Summer Break: Ina Garten

So we're coming full circle because listeners, this week we're taking you with us to East Hampton, where we spoke with Iina Garden in her very own kitchen back in April of last year. Yeah, we kick things off this is very tough duty by making truffled scrambled eggs and brioche toast together. I'm hungry too, And as you know, Katie, I've been a huge fan of Innus for years. I like her show The Barefoot Catessa. I like her cookbooks. In fact, I have all of them. My wife and

I have all of them. So breakfast at Dinah's and even a cameo from her husband, Jeffrey, we crossed a lot of stuff off my bucket list that day, and people the download numbers do not lie. We know our chat with Ina is a listener favorite as well, so let's get to it. After we finished cooking our breakfast, we moved to her kitchen table for a long chat about everything from feminism to her pre TV days spent

running a specialty food store called No Surprise Here Barefoot Contessa. Well, you're cooking with me, right, so we're gonna make I mean, I'd like to take something really obvious like scrambled eggs and do it in a different way. So the two things that we're going to do that are different. One is we're going to cook it the way the French do, very very very slowly over a very low flame, and what it makes is very custody scrambled eggs. Is that?

What is that? How they do it? Well, they do it in a double boiler, but we can do it in a in a pan if we're really careful. And they use a ton of butter. Yeah that's except in this case, I'm gonna use truffle butter. It's butter that has white truffles this and I love truffles, so do I feel like white ones? So good for you? There are people who are truffle haters. I don't understand that. My husband doesn't like do have that sort of Jim

sucks kind of flavor? Doesn't never feel the same about truffle. I ruined it for you, delicious Jim suck. But there are these little pots of truffle butter that you can get there like eight dollars, but it's real truffle shavings in it. So good. Yeah, that sounds delicious. Through your process for a second, how do you come up with the idea for a recipe? I mean, how does it? This is a good example, actually is I start with a remembered flavor and you know we don't remember scrambled

eggs and um. And then I think, how can I do it differently so it has more flavor, and how can I do it so it's simpler. I just wanted to be something you think you're gonna like, but it's better than you remember. I know I have some go to in a recipes. For example, I love the pasta pasto salad with the peas and the and the pine nuts. But when you say I just want to make something that I know is going to be delicious, what recipe

do you do well? You know, it's funny because I think about I mean, after eleven books, I've really I mean, I'm working on the eleventh now, you know. I think, well, I have have like a thousand recipes, so it must be I must be making a different thing all the time, and yet I go back to the same things that I know that I can nail. And what are the harmezon chicken with a salad on top? I think it's in family style. Yeah, it's in family style. Um. One of the things that we make all the time. This

is light. Yeah, we're wondering. How did you come to work with Aina U through harassment? Um? I was friends in college with someone who is the son my Lawyerina's lawyer, and I wrote a letter. It was this year, my last spring of college, and I didn't know what I wanted to do, and so I wrote a letter saying, hi, and I really want to come work for you. And I sort of thought I could do social media for her. It seemed like a natural fit. And well what happened

was it? I mean probably once every ten years we might be looking for someone and it just happened to the moment, and what I loved about Lydie was so I mean, before I even knew her, is that she didn't graduate from Boden and say I just want a job. She graduated from Boden and said I want to have my dream job and that's working for Aina. And so she just kept harassing her friend and tell me he called his father and I said, well, how are you even going to get here? And she said, don't worry

about it. I'll get there from Maine. And she showed up on her doorstep with an entire social media plan all laid out, and I just, I mean, we just felt. And then do you remember the final final straw was that I said, what what drives you crazy in school? She said, my my roommates don't clean up the house, the kitchen and the house. I thought, what Brown knows there led there were twelve girls living in one house.

I mean, it's it's in one kitchen. And I think it's a really instructive story about how you can kind of create your own job. Yeah, I mean, I mean, you're listening for this job. And also the lessons I think people can take from what you did going for it, being persistent, right, not taking no for an answer, and then being so prepared and not making the onus on Aina to figure out all your logistics and to come with the whole media plan. Well played like we played.

So all you college graduates out there who may be listening to our podcast, all two of you, my daughters, you should take take this seriously because I think it's a great example of of finding your bliss, as they say, and here we are. My bliss is truffle scrambled eggs. Come with me, okay? So, um, are you in charge of the rest of So when we test a recipe, what we do is read every single word to make sure it's specific and it's exactly the right word. So, okay,

should I read? What was? That's a medium? Um? Sawt test pan? Right? You place some medium ten inch sautapan overright? Well, ten inches very helpful because I wouldn't know how big a medium sawta pana? Thank you? That's exactly right because you never know. And then you turn it on low heat. So is it two tablespoons or three? It says, um? Two tablespoons? Oh, no, one and a half tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature? Now why unsalted? I know? Um?

Do you know, I think you can control the salt better if you start with unsalted butter and then add salt, because different kinds of butter have different amount of salt and salt. You know, I think the two most important ingredients that anybody uses, They're gonna tell me, butter and salt. That's the third the two most important ingredients in cooking. Every single person has in their house salt and pepper.

They make all that you can taste like chicken stock that has no salt in it tastes like dirty dishwater. He puts salt in it, it tastes like full, rich vegetables and chicken and wonderful flavor. So that's a huge mistake that home cooks make all the time. They're afraid of salt. And this whole thing about salt is totally

different now. I mean, everybody thought that salt was bad for you, but it turns out too little salt has a higher incidence of heart attack and stroke, and too much salt has so apparently exactly by the way, I know, what I think is so exciting about cooking, and the little I cook is all the delicious salts you can get. Now, someone introduced me Bobby Flay not to day dropden salt. Yeah, it is a texture of its delicious. And also this one I love. This is oh I have that you're doing?

Isn't it's just do you have it? It's just a great hostess gift if you're coming to a Yeah, it's Flota sal. It's really really good. Okay. Who's in charge of cracking eggs? Will? Okay, so I need eight eggs? Eight eggs's excellent. Now do you take the little white thing that's attached to the yolk off? My mom always did you know that little white stringy thing that is attacked attached to the yolk? You don't? Well, now I don't have to you don't. You're free. That's what it is.

We always took it off. Actually, why don't we both do it? How's that? Actually? One thing I do is I crack it here so you don't get shells in the That's smart, she says. So the recipe says, in a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, half and half, one teaspoon of salt, and a quarter teaspoon of pepper. Okay, So who's in charge of whisking good nice whisky? Brian? Thanks Katie, how a lot of whisking practice. How much salt and pepper? One and a half teaspoons of salt

on a quarter of pepper. I like having a recipe reader, So wow, that's a good amount of pepper. But it looks great. So you have to be careful when you are when it comes to putting butter in a pan. Don't you wind it well? Sometimes you want to burn it. If you want brown butter, which is burning waste is um it's a It's a great thing to use like in vegetables because it has that kind of like a little sort of burnt butter flavor, which is natty. It's nutty,

that's exactly what. That's why it's called thee not nutty butter. I think in English it doesn't work. That was interesting and preparing for this show, I read that your mother had a kind of a dietetic background and you grew up which she was a dietician, not being able to eat a lot of carbs or butter or where did you find that you did some research. My mother was obsessive about food, so we weren't let any carbs, we

weren't let any butter. We had margarine Um, she just kind of got dinner on the table, and I was she wouldn't let you cook, she wouldn't let me cook, And and her idea of a great dessert was an apple, Like that just doesn't work. That's so funny. So is this the ultimate rebellion? It's the ultimate rebellion. I'm still working at my issues from my parents, But that's funny that that she just just and she felt like your job was to make good grades, study and not to

help in the kitchen, right exactly. Okay, here we go. I'm just gonna pour it in. This's the eggs, including the show. I must have done that. No, that must have been me. That's how you know it's real eggs. There's a little crunch in it. So again, this is very very very low he I'm gonna let it just sit, okay until it just starts to heat up a little bit, until it's a little warm, and you'll see what happens in the meantime. What about don't we need a little

brio toast to put this on? Absolutely? I think so sort of very similar to hollow, isn't it? It is waspy hollow. That's really great. So I'm just gonna do some slices, and then what we'll do is we'll put the eggs right on the brioche toast. I'll put some slices in the toaster. Let's see. So what I'm gonna do now is just as it's cooking, just sort of fold the bottom over the top, and then as it

heats up a little bit. And in case you don't sure the benefit of being here, which I assume you don't, we're talking to you on the podcast, the eggs are just beginning to come together, but they're still mostly liquid. I was gonna say, thanks cheering for the eggs. I'm rooting for the eggs. So are you stirring? Are you in charge of stirring? Sure? Just make sure that you get the eggs off the bottom of the pants. Yes, that's where they're going to tend to okay, And do

you stir this constantly? Pretty much? A little bit? Yeah? And then I think the more you stir at the more slowly, more slowly it heats up. And because eggs are protein, and if you cook protein in a high temperature, it tends to get tough. This is so interesting. I'm not going to ever make screens and it's such a simple thing to do, and yet it really you w you taste it, it just transforms it just transforms it.

And one of the things too, is to cook it until it's just undercooked, because it's gonna as it sits, it's going to continue to cook. You know, you said something very funny once, you said you can feel bad before you eat a cookie, you can feel bad after you eat a cookie. But nobody fee. And I'm just curious, you know, since they're so since people are so sort of health obsessed. Now, iina, do you ever feel pressure to come up with the ways of cooking delicious things

that aren't quite as rench? I do, and I mean I do anyway, because I don't think anybody wants all rich things for dinner. So for example, last night, I did short ribs on a bed of um blue cheese grits for dinner. That's bad. But then I did a coffee granita for dessert. So you balance things, right, you know, you want to You want things to be crisp and fresh. And I made roasted broccolini, so it was so very simple,

vegetable and delicious. Are you're doing really well? I'm seeing how interesting is it's really just starting to like cook a little bit without actually big those big crumbles of scrambled eggs. And you know what, one thing I know I was going to bring up, you know, because I I'm sort of obsessed with I try to eat healthy and all that, and one of the things time I

feet about that. But one of the things that they've studies that they found is you're much more sated if you do have food, if you eat some fat, because it makes you less hungry later. And so as opposed to an entire box of cookies exactly disgusting those low fat cookies and they replace the fat with sugar. But I think that people don't need to be afraid necessarily of having some some rich food or some fat as long as it's balanced. Right, Okay, And how's it? It's

absolutely perfect? See how custody it is. Now. So the next thing I want to do is put in a tablespoon or two, depending on how we feel. So one or two tablespoons of truffle butter. Okay, it's just I'm gonna have this. Isn't it good? Should we taste? Make sure it's okay? Here, I want to make sure the truffle butter is all permeated in the eggs. Thank you, make sure it's and the toast is almost ready. Okay,

let's give this a try, Brian. When we come back, we're gonna sit at innus kitchen table and enjoy the fruits of her well our labor. I guess when it comes to email marketing, there is so much more that goes into creating smart and effective campaign than what meets the I. That's why campaign Monitor created an easy to use email marketing platform complete with simple drag and drop

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And now back to our interview within a garden. So good, so good, it's so good. I want to and it's just scrambled eggs, but it's done in a different way and a cho s. It's almost better and faster. Now would you put herbs on top of that? I do? Actually, I am Why do you should mention it? Katie? I actually have some um chives? Because can I just say? I have serious garden empty? I'm looking for my garden. Oh my god. The first thing up in the spring is the chive. I'm looking out on your garden. You

have gosh, how many rectangles out there? Like fifteen or six of gosh our twenty? And you what do you grow out there? In flowers? And every year it's different tomatoes, lots of tomatoes. I love cherry tis. That's for you so much? Shall we say? Yes? Let's so. When I told people I know that I was coming here after everybody told me how jealous they were. The second thing everybody said was, well, you got to ask about Jeffrey.

Everybody's obsessed with Jeffrey and your relationship with Jeffrey and how you have this kind of perfect storybook marriage and embarras. We were coming through the airport in England and the guy checking passports in London um looked, looked at his passport and he said, it's you. You're the one. He said. My wife is always saying, why can't you be more like Jeffrey Garten? That is so funny. But you guys have a I mean, Jeffrey is still teaching at Yale right.

He was the dean of the Business School for ten years and he's been teaching for about ten or twelve. So is he So he's not here during the week, He's not. I mean, you know he comes and goes, but usually he's not here during the week. Yeah, but seriously, is that the absolutely makes the heart grow farm in New York during the week, so we you know, we see each other like Tuesday, Wednesday nine, So yeah, it's

it's no, that's not the secret. The secret is that you just take care of each other and you admire each other and support each other and and you get that back. You met him when you were a teenager and you were visiting your brother at Dartmoun was we did our homework. I want to apologize that people hear me chewing. I feel terrible if you weren't, if you went, oh, I don't want to eat this. So how old were you? I was sixteen, I was fifteen. I was sixteen hun at him and uh he came to he saw me

walking around the campus. Um, he said to somebody, his roommate, UM, I wonder who that girl is. Now. You have to understand Dartmouth this all men at the time, So I was like the only girl walking around and that was competition exactly. It wasn't like I was, Oh mac Fierston walking around Dartmound and six months later showed up at my doorstep, which is amazing that he remembered. And Uh, anyway, you and Jeffrey never had kids, And did you spend a lot of time with other people's kids or did

you just not have that desire so much? I mean we we didn't. We decided not to have children. Um. I really appreciate that other people do. And we always have friends that have children that were close to but

it just was a choice I made very early. A lot of my married friends who don't have children, or some of them who don't have children, Um, your children, right, yes, But but they also feel like I did a whole talk show on this when I had my my talk show about the kind of how society sort of treats couples who have decided not to have kids. And were you ever faced with that? Did people ever to kind of judge you at all? I never felt like people

did that. People did. Um. I think the one thing that we missed is a lot of people's friends are the parents of their kids friends. So we never had that connection with other people that I see a lot of that network that network exactly. UM. But no, I just I never felt judged by it. Maybe people did, but I didn't notice. But I really felt I feel that I would never have been able to have the life I've had. Um. And so it's a choice, and that was the choice I made. You said saying that

really struck me. You were asked at some event, you know, what issues do you have in your marriage or how do you overcome the issues in your marriage? And you said, you know, we don't have dogs and cats and kids and things that make it messy. We don't have We don't actually because I mean we you know, we have respect for each other. And if Jeffrey and I disagree on something, he always agrees with me. I let that reminds me of a toast. Here's to you, here's to me,

and if we disagree, screw you. You can use that very appoint It's a very appropriate Easter Sunday, you can say that. I also think one of the nice things about Jeffrey, among many nice things, is he really encouraged you to do what you love. And totally some people know this, some people don't an up. But I always find it fascinating that you actually were writing nuclear policy for the White House. I was for a period of time,

so clearly you're a bit of a brainiac. Now give that jump to anybody, But what what drew you to do that? And how did how did you land that job? I was really interested in science, and I had a job doing legislative work um in an Office of Management and Budget for two years, where all the legislation comes to you have to write up a paper for the president with you know, recommendation, whether he science and legislation or not um scary that they give that to twenty

five year olds, but that's what I did. But I was really interested in science. So after two years I switched over to the science and technology area and they assigned nuclear energy budgets to me. No idea so much. It was really interesting, and I really got a sense of what I wanted to do and what I didn't want to do, right because because and you didn't want to do that. You know, one of the things I, oh, this sounds so crazy, but the one of the things I was sure I wanted in my next life. Because

you had to get dressed up. I mean you had to wear silk blouses and heels and stock. Was that the era when we wore little ties around professional It was such a that exactly, it was the seventies, that's exactly. I mean, women who wanted to be taken seriously, you know, got dressed up. And I thought, I just want a job where I can wear sneakers. And here I am colored sneakers and actually usually I'm in my bedroom slippers. But even better, I'm decided to dress up for us.

I dressed up. But finally you were like, you know what I don't really love this, and Jeffrey said something really, I think that transformed you. It totally transformed me. And he's always are encouraging. He said, I came home one day from I said, I just this isn't me. This isn't what I really want to do. And he said, pick something that you think would be fun. Pick something that would you know, don't worry about whether you make money.

Just pick something would be fun. If it's fun, you'll be really good at it if you love doing it. And I said, well, funny, she mentioned it. I've seen this ad for a business for sale in the New York Times and it was a tiny specialty food store for sale in a place I've never been. And he said, let's go look at it. And that was in West Hampton's And when that was the Barefoot contested the Contessa

but named after a movie with Ava Gardner. It was named after there was a movie with Ava Gardner and the owner when she was a little girl, that used to call it the bere for Contessa because she was Italian. So she named the store of the Bear for Contessa. And you you went and saw it, and you get offered. You made an offer next right then and there. I

walked into the store and they were baking cookies. I thought, I want to be here, and I made her a low offer, thinking she'll come back, we'll negotiate, we'll have time to think about it. And um. She called me the next day in my office and said, thank you very much. I accept your offer. And I remember going, oh ship. I loked one of my boss's office and said, I think I just bought a food store. And you did that for how long? Eighteen years? A long time,

which was fun. I mean it was. And when I stopped doing that, I thought, I don't you know, I thought it was time to do something else. I've done that for a long time, and I thought it's really time to do something else. But I just didn't know what it was. And get there, and you just back up for a second in the chronology. How did you get excited about food and cooking? Because we heard that you grew up in a house where food was not special, and I think I was starving. I think I was

always hungry. And you took this trip to France with Jeffrey. We went on a camping trip. We had four months with nothing to do and no money, and we decided the only thing we could afford is a tent and sleeping bags, and so we took a four month trip

to France. And I remember coming into in Normandy into a campsite and it was kind of late in the afternoon, and the woman who owned the campsite said, I just made I think it was coco van for my husband or before or something like that, and would you like some for dinner. I was like yeah. I remember thinking I need to know how to make this. And I came home and after this trip and we and I just bought Jelly Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking Wow,

and started cooking while I was working in Washington. That's what I would do at night is cook and then I would have people over for dinner on the weekends. And I think that's why when I was doing nuclear energy during the day and cooking at night, and I thought, wait, this is crazy. I want to do that. So that's

how that's kind of how it started. I also thought it was interesting that when I know you were making a decision after eighteen years running and owning and cooking and baking the coconut cupcakes and still obsessed with at the Terrify Contessa. By the way, they were about the size of my head. We relived in Big cook. You decided, you know, I want to I want to do something else, or I want to transition into some other aspect of

what I'm doing. And you took a year off because someone said to you, you figure out what you want to do next if you don't have time to really think about it. Because I think many of us feel like you can't get another job unless you have a job is somehow you're less desirable. But that year off was really important to you. But you said it was

the hardest year of your life. It's the hardest year of my life because I went from like baking a fasm me guests and having customers coming to the store and the energy and sort of I always felt like the store felt like a party, like when you walked into the party, like the music was on and the coffee was there and I've forgotten that something's got to give that scene and there was filmed in the store. Yeah, So I just I thought, well, for a while, I tried to figure out what to do next, and I

just couldn't figure it out. And his friend said, you have to stop type A. People think they can figure out what they're going to do next while they're doing something, and they can't. And I was like, okay, I built myself in office upstairs and then I had nothing to do, I mean like nothing, so for a year, and out of complete boredom, I thought, well, Jeffy said, well, stay

in the food business. You love the food business. And I thought, well, people have asked me to write a cookbook, but that's not the kind of thing I want to do. So because I can't imagine i'd be able to write a cookbook, and it seemed like a very solitary thing as opposed to the store, which is very social and fun and up and um, I thought, well, at least after a year, at least I have something to do.

So I wrote a book proposal, thinking maybe I'll do that while I'm figuring out what to do next, and you ended up loving it. Can we pause for a two seconds so people can hear me take a bite of my breath? Delicious? Okay, sorry, ahead, The eggs don't make much sound, but the areas definitely does. That was both affected and totally genuine, so and you ended up loving the process of writing cookbooks, loving it and loving

the people you were working with. It turns out it's not a solitary thing because there when we do the photographs, there's you have to have a sense of design. You have to know where you want to go, the photographers and the stylists and the remember the first time, right here in this kitchen, actually, I did a photo shoot with the food stylist. I thought what a food stylist did was like I would make the food, they would put it on a plate, and then they would die.

They would die the turkey with exactly exactly, or brush it with motor roy or somebody. And I was terrified because I thought, how I have to make every single recipe in this book for somebody to photographs. And I'm standing behind this counter and I'm going, okay, what do you want first? And the food style is said, I'm the one who does the cooking, and I was like, oh, this is great, and so she made everything in the book, and the prop stylus brought the perfect plate, and um,

the photographer was just wonderful. And I remember thinking, this is so much fun and so creative and so interesting, and you know, I hope somebody's going to buy this book so I can do it again. And now eleven books later. Well, I guess you're eleven is coming out. I've done ten and I'm working on the eleven. Is the eleventh going to be called? You're not going to tell you have to come back Arizon? Can you give

us a hint? We have recipes in it. Can I tell you why I think your cookbooks are so great? I think you know, don't tell me, Okay, I think you acknowledge, unlike a lot of other people, that entertaining

is difficult and stressful and anxiety producing. And you make it so that you can kind of go step by step through the process and figure out how not going to be a nervous wreck when people show up, and the food is going to be delicious, and it's going to be done pretty much when people walk in the door. And I think that's pretty uncommon for cookbooks, which sort of expect you to be standing over a hot stove

while you're supposed to be simultaneously entertaining people. Is that, well, you know, the irony is I remember thinking going into the cookbook business, what makes me think that I can write a cookbook when great restaurant chefs write cookbooks. But I realized very quickly I knew two things that restaurant chefs didn't know. One is, I'm not a trained professional cook.

I mean, I've cooked more than most people, but I'm really I never went to see a culinary institute c I A. I never went to really formal training, So I know it's really stressful for me to cook, so it's important for me that it's really simple to make. And the other thing is when you own especially food store, you find out what people like to eat at home as opposed to in restaurants. So you'd like to eat

cook and a cupcakes, roast chicken, roast carrots, um. When you got to a restaurant, you want something a little more challenging like rosa buco, or you want something like um uh we bez, which is harder to make it home. So um, So is that sort of your motto or your edicts? Simplicity? Totally simplicity as much as possible. That it's if it's something that I make and we that night, my assistant Barbara goes home and makes it for her family.

I think, yes, that was a great recipe. Um. If if I make something and three quarters of the way through I get bored with it, it goes in the trash and never makes it in a book, it has to be something I'm willing to make again for company. Let me pick up mine on something Brian said, because I do try to entertain, and what I find myself totally pittying out about, which is so appealing and talking about cooking is getting everything ready at once, and I'm so bad at that, Like I can do most of it,

but then I panic at the end. Well, that's part of the deal. I mean, it's not like I don't either. Jeffrey knows in the fifteen minutes before people arrived. I'm always going to talk to me, do you do you try to do dishes that I'll tell you what I

try and do. I try and do something that's in the oven, something that's on top of the stoves and they're not competing with each other, and something I made an advance that um is served at room temperature so that you don't have to think about having all those things hot at the same time. That's that's good advice. So it's really about the planning more than it is

the doing. It's if you plan it and you say um, and you plan it carefully, you don't end up with one of and and two things that go in a different temperatures. But that goes back to the you know what I call the game plan, and if you do the game plan and you figure it out, so like you plant your dinner parties like the Normandy Invasion, which

are very helpful. Actually, you know, every time people come for dinner, and I have a whole written list of like seven ten, put the ham in the oven, seven thirty, take the ham out, put the broccoli, and and then I don't go at at noon. I'm I'm not panicking. I should start cooking now. No, I'm not. I shouldn't start cooking because my list says it starts at five thirty. That's really that's really smart. It's pretty simple. But it's

such a great way to organize yourself. But you can also start in the morning if you want to make like a watermelon and fed and mint salad or whatever you might do, and you can do it and put it in the reference. It's actually better because all the flavors get together. So beyond the cookbooks and the TV show, you briefly had a line of products, both frozen foods and mixes. I did, and then those kind of came and went well for different reasons. But I love the products.

I was really proud of what we did. But the companies changed, and um, we didn't. We didn't love the way the direction of the companies were going in. And I just I love what I do. I love the cookbooks, I love the TV show, I love um having a life, having time left off for life, and uh, I just if it's not making me happy, I don't want to do it. Think that's a really powerful lesson from your

life for other people. You you edit I did constantly, and you just think, if I'm not enjoying this part of my life, I'm going to get rid of it. If it doesn't make me happy, it's not gonna make anybody else happy. I think it's um that really translate. And if I don't have time to do things going to say, I think it's as much about spreading yourself too thin. I went to this meditation retreat. I know

you're learning so much about people. I didn't really stick, but they told us that the Maharishi's that he said, what do you think the most important word for happy life is no, no peacefulness, no discernment. Discernment isn't that interesting. So deciding what is important, deciding how you're going to spend your time, and clearly you practice that by saying I don't want to do so much that perhaps it'll keep me from doing the things I love. Well, yeah, yeah,

that's exactly. I mean, he said that I'd like you to bring back the scone. Man, I'll make some mixed for you and I'll drop it off. That's well, that's what I mean. I was really proud of those products. I thought we did a really good job and we worked really hard on them. But unless the companies goes to stay with the quality of what we wanted to do, then it doesn't work. But you talk about how people come to you all the time with this proposals and

ideas and you say no to almost all of them. Yeah, I say no almost all of them. I mean, people wanted me to design a line of clothing. I'm like, I wear the same thing every day. They did want you to do somebody want to make clothing. Somebody wanted me to do furniture. I'm like furniture, Well, I think you know what they wanted to do in it, which I think you see more and more of these days. They wanted you to be a lifestyle brand, and you see so many people becoming, from Jessica Alba to Race

with Paltrow, the ultimate lifestyle brand. And that just didn't appeal to you. I just I mean I looked, as you say, I love doing what I do really well and having life, you know, just having a wonderful Somebody asked me if if I would do a line of fertilizer, did you say, just go to a cow pass was like, why would I do that? Do you do you think of yourself? And it's totally different from fertilizer to people think of you? Do you do you? I consider yourself

a feminist, You're a powerful working woman. I yeah, I do. Um I think that. Um My. When I left working in the White House, I knew I was never going to be the head of that organization. This was the seventies. It was never going to happen. And the only way that I was going to determine my own future was to do it myself. And so I think my decision to own my own business was part of that. Is that, and I think a lot of a lot of women fight the existing system rather than creating their own system.

Amen to that, sister, don't you think. So you can't change the system, and maybe you can move it a little bit, but it's very hard to change. And so I've always chosen to create my own system in which I can be successful. And I think you were ahead of your time, because now I think there's a much more entrepreneurial attitude among people, and obviously well all new, whole new businesses are popping up because of technology, and women are very successful in corporations. But in the seventies

that's not true. That wasn't true, right, But even now, uh, you look at the number of CEOs and the fortune five hundred and spathetically small that if you look at you know, of course it is en pretty well not right. If you look at women actually in tech and high positions in tech, it's actually dis worse. And so, um, yes, it's gotten perhaps better, but in many ways the obstacles are there. Yeah, I think there's a lot of subtle sexism too in the workplace that can be very demoralizing

at times, but I'm sure it's people. I'm saving that from my book the next podcast. But it's interesting your brand is kind of a combination of the old fashioned and the modern. You're you're cooking for your husband. Your latest book was called Cooking for Jeffrey. But at the same time you're a powerful independent female business owner. Thank you. So it's interesting. I think that people can can have both and can can sort of reflect their values in

a multitude of different ways. Well, I think Jeffrey's advice really was great is do what you love and if you love it, you'll be very good at it. But it's not it's not without risk. And we got a voicemail from someone, It's a very sweet voicemail who wanted to talk to you about your decision to really its career. So let's listen and you can respond. Hi, Katie and Brian. My name is Kendra. I live in North Carolina and I have a new listener to your show and love

it so much. And then I heard you were going to have a garden on the show, which made me jump up and down. Um, I have a question for her about her relationship with risk. Um. I'm always moved by women who make choices that are daring, who are trailblazers who do things that they might fail at, especially in the public eye. And so I I would love to know Dina's thoughts on her journey, the evolution of her journey of risk and failure when she opened that

first shop in the Hanton years ago and up to now. Um, I would love to just open her head and write out what she thinks about risk to inspire me to not be so free. So please change my life, Dinah. Thank you guys. We don't want to open up your head because that sounds very uncomfortable. But you know, I think people um stand at the side of the pond talking about what the pond is. Is it too hot? Is it to call? Does it deep? Is it all

the things are? They think murky things under there? Um, I think that you have to just jump in the pond and answer to Kendra. Um. I have a very low threshold of boredom. If I'm bored, I need to change things. And I just I can't stand being bored, and so I'll take a risk which heightens your awareness of what you're doing. It makes you a little scared, and you know that, I think that's good being a little scared, because if it keeps you up at night.

You'll figure out the problems. But when you're jumping in the pond, it's not that you're just going to stay in that pond. That's just the beginning of it. It's then you look over there and you go the ponds really interesting over there. So you go in that direction, and then you go in another direction, and you keep going until you find the stream that feels right to you. So it's not a one time thing. It's just you're just pushing yourself off the cliff and going where it

takes you. And even and I like being scared, and and and also I think failure is not the worst things. If something doesn't work out, you learned from it and it helps you move forward in a different way. Don't you think I just calling it a failure is the wrong way to think about it. It's just a lesson learned, and you go and and then you find out what worked in that and what didn't work, and then you go to the thing that worked or the thing that you liked and go in that direction. We need to

we need to to stop using the effort. I want to ask you a question about all those years before you ventured off on your own as a cookbook writer and a TV star. You you were owning and operating this shop. You were kind of serving wealthy summer residents and you became part of the community of people who live here year round, who don't have mansions on the ocean.

Did that teach you something about inequality or divides in the country because you've been able to sort of traverse both the world, Well, East Hampton is not just wealthy people with big houses on the ocean. Their farmers and fishermen and builders and all the trades that exist anywhere else are here. Um. I think East Hamptons have gotten I mean, the Hampton's have gotten a reputation from you know TV shows as being just you know, wealthy people

behaving badly. Um, And so I think it's a you know, it's it's like any community. There's a broad spectrum of people that live here, and they all love coconut cupcakes, and so it's you know, the price of admission to bear for contesta with zero you can wander through and have some samples of coconut cupcakes and and and be out on the street, or you can buy a baguette for a few dollars and have a wonderful time. So they're like everyday pleasures. It's not like, um, you know,

buying a mansion on the beach. So I think, you know, food appeals to everybody, and I like that kind of feeling about it. There's an expression these days. I think my daughter taught me food porn, and when it comes to things like Instagram and even the various food networks, there's something so mesmerizing about watching people cook and make food. And I could watch some of these videos on Instagram

and we didn't love them. Yeah, I mean all day many people who watch these videos would never cook what they're watching. No, but it's just so much fun. Why do you think people are so do you think it's escapism in a weird way. I think that we all long for that mother who's in the kitchen cooking for us, and she's not there anymore. And there's that center where somebody's rolling out pasta or cooking roasting a chicken, and she's a doctor and a lawyer and a you know,

you know, doing podcasts. Someone to say more um, and so that sort of core of us is missing, that is mom home in the kitchen, that we're familiar with, and I think people are coming back to that, and I think Food Network had a huge amount to do with it. There's so many chefs, celebrity chefs out there. Do you ever get competitive? Is there a bitchy side to Eina Garden? Please tell me there is? Thank you. Brian's true. I've actually never looked at what other people

are doing. I just look at what I'm doing and do the best I can, and just I mean, i'd like to there's there's an edge there, But is that true? I don't want to. Somebody once said, you're exactly the way you're on TV. Your language is a little worse. But you were reluctant to host a cooking show you had written, I think your second cookbook, and the Food Network came to you and you didn't really want to do it. I mean, I just couldn't know. I had gotten used to writing cookbooks. I love doing it. I

wasn't bored, so I wasn't looking for something else. And they kept coming back over and over again and saying, please, won't you do it? And they kept upping the offer, and I'm like, I'm not negotiating. I don't want to do it just lose my number. And they found a production company in London whose work I loved. Um, but it was Nigella Lawson's show. But I'm thinking, I'm not

an Angela Lows and I can't do that. And and they hired them and called me and said they're coming to your house in two weeks to do the show. I said, I said, I'm not doing it. And I said, oh, just do thirteen shows. And I thought, well, I'll be terrible. I'll do thirteen shows and then we'll be done with it and they'll lose my number. So that years ago, years ago. And now you have a whole barn on your property and that's where you shoot your most Mostly

what I do is cook tester. I mean that's my office. That's where we meet every morning and we test recipes for the cookbooks and then twice a year we do the TV shows there. So and we're actually just doing a new series which starts I think the end of May. Um oh, please plug it. As as people are going more towards like food, food, porn and game shows, we're

going in the other direction. And I'm doing a series called cook Like a Pro, which is all those sort of little tips you need to know, like how to cut a butternut squash in the best way, and how to how to do their it's recipes, but more information than just tips. It's about processes. Would be interested to know, Yeah, definitely, Yeah, because those kinds of tips, then you know it and it can serve you sort of the rest of your life. And you have to come up with a new show.

Someone's in the kitchen with. I know you people are someone's in the kitchen with. And you can sambled eggs with truffles ambrios. This is kind of our tradition. By the way, every thing on every podcast now, the audience demands it. If we go an episode without singing, they get annoyed. So give the people what they want. So, in addition to to all the things that you're doing, Aina, are there other things about you that people don't know, Issues that you care about, things that you talk about

with your friends that are important to you. But one of the things you and I have talked about is um is organizations that happen, and I think Ellie is with one of working with the Southern Poverty carry Actually my younger daughters working with the Southern Center some and I mean organizations that help people locally and nationally like the a c l u UM with immigrants that have issues.

And I think there's so many incredible support systems in this country, and I think it's it's getting harder and harder to rely on the government to fund them, so people have to we really need to. I've been involved in the Innocence Project is which is I think they do an amazing job, isn't it. I witness testimony is so unreliable and so many people have been convicted of things they didn't do. And so that's that's one issue you really care about. Are there are there others that

you spend a lot of time on? You know, I think there's so many organizations that UM need help. I mean, I support Plan Parenthood. I think, um they do an amazing job and I know they're under enormous stress now UM And frankly people don't understand that. I don't know, like of what they do as women's health, it's you know, it's a very important organization for women that can't afford

good doctors. And the thing that is so political is a very very small part of what they do and the money that they get from the government already cannot go to fund abortion services. People don't understand that. Yeah, but how do you get your news? I'm just curious. That's interesting. Um, New York Times, Washington Post online, both hard copy and online. I think it's a different experience. UM,

I still like I do you know why. I just like the I'd like to see the layout because it tells me a lot about the editorial choices that have been made in terms of how they prioritize articles. I totally agree with you. Yeah, if I don't get the hard copy, I miss stuff for whatever reason. Because online is so targeted to my interests, I can't find the unexpected thing. But I'm like the only one, you know, I know under forty, I have the body of a seven year Do not stop saying that, well, this has

been such a treat for us. It's really been, and I think you know it must be. I don't know. Do you get uncomfortable about the fact that there are so many people who feel connected to you and admire you so much? And I think in many ways I feel that your presence is really comforting to them. Thank you. That's wonderful. You know that I know, I love as Brian said that, you know, people had to cook because when you cook, everybody shows up. I mean, nobody's ever

called and said come for dinner. I'm cooking and said no, no, no no, I really don't want a home cook meal. But when everybody shows up, that's when you create a community for yourself. And so it's not really about the food, although it's nice, if it's delicious, it's really about the people that share it with you. Are you and Martha Stewart buds? I mean we've been We've known each other for a really long time. Yeah, we used to do

parties together. Actually one time we do benefits together. Really one time Martha made a ham and brought it on the Today Show and after the segment, I asked our food crew if I could take the ham, and uh so I ended up serving it for Easter and it was a big conversation piece. It must have been a really good ham. Was a really good ham. It was a really good ham. Anyway, we'll speaking of really good hands. Yours is in the oven. We don't want to keep you too long because it is Easter and you have

to prepare Easter dinner. But thank you. This was such a such a treat. Really happy East, happy Easter, too happy over whatever, your spring awakening. Hap have a wonderful time. And just when we thought we got everything, who walks in the door but Jeffrey Garden in the flesh and uh and in the sweatpants. And of course we got to talk to the man, not I guess behind the woman. Yeah, oh my god, are you nice to see you? I'm good? How are you? This was such a treat. So we've

been talking about you, Jeffrey. Yes, we have all things, these two. This show was going to be called Aina and Jeffrey. The real story. Well, I don't think I was in the contract. Do you feel like, Jeffrey, you finally learned to cook being married to this wonderful woman all these years. You're kidding right at all? It makes really good coffee. I have a very lame excuse that

we were married so young. With the exception of my time in the army, I never lived alone, so I never had a chance to cook because she kind of preempted right from the very Jeffrey. Everybody sorry for Jeffrey. And when you were in the military. By the way, you know, we know too much about it you learned to speak Thi, Yes he did. He lived in Can you say something to me in Thai? Well you wouldn't understand, Okay. Anyway, Well, we've had so much fun. This has been really, really

a treat. Thanks very much to Ina Garten for opening up her home and her heart to us for this. It is a beautiful on a beautiful Sunday morning with the sun coming through Sunday. That's right, the sun coming through the windows and the birds chirping, and it was just idyllic. Also thanks to Gianna Palmer for producing the show, to Jared O'Connell for mixing and engineering, or Richie for additional production assistance. And thanks also to our social media Maven.

I think that has that on her card, Alison Bresnik social media Maven and your cards. That's right and right my new cards. And to Emily Bena for her part in producing. And I should add one thing, Katie, thank

you for cooking us an amazing dinner last night. Maybe inspired by Iah a little bit, you made this leg of lamb and lemon pasta and asparagus and cupcakes and halla Halla for those of us who are celebrating the Paysach as well as the easter and you put us all up at your beautiful how us last night, Well, it was a lot of fun. And that's a train in the background. Everybody, we're right near the tracks and on the wrong side of the track. And Mark Phillips

thank you as always for our wonderful theme music. Katie Kurk, Mitch Simmil and I are our executive producers. And remember you can email us at comments at Currek podcast dot com or you can find me on social media. I'm Katie Curic on Twitter and Instagram and Katie dot Kurric on Snapchat. And Brian you're on social media as well, primarily Twitter, Twitter, Goldsmith be on Twitter and best of all, you can rate and review our show on what is

now known as Apple podcast used to be iTunes. iTunes is so March, It's so yesterday, April is all about Apple Podcasts. Don't forget to subscribe to the show as well. That's how more people can find it. And we'll talk to you next time. Thanks for listening. When it comes to email marketing, there is a lot more that goes into creating smart and effective campaigns than what meets the eye.

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