in 2004 in connection with an insider trading scandal. The pair can be seen in 1999
In the early days of their friendship, Stewart helped Garten’s career by having her appear on an episode of her program Martha Stewart Living in 1999.
She introduced Garten to an editor who worked with her on her very first cookbook, The Barefoot Contessa, named after Garten’s former grocery store in East Hampton.
A television show followed, also called The Barefoot Contessa, in which Garten is now as famous as her former mentor.
Stewart was ordered to serve five months of house arrest, two years of probation and was fined $30,000.
Martha Stewart always maintained her innocence and managed to salvage her reputation, but her friendship with Garten, 76, never recovered. Stewart is pictured outside court in July 2004
Stewart always maintained her innocence and managed to salvage her reputation, but her friendship with the 76-year-old Garten was never repaired.
The two domestic goddesses met in the early 1990s when Stewart was driving in the quaint Long Island town of East Hampton.
She was walking past Garten’s now-closed Barefoot Contessa store when she got a craving for lemon cubes, describing it as a “lemon cube emergency.”
Garten recalled the first time they met, recounting the encounter in a 2017 interview.
Stewart met Garten in the early 1990s when Stewart was driving through the quaint Long Island town of East Hampton and stopped at Garten’s bakery
Garten strongly denies that Steward is getting the silent treatment
In the early days of their friendship, Stewart (left) helped Garten’s career by having her appear on an episode of her show Martha Stewart Living in 1999, where he introduced her to an editor who had worked with her on her very first cookbook, The Barefoot Contessa
“My desk was right in front of the cheese counter and we just started talking. We ended up doing benefit nights together at her house and I was the caterer, and we became friends after that,” Garten said. Time.
“I think she did something very important: she took something that was underappreciated, which was domestic art, and elevated it to a level that people were proud of. It completely changed the landscape,” she said in an article about Garten.
‘I then went my own way. I’m not a trained professional chef, cooking is really hard for me. I’ve been in the food industry for 40 years and it’s still hard for me.’
“It took a while, but I finally understood what motivated Ina. I realized she was a true kindred spirit with similar, yet unique talents,” Stewart wrote in the foreword to her book.