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Boy oh boy was yesterday's all new episode of Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa a doozy. There was meatloaf, deviled eggs, icebox cake and more—all with the volume turned up, obviously. Come in, watch some videos, stay a while!

First things first: you may have noticed that Gawker.TV is currently undergoing a redesign. Because of this, all videos in a post after the first one must fit into a much smaller space (in terms of width). So, instead of making you watch small videos of Our Ina, Who Art in East Hampton, I figured I'd turn the post into a video gallery. The text to go along with the first video (the one right above this text) will be below; when you're ready to go to the next video, just mouse over the player, click on the "Next Image" button, and you'll be taken to it—along with the text to accompany it. Get it? Got it? Good. I mean, how easy is that?

Anyway! Let's talk about the episode—titled "Old School Retro Mix"—shall we? Oh, Ina, what do you have in store for us? Well, for starters, meatloaf! Uh... HELL, YES.

The episode began with Ina—draped with her requisite denim shent—in the kitchen with her friend, Kevin Penner, who just happens to be one of East Hampton's most fabulous chefs/restauranteurs. As we find out early on, Kevin's meatloaf is a favorite of Ina's—and with a cup of whole milk in it (not to mention the butter in the sauce that covers it), why wouldn't it be?

The segment basically consisted of Ina fawning over Kevin, complimenting the size of his knife, offering to "assist" him at every turn—especially when it came to mixing the meatloaf with her "clean hands"—and, naturally, counting the seconds until she could sink her teeth into his meat.

Honestly, though? That meatloaf looked to die for—like, Nicole Kidman To Die For—so who could really blame Ina for wanting to dig in?

(Now is the time when you click to see the next video, by the way.)

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Next up: deviled eggs! Not normal deviled eggs, though—smoked salmon ones. Volume? Turned up.

The highlight of this segment—aside from Ina's ubiquitous "When I was a caterer..." story—was the fact that, early on, she mentioned her friend, Michael Grimm (Michael the Florist™, in Ina Land), and the fact that he loooves her smoked salmon deviled eggs.

Why is this important? Well, because 1) it suggested that Michael would be showing up at some point, and 2) he is AWESOME. Seriously, Michael is one of the greatest "characters" in Barefoot Contessa history. He's like Mr. Rogers, except taller, gayer, and with way better sweaters (Michael rocks brightly colored Ralph Lauren cable knit cashmeres like a f*cking boss).

After some boiling, some chopping, some mixing, and some piping, the deviled eggs were ready! And—oh, what do you know!—Michael was front and center to sample them with Ina (and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot).

Who wouldn't want that?

(It's time to go to part three.)

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So, following two simply fabulous upgrades to traditional dishes, how would Ina finish off the episode? By taking icebox cake, a dessert usually made with layers of chocolate wafers and whipped cream, replacing the wafers with chocolate chip cookies, and "turning the volume up" in the whipped cream department—as in, *mocha* whipped cream. Uh, BURY ME...

...but, before you do, make sure it's in a really good casket.

Until next week!

(Apologies if this recap seemed half-assed or lackluster—the Super Bowl took up most of my time tonight, alas.)

Previously:

[Barefoot Contessa: Back to Basics]