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“Rivals” Martha Stewart and Ina Garten Are Actually Pals in Real Life

No bad blood here! While appearing on Michael Ian Black’s podcast, How to Be Amazing, Food Network star Ina Garten opened up about her friendship with rival Martha Stewart — and while there is definitely some competition between the two, it sure is friendly!

“I think maybe what I do is I take one step back and make it a little simpler so it’s really doable. Martha does love the gorgeous presentation, so if she’s making a pumpkin soup, she might carve out a pumpkin and serve it in the pumpkin, which is great,” the Barefoot Contessa star explained. “I think she did something really important, which is that she took something that wasn’t valued, which is home arts and raised it to a level that people were proud to do it and that completely changed the landscape.”

She then added, “I then took it in my own direction, which is that I’m not a trained professional chef, cooking is really heard for me — here I am 40 years in the food business it’s still hard for me. I love doing it, I love the challenge of it, but I know that somebody who hasn’t been in the food business for 40 years has even more difficulty than I do so it’s got to be a really simple recipe.”

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The pair first met in East Hampton, NY, at Ina’s specialty food store, which is now closed. “My desk was right in front of the cheese case and we just ended up in a conversation. We ended up actually doing benefits together where it was at her house and I was the caterer and we became friends after that.” The lifestyle expert even provided the foreword for Ina’s 1999 read, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. We think it’s great how well they get along!

Scroll through the gallery to learn more about Hollywood’s biggest rivalries!