(NEXSTAR) – Ina Garten recently thanked fans for alerting her to an issue with her Facebook page after hackers seemingly gained access to her account — to post an Olive Garden-inspired recipe.
“Thank you to everyone who alerted me that my Facebook page was hacked, and to Meta for helping us get our page back!” Garten wrote Friday, less than a day after the unsanctioned recipe appeared on her page.
“I will continue to post my favorite recipes here and read all of your wonderful comments!” the cookbook author and Food Network personality added.
Emily Pressman, a historian and apparent fan of Garten’s, was one of the first to notice something was amiss last Thursday, when an uncharacteristic post for a “Chicken Scampi (Olive Garden copycat recipe)” appeared on Garten’s page.
“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,” Pressman wrote alongside a screengrab of the post. She also tagged “@Meta,” to alert Facebook of the apparent hack.
It wasn’t just the scampi recipe, either. Commenters on Facebook indicated that the hackers who hijacked Garten’s page had shared multiple posts and recipe ideas, some with accompanying links that took them to “strange” or “questionable” sites.
“Well darn I actually made the cookies [the hackers] posted only because I thought it was your recipe!” another wrote.
After her account was secured, Garten reassured wary fans that all of the recipes she posts on Facebook can also be found on the Barefoot Contessa website, just in case anyone was still hesitant to click the Facebook links.
Those fans, meanwhile, will still have to wait for any Garten-approved “chicken scampi” recipes: Her official site currently has only two scampi recipes, both of which call for shrimp.
“It’s a great summer dish,” she once said of her shrimp scampi with linguini.