Chef Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa Facebook page was hacked last week, and it was kinda a big dill.
Instead of the recipe for the 75-year-old culinarian’s signature “engagement chicken” or her roasted vegetable lasagna, someone shared instructions for a copycat Olive Garden chicken scampi.
Twitter user Emily Pressman posted a screenshot of the hacked Facebook page to the social media platform, showing off a scrumptious-looking pasta dish labeled “Olive Garden copycat recipe.”
Pressman wrote in the tweet: “How you know Ina Garten’s Facebook account has been hacked Instead of being her Hamptons-dwelling, Cosmo-sipping, ‘good olive oil’ using self, she’s suddenly become your Jell-o salad-making great-aunt from Iowa who’s always posting Olive Garden copycat recipes. (Ahem, @Meta…).”
The following day, Garten posted a statement to the page thanking fans for notifying her.
“Thank you to everyone who alerted me that my Facebook page was hacked, and to Meta for helping us get our page back!” she wrote.
“I will continue to post my favorite recipes here and read all of your wonderful comments!”
The Post reached out to Garten’s reps for comment.
Facebook users were glad to see Garten addressed the problem.
“I knew something was up. It was all good post though. Once I saw that profile pic changed to pie I’m like dam they got her,” one chef responded to her post.
“Hooray! Thank you for getting that fixed! I was really concerned!” another cheered.
Garten has been a staple on the Food Network since 2002, when she started hosting her hit cooking show “Barefoot Contessa” from her home in East Hampton.
The best-selling author has won four Daytime Emmy Awards for the series.
Interestingly, it doesn’t look like Garten even has a recipe on her Barefoot Contessa website for a chicken scampi — but she does have a beginner-level linguine with shrimp scampi.
The dish, which calls for two pounds of large shrimp and grated zest of one lemon, serves six.
Though Garten has made a name for herself in the culinary world, she swore to Page Six last year that she is “not a comfortable cook.”
“Cooking is really hard for me,” she continued. “If I’m making dinner for four people, I’m like, ‘How’s this going to happen?’ I really am. I’m really not a confident cook.”
She admitted that her husband, Jeffrey, has helped her build confidence in the kitchen over time.
“Jeffrey says if it wasn’t hard, I wouldn’t think it was interesting,” she said. “So that part of it, I like. I like the challenge of it.”
Garten married her husband in 1968, and he often makes appearances on her Food Network program.
