Thanks To Dunkin', Ina Garten Can Never Look At A Doughnut Again
Ina Garten has worn many hats — cook, TV show host, cookbook author, shop owner, etc. — and she just added "longform writer" to her repertoire. This month, Garten published the memoir, "Be Ready When the Luck Happens," and in it, she revealed her first and perhaps most foundational calling, entrepreneur.
As a student at Syracuse University — a campus that suffers cold winters — Garten purchased a fur blanket from a friend's father. It was the end of fall semester, which meant temperatures were dropping and finals season was arriving. The friend's father told her to pay when the blanket was delivered, and between ordering and receiving the blanket, she had forgotten to muster the money. When the blanket arrived, she found herself with a meager pocket and an expectant bill. Unsure how to move forward, she pulled inspiration from a 1950s sitcom.
"I had to find some way to pay for that blanket," Garten recounts in her memoir. "I came up with an "I Love Lucy" solution that turned out to be my first foray into the food business."
Before Barefoot Contessa, she was a Doughnut Dealer
As they try to remain awake into the wee hours of the night to study for their finals, most college students will take any fuel they can snag. Leveraging this demand, Garten went to the local (as it was then called) Dunkin' Donuts and purchased boxes of the ringed confections in each flavor.
"Then, I went door-to-door in the dorm, selling them individually (at a significant markup) to all the students who were desperate for sugar," she wrote. (And this wasn't the only time Garten urged people to stay up late.)
It was a success. Clinging to anything that could keep them focused, her dorm mates bought all of the doughnuts. So, she restocked and sold more, eventually making up her debt. All the while, she wrote, she learned about unit pricing and profit, which became useful in her future business ventures. If you're a similarly enterprising young student and want to follow in the Barefoot Contessa's footsteps (blanket bill or not), the Dunkin' menu is frequently updated.
Because of all of this doughnut tomfoolery, Garten struggles to look at doughnuts in the same way. "I could never look at a doughnut again!" she wrote.