Celebrity chef and best-selling cookbook author Ina Garten opened up her Hamptons home this weekend to benefit a Long Island charity.

Garten's East Hampton home is where her show "The Barefoot Contessa" is filmed. The culinary queen played hostess at a private party there to raise money for the Children's Advocacy Center of Suffolk County.

Garten has called the Hamptons home for more than 25 years. She says she loves hosting dinner parties, as evidenced by the many guests she entertains on her Food Network show.

Her secret for a successful Hamptons dinner party? "Get everything done before the guests arrive," she says. "You open the door and it looks like it's just something you whipped up in the minutes before they got there!"

According to its website, the Children's Advocacy Center of Suffolk County aims to promote safety, healing and justice for child victims of abuse and their families.