Ina Garten's 10-Minute Fig and Goat Cheese Toast Is the Ultimate Summer Appetizer

We've been on Team Ina for years. But in 2020, thanks to her impressive quarantine cosmos, freezer stocked with chocolate peanut butter cup gelato and can't-miss Instagram cooking tips, our fandom for the Barefoot Contessa runs deeper than ever.

So in March, when Garten announced she would be releasing her first cookbook since 2018's Cook Like a Pro ($17.46, Amazon), we could barely contain our excitement.

Now available for preorder and released officially on October 6, Modern Comfort Food: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook ($25.13, Amazon) offers "easy-to-follow instructions, with lots of side notes for cooking and entertaining. It's like having Ina right there beside you, helping you all the way," according to a post on BarefootContessa.com. Garten will teach you how to whip up 85 comforting dishes, including:

Oh yes, and the Fig and Goat Cheese Toasts she just revealed on Instagram in a tease for the book that's now less than 3 months away from our doorsteps.

The beginner-friendly appetizer takes about 10 minutes tops, and features just a few high-quality ingredients, including creamy cheese, fresh figs and "good fig spread" (like Garten's pick, Dalmatia; $9.25 for 8.5 ounces, Amazon).

While we aren't doing much group gathering this summer, we plan to cut this recipe in half and enjoy it for a first course for a date night in— just as we imagine Ina and Jeffrey might do.

If you can't get fresh figs in your area just yet (fig season typically runs from August to October in most parts of the U.S.), we featured a topped toast similar to this one from Garten's kitchen that includes dried figs instead of fresh: Goat Cheese Crostini with Fig Compote.

Whichever option you choose, we recommend pairing it with a fruit cosmo or citrusy sidecar to round out the just-like-Garten cocktail hour.