What Valerie Bertinelli Really Thinks About Ina Garten

Food Network cooking star, Valerie Bertinelli has been a part of the television world for quite some time. Long before she began sharing family recipes with fans of her popular show, Valerie's Homecooking, which debuted in 2015, per IMDb, the perky Bertinelli forged a sitcom career at the young age of 15, taking up the role of Barbara Cooper on The One Day at a Time (via the Detroit Free Press). Bertinelli later went on to star in Hot Cleveland alongside the iconic American treasure, Betty White. Sounds like a Hollywood fairy tale to us.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Bertinelli thought her cooking gig was going to just be temporary, telling the publication, "I was doing Hot in Cleveland, and the cooking show was going to be a fun summer thing to do. Then Hot in Cleveland was canceled, and I still had my cooking show and it did very well."  And we are glad she did, because today, the part of Bertinelli's story we find ourselves most captivated by is when she offers up her tips and tricks in the kitchen. She has even added the title of cookbook author to her resume. But, Bertinelli still considers herself a student in the culinary world and her thoughts about Ina Garten, another popular Food Network star, may surprise you.

Per a Food Network interview, Bertinelli has a great deal of admiration for the Barefoot Contessa, noting, "I love all of Ina's cookbooks, because they're spot-on. She makes it really easy, and when you follow her directions, it really comes out perfectly. Her cookbooks are probably my favorite." That's pretty high praise from one to cook to another, in our opinion, but being fellow fans of Garten's cookbooks, we couldn't agree more. 

But what we find truly fascinating is how similar their stories really are. Garten, like Bertinelli, is self-taught. Garten revealed to Indie Bound, "I really learned how to cook by working my way through every recipe in both volumes of Julia Child's The Art of French Cooking." No wonder Garten's cookbooks are so "spot on." And both women also had great day jobs before they made cooking their focus. Garten had a life in Washington, D.C., and was part of two presidential administrations before turning her attention to all things food, while Bertinelli had the attention of the television world.  Bertinelli and Garten both followed their passions and reinvented their careers, proving it is never too late to do what you love.