Ina Garten vs. Anthony Bourdain: Cookbook Edition

Everyone’s favorite aunt Ina Garten sits firmly atop Amazon.com’s best-selling cookbooks list two days after the release of her newest book, Cooking for Jeffrey. Just behind her in second position is globe-trotting food obsessive and one-time chef Anthony Bourdain with his new release, Appetites: A Cookbook, which also appeared on shelves on October 25.

Not for nothing, Bourdain once described his approach to writing his new cookbook as if he’d "morphed into a psychotic, anally retentive, bad-tempered Ina Garten."

The two television stars have long histories in the world of publishing, and to no one’s surprise, their latest books are dominating the charts. Cooking for Jeffrey is Garten’s 10th cookbook, with 256 pages worth of recipes that her husband Jeffrey (frequently mentioned on her show) and his friends tend to request most often. The world has embraced the story of Ina and Jeffrey, and this book is like a big hug back for those who have followed the Gartens on The Barefoot Contessa (and maybe want to be adopted by them).

Meanwhile, Appetites is only Bourdain’s second cookbook, though his writing credits extend into the realm of crime novels, a biography, and comic books, as he noted in a recent interview with Eater. That list includes his best-known book, Kitchen Confidential, which was a New York Times bestseller in the non-fiction category.

Here’s a look at how popular they’ve been over the years, according to Google Trends.

Garten is known for consistently producing best-selling cookbooks, and Cooking for Jeffrey is proving its potential early on. She has a six-city tour planned in partnership with Williams-Sonoma to promote the book.

Bourdain is not touring specifically for his new cookbook, but he is in the midst of a live tour that’s making a circuit through North America; it ends on November 22.

While it’s too soon to tell whether the Barefoot Contessa will keep her place just ahead of the Parts Unknown star, there’s a good indication that both chefs are raking in stacks of cash.

• Inside Ina Garten’s Latest: ‘Cooking for Jeffrey’ [E]
• Inside Anthony Bourdain’s New Cookbook, ‘Appetites’ [E]
• All Ina Garten Coverage [E]
• All Anthony Bourdain Coverage [E]

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