Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ina Garten

Ina Garten

Self-nom. Ina Garten is a famous chef, cookbook author, and television star, much in the vein of Martha Stewart. I'm going into month three of working on this article, and I think it's ready for the FA process. It's been through peer review and is listed as a good article. I appreciate any feedback and comments I get here and hope to get this to FA status. Let's dissect it. :) Air.dance 16:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support, comprehensive and well-written.--Fallout boy 20:01, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for taking the time to review this, it's much appreciated! Air.dance 02:24, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support I have a few problems though, which won't affect my vote but which I'd still like you to address. This sentence in the lead is a run-on: "Garten had little to no formal culinary training, and instead taught herself classic French and New England techniques with the aid of canonical cookbooks and relied on intuition and feedback from customers and friends to refine recipes." And this, "Again, however, it must be noted that Garten has made no explicit statement regarding gay rights or the gay community in general" probably needs to be cited. Outside of that, this was generally a very good article.UberCryxic 00:16, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed the run-on.
How would I cite the line you quoted? If she hasn't made a statement, I don't think there would be a cite. Know what I mean? If you could clarify why you think it needs a cite, I'd love that and will fix it if possible. Thank you so much for the help! Air.dance 01:51, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Quite well written, but needs a close eye throughout to bring it up to FA standards. For example:

"Garten had little to no formal culinary training"—which is it: little or no? If it's in between, isn't it still little?

javascript:insertTags('\n== ',' ==\n','Headline text'); Level 2 headline

"She was mentored chiefly by Zabar, of Eli's Manhattan and Eli's Breads fame; and domestic maven Stewart." Misused semicolon.

The one-sentence para in the lead could be merged with the previous para. We're told that "The couple relocated to D.C" immediately after "she and her husband again moved, this time to Washington, D.C." (no matter a new section—it's repetitive).

Metric equivalents, please. Tony 00:50, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Changed "little to no" to "no".
Fixed semicolon.
Merged one-sentence para in lead with second para.
Removed repeated mention of D.C.
~~Metric equivalents of...?~~ Fixed metric equivs.

Thank you for your help! ~~Fixed up everything you mentioned except for the metric request, which I'm unclear on.~~ Anything else holding back your support? If so, let me know and I'll fix it PDQ. :) Air.dance 01:55, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, but you've attended only to the examples I gave. I don't have time to edit the whole article; please go through all of it, or better, find someone else to do that. Tony 00:51, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hrm. I have been over and over it with a fine-toothed comb (almost too much to be honest), had two other non-Wiki people proofread it, and I've sent it through peer review and now FA review. There are a couple of little things -- a one-sentence para and a two-sentence para, namely -- that aren't absolutely strictly regulation, but I believe they stand in the context they're used. Anyway, I'm not sure how much more I can do, but I'll give it another going over anyway. Thanks for your help! Air.dance 00:58, 5 April 2006 (UTC) Okies, yes. I went through it again slowly and found a crapload of bad conjunctions and run-on sentences. Fixed those. I also repeated her last name waaaay too much, and I replaced a lot of those instances with pronouns. Clarified a couple of things about her next book, and took out some weasly adverbs. Thanks for getting me to take a ~~second~~ two-thousandth look! ;) Air.dance 06:27, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment- Noticed some things.

She showed a particularly strong aptitude for science Better off "she showed an aptitude"
In 1968, after obtaining a portion of her college education and then marrying, Garten left New York and relocated with her husband to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where she dabbled in cooking and small-scale entertaining in an effort to occupy her time while her husband served his four-year military tour during the Vietnam War. Pretty long sentence. Probably should split that up.
Despite being allotted only four dollars a day for food during this trip Being is extraneous and take out only
when she and her husband again moved, this time to Washington, D.C. Just say "again moved to Washington D.C."
Originally employed on the lower rung as a government aide Change to Originally employed as a low-ranked gov. aid"
her idea of an "elegant but earthy" lifestyle. Why is elegant but earthy in quotation marks?
very good Get rid of the very's here and throughout the artilce
respectively, in the Entertaining & Special Occasion Cookbooks category. Respectively comes after, as the last word
Filled with lush photography Don't need lush
; and, in turn semicolons don't have conjuctions after them.
She also serves as the entertaining, cooking, and party planning consultant for O. House Beautiful, a popular women's magazine that focuses on decorating and the domestic arts, also features a monthly column entitled "Ask the Barefoot Contessa", in which Garten doles out cooking, entertaining, and lifestyle tips. Again long sentence, made no sense to me.
3 red links. Though acceptable, might be a good idea to fix one or two.

Sorry if this list seems tedious, but I like this article and would like to see it be FA. Oh yeah, too many also's. -Osbus 01:27, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed aptitude.
Split up run-on.
Took out "only." Can you explain how "being" is extraneous? Wouldn't the sentence then read "Despite allotted four dollars a day..."? I'm not sure if that's correct.
Fixed D.C. reference.
Changed to low-level gov. aide.
"Elegant but earthy" is one of her taglines/ideas about entertaining, so I thought quotes were appropriate.
Got rid of several instances of "very."
Got rid of "respectively."
Got rid of "lush."
Fixed conjunction.
Fixed run-on sentence referring to House Beautiful.
~~Removed red links.~~ Removed two redlinks and made stubs for Patricia Wells and Anna Pump.
Got rid of many instances of "also."

Your list was not tedious at all! Quite the contrary, you've been immensely helpful and I appreciate it. Anything else holding back your support? Let me know and I'll get right on it. Thanks! Air.dance 02:12, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment- As the person who actually recommended putting in the redlinks, my real problem with simply removing them is that the way the individuals concerned are talked about makes them sound like the authorities in the area (people whose opinions I should respect) and, possiby, people I really should have heard of (more so than Ina Garten herself). It helps to get your grounding on an unfamiliar subject terrain if such "authorities" have articles about themselves (so you can see how successful they have been and what they have done); failing that, a red link is usually a clue that although they may be "authoritative" they aren't massively famous, and I shouldn't feel like a wally for not having a clue who they are! Besides, filling in a red link is why a lot of our articles get created (if this spent any time on the front page, I'd bet that most got filled in - remember that FAs don't need to be 100% red link free). When you delink somebody completely, I now have no idea how famous or authoritative they are, except for a suspicion these people are not notable enough for WP article (which clashes with the way they are referred to). In my opinion, the way to "fix" a red link is to write an article (at least a stub!) not pull out the red link. If e.g. Patricia Wells isn't notable enough for an article then "she has been championed by the likes of ... Patricia Wells as a top authority on cooking and home entertaining" would be an unusual sentence, especially for a lead! TheGrappler 15:07, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Patricia Wells and Anna Pump have stubs now and I'm considering the others for stub-dom. Thanks! :) Air.dance 18:54, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't saying to remove the red links, I am trying to say make them blue. Three red links at most, in my opinion.My vote is support. -Osbus 21:18, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Gotcha, and all fixed now. Thanks! Air.dance 23:18, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Object; sorry.
- Citation of sources is lacking in the first half of the article. I hate to be a footnote tyrant, but as it stands, there's no way of telling which source any of the early biographical material came from. ~~Struck 15:02, 6 April 2006 (UTC)~~

Don't be sorry, I'm here for input and critique. :)
I'll take care of that as best I can -- I don't think every little thing in an article needs citation, but I see where you're coming from. All of that info comes from the sources I already have listed, so it won't be hard for me to go through my sources and pick out some cites for the most important facts. Done.

I've looked over the layout quite a bit, and I know it is different than the usual chronological ordering, but several other FA's (such as Julia Stiles and Katie Holmes) don't use chrono ordering either, and that's not one of the criteria from what I can tell. I think it makes the article a better read the way I have it now. I once had it in a timeline and I thought it made the article much less compelling to read and slower moving. The first few sections are chrono, as you stated, and though it may seem to be disjointed, they actually weren't designed to be chrono but to be appropriate for the headings. Know what I'm saying? For example, all of the subsecs under Barefoot Contessa are in timeline order, but that was secondary to addressing each point as it relates to the other, i.e. the show would not exist without the books, the books would not exist without the store, etc. I've put it through peer review and GA review and now this review, and no one seemed to mind, so I think it stands. I appreciate you bringing it up, though.

I see what you mean about that sentence being a little wordy, but I think that stands, as well. If I didn't word it as such, I think it would seem choppy and blunt and repetitive. If there are other things that you've found, I'd love for you to point them out and I'll see what I can do to fix them up.

Thanks for your input, I appreciate it a lot. Let me know your thoughts on the counterpoints I've offered. Air.dance 23:55, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This chefography source, is that a television program? Doesn't that present a problem vis a vis verifiability? It could be difficult for an American to catch the program to verify that the information is correct, and impossible for someone from another country. (And I'll think about the structure more when I'm more awake, and I suppose I will get in there and copyedit what I don't like rather than let objection three stand, so I'll strike that one now.) —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 02:40, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed it is a television program, and ugh god, good point. What if I upload it and link it? ;) Joking. Let me go through my sources again and I should be able to find some better things by tomorrow -- her interviews/articles are all repetitious as hell, anyway, guarantee it's all been said a thousand times elsewhere. Okies, done, changed all the inline cites to print refs. I did, however, keep the Chefography credit in the non-inline refs section since I wanted to make sure it got credited -- it is a television show and probably not the easiest to find, agreed, but it'll be out on DVD soon enough and then will be readily accessible, I'd think. Thanks again, and I look forward to more of your thoughts and/or edits. Air.dance 02:54, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've struck my reasons for objecting above (and done a little copyediting). While going through it, I hit a few sentences that I think could bear improvement, but for one reason or another were a little difficult to fix up myself:
"Garten had no formal culinary training, and instead taught herself classic French and New England techniques with the aid of canonical cookbooks." This sentence in the lead is awkward. First, is there such a thing as "classic" New England techniques, or does "classic" only modify "French" here? Second, would it be possible to find more suitable word than "canonical"? Calling any given cookbook for a subject "canonical" seems like a POV judgement to me.

"Despite being allotted four dollars a day for food during this trip, it was there that she experienced open-air markets, produce stands, and fresh cooking ingredients for the first time." The logic of "despite" doesn't quite make sense for me, and the word "allotted" makes it sounds like someone else was paying for this trip?

"The shop was also namechecked consistently in the press by celebrity clientele such as Steven Spielberg and Lauren Bacall." What does "namecheck" mean? And can you back up the assertion that it was done "consistently"?

"Filled with the elegant yet accessible recipes that made her store successful, the book..." That's just POV. According to whom are the recipes elegant yet accessible?

"The program focuses on hearty, guest-oriented food, and Food Network found a popular hostess in the Rubenesque, sultry-voiced Garten." Rubenesque and sultry-voiced are a little POV; is this a quote from a source?
—Bunchofgrapes (talk) 19:56, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed.

Fixed. I took out the reference to the four bucks, since I mainly wanted to reference her first experience with open-air markets and such.

Changed "namechecked" to "praised", took out "consistently."

Took out elegant/accessible.

Hehe, yes, I can see how that sounds POV.. I was trying to reference her appearance and voice since that's how most of the articles about her describe her, but they usually use terms like "glowing" or "curvy and maternal" and describe her voice as "sexy", and I thought those were way over-the-top POV. Do you think I should take out that bit completely?

Thank you for your help! You've made some great edits and suggestions and the article is better for them. Air.dance 01:21, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You're welcome. For the last one ("Rubenesque, sultry-voiced"), personally I'd put "curvy and maternal" and "sexy voice" in quotes and cite the sources that said it: direct quotes are a great way to add flavor to an article while remaining NPOV. In any case, objection withdrawn. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 03:20, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Done and done. Air.dance 04:03, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I've looked it over and there's no reason not to. Wikipikarefulgenschu 05:28, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
~~Thank you for taking the time to review this! :) Air.dance 05:43, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]~~
Comment This article seems really one-sided to me, ESPECIALLY the intro. Also - "She is also considered somewhat of a gay icon by many fans, as her Food Network show frequently features appearances by those in her social set, which is populated by many openly gay men." - I don't really like things like this as it seems to be a kind of psuedo-research. I'm being picky, however. Many parts of the article are very well written. Just another star in the night ^{T | @ | C} 01:17, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
~~Can you explain how it's one-sided? I've offered criticism where it could be found on her books, show, etc. Air.dance 02:09, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]~~
Strong Support I love the article and (humour) think we should add a category for American Fag hags , which is clearly a term of affection not pejorative. --DCX (talk) 23:33, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
~~Maybe I will add Ina Garten to the Fag Hag article, unless you would want to, Air.dance?--DCX (talk) 23:36, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]~~