51 Thoughts You Have While Watching "Barefoot Contessa"

I wonder if Ina ever has days when she rips off her black button-up and says, “F*ck it, we’re ordering Seamless.”

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1. The theme of this episode is summer. Ina declares "summertime and the living's easy," as if life is ever particularly challenging when you're a famous Food Network star.

2. Today's menu: roasted shrimp with feta, salted caramel ice cream, and summer garden pasta. Meanwhile, I'm on my couch contemplating pizza rolls.

3. I feel like the theme song was written by an elevator music composer who really wanted to let loose for once.

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4. First up: feta shrimp, full of Mediterranean ingredients, like feta. Ina has said "feta" three times in the past 45 seconds.

5. Ina's friend Rory owns an artisanal creamery in Santa Barbara, which sounds like the yucciest thing ever. Rory's going to make ice cream and Ina will make lunch, because sharing is caring.

6. Why don't my friends ever make me delicious things? I need better friends.

7. Ina's making sauce for the shrimp with garlic, fennel, and white wine. She says you can use whatever you have, but I feel as though Ina would frown upon the box of Franzia in my mini-fridge.

8. Oregano + tomato paste = INTENSE. Somewhere under that demure bob haircut, Ina's mind was just blown.

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9. Every time Ina says "feta," an elderly, salt-of-the-earth farmer has a heart attack in the olive groves of Greece.

10. Ina puts Wonder Bread in the food processor for "instant breadcrumbs." Breadcrumbs from bread. Groundbreaking.

11. Question: how many takes do they have to do on those close-up food-porn shots? HOW MANY LEMONS HAD TO BE ZESTED BEFORE INA GOT HER MONEY SHOT?!

12. Okay, now we're back to the sauce, and the shrimp are GOIN' IN.

13. Any old chef can dump shrimp in a pan. Ina's got that painstaking pointy-tail magic going on. Look at that aesthetic.

14. Now it's time for the feta. Feta, feta, feta.

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15. All this talk of Greek things leads me to believe Ina once had a torrid love affair with a sexy Athenian. Like Lena in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

16. DOES JEFFREY KNOW?!?!

17. To be fair, that feta looks bomb.

18. The shrimp goes in the fridge, and it's commercial time. I'm making pizza rolls. Somewhere, the Barefoot Contessa weeps for my unsophisticated palate.

19. "How good is this gonna be?" IDK, Ina, maybe I'd know if you invited me to be one of your sophisticated lunches.

20. Though chances are if I did get invited to one of Ina's fancy lunch parties, I'd get bored and go make pizza rolls. Like I'm doing now.

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21. And now we're back, with some random interstitial shot of a tree that doesn't have anything to do with anything.

22. The artisanal cream lady is here to make salted caramel ice cream. Her name is Rory. As in Gilmore.

23. Rory's narrating her ice-cream-making process. She doesn't quite have that calming, mellifluous quality like Ina. Keep trying, Rory.

24. Ina didn't know that caramel is burnt sugar. I knew that and I'm sitting here with pizza roll grease dripping on my T-shirt.

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25. "You can't have salted caramel without salt!" Innovative.

26. The crucial debate: Tahitian vs. Madagascar vanilla. My vanilla is from Costco.

27. Ice cream is done, so Ina and Rory go enjoy their feta shrimp.

28. It's a delightful musical montage. The elevator music guy definitely composed this one too.

29. After the montage, Ina decides it's time for dessert. Girl, you haven't even TOUCHED your feta shrimp.

30. Goddamn it, this is why the rest of the world hates us.

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31. "This looks like liquid caramel!" Uh… isn't most caramel liquid? Gotta review those phases of matter. Will consult physics notes.

32. After the break: summer garden pasta with Jeffrey, then Ask Ina. And boy, do I have some questions to ask. First off, how dare you?

33. Also, who'd win in a fight: Ina Garten or Giada di Laurentiis? I feel like Giada's a killer.

34. Time for the pasta. Ina got this recipe from a friend who owns a cookware shop in Nantucket. Seriously, where does she find these people? (Nantucket, probably.)

35. The sauce is made from macerated cherry tomatoes. Wasn't "macerated" a Scripps National Spelling Bee word?

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36. Now she's explaining how to julienne basil leaves.

37. I knew a Julienne in college. I wonder how she's doing.

38. Ina cooked a whole pound of pasta just for her and Jeffrey. Theory: She's trying to fatten Jeffrey up and kill him off, so she can reunite with her sexy Grecian lover.

39. I wonder if Ina ever has days when she rips off her black button-up and says, "F*ck it, we're ordering Seamless."

40. Pretty sure there's an off-key rendition of CeeLo Green's "F*ck You" playing as Ina finishes the sauce. Funky.

41. Ina serving pasta reminds me of the scene from Elf with the spaghetti in the freezer-size Ziplocs.

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42. Here comes Jeffrey. Look at him in that blue polo. He has no idea.

43. Jeffrey skips over dinner to dig into the leftover ice cream. Ina smiles into the camera, unable to disguise the disappointed glimmer in her eye.

44. Next up: it's Ask Ina! New question, why do they call her the Barefoot Contessa? Shouldn't she be wearing close-toed shoes in the kitchen?

45. Come to think of it, the camera never shows her feet.

46. Ew, why would you want to think about feet on a cooking show?

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47. Okay, Ina's got a webcam question from Charlotte in New York. Charlotte looks approximately 14 and way more put together than I am.

48. She's totally showing off her collection of Barefoot Contessa books in front of the camera. Do less, Charlotte.

49. Ina teaches us about watermelon arugula salad, grilled corn, and grilled pineapple. What a time to be alive.

50. That's all for now! What's on after this? I hope it's Chopped.

51. Ugh, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. Get out of my face, Fieri.