Ina Garten Says You Can Either Get on Her Train or Get Out of the Way

0:00If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. It's destroying athlete, creator, and YouTube Maxer. YouTube Premium enhances how I use YouTube with awesome features like offline downloads so I can download my favorite training videos before I hit the gym. So no Wi-Fi doesn't turn leg day into loading day. Plus, I get ad-free videos, background play, and so much more. YouTube Premium is like YouTube got some extra gains. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. Trial eligibility varies. Terms apply. Cancel any time. I remember thinking how crazy it was to disagree with the top cookbook editor in the country.

0:34And I remember saying to myself, well, either I'm wrong and he'll never have to see me again, or I'm right and he'll think I'm a genius.

0:45I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro, and today I'm interviewing Ina Garten. Garten's best known for her cookbooks and her show Barefoot Contessa, which premiered on the Food Network almost 24 years ago. I'm always looking for new ways to cook chicken, but nothing says summer more than cooking chicken on a grill. That show taught people how to cook. Quarter of a cup of olive oil, a cup of onion. How to entertain. So I'm going to have cocktails and hors d 'oeuvres on the porch. I'm going to have dinner on the dining room table. It's going to be casual. And how to be unfussy about it. You can use ingredients from the store, like a pound cake or vanilla ice cream.

1:24that are just as good as homemade. Garten's laid-back style and plucky personality made her both a household name and a cult figure. Delicious. Lovingly parodied and memed on social media. Tonight I'm making a wonderful dinner, and it starts with brownie pudding. And now, at 78, she's doing something new, launching a video podcast called Happy Hour with Ina, and her 14th cookbook, Simply Ina, is coming out this fall. Here's my conversation with Ina Gardner. I am thrilled to have you here. I have watched you for such a long time. I have cooked your recipes. And so it is a great pleasure to welcome you to the interview, Ina.

2:12Thank you, Lulu. I love what you do too. So I'm so thrilled to be here. Really honored. Okay, so I've been doing the math on your life. Uh-oh. you're now 78 years old. And you are just about to start this whole new chapter. You are launching a podcast. I am. And you started your celebrated food network TV show when you were in your mid 50s. And you wrote your first cookbook when you were in your early 50s. And I find this very inspirational as a woman also in my 50s. What have you learned about taking on challenges in later life? I think that when I look back and I think about the things that I've done, like writing cookbooks, and I love working scared.

3:00Really? Because it keeps me up at night. So I love, you know, I love this expression, getting out over your skis. Well, you have no choice. You've invested your money. You've, you know, sort of made a stake in what you've decided to do, whether it's books or TV. and very often I've said no to things for years until I figured out how can I do this differently? Like I don't like doing it the way everybody else does it. I like taking something like books and saying, most cookbooks are, when I started in 1999, most cookbooks had like 250 recipes. I mean, who needs 250 recipes? I need 75 really good recipes that I can make over and over again.

3:41And so when I decided to write cookbooks, I thought, okay, I'm going to write this book. I'm not even sure my publisher was convinced that it was going to work. But it worked out okay. Yeah, I think one of the things, though, that happens when people get older in particular is that you get more afraid. You get more afraid? Afraid. Oh, that's interesting. I thought you were going to say get more confident. No, I don't. Isn't that interesting? I actually don't think people get more. You have more to lose? Well, you have more to lose. You get more set in your ways. I'm just the opposite, actually.

4:12I know, and I think that's such a great lesson, but I think it's unusual. I think I have a very low threshold of boredom. If I know how to do something, I don't want to do it again. I love using what I've learned and figuring out the next step. It's really clear for me. I ask myself one question, is it going to be fun? And if it's fun, then I really want to do it. I just have to figure out how to make sure it's fun. I mean, it's working with people that I love working with. It's working with creative people. I mean, in the cookbook, I have food stylists doing the photographs and photographer. There are people I look forward to working together where we create something that's better than any one of us alone.

5:00And I'm responsible for the team. I love that feeling. It's kind of like a great ballet where everybody's working together. So I like that feeling of building something with people. Well, let's talk about the two new projects that you have coming out. Okay. A podcast and a new cookbook. Yeah. Let's start with the cookbook. It's the first one in four years. Yes. It's called Simply Ina. The recipes all look easy and delicious, which are your signature. Thank you. Have you ever been tempted to make something off-brand, complicated Ina, fussy Ina, you know, pretentious Ina? Let's make cassoulet, right?

5:36Yeah, let's make cassoulet. Exactly. No. I actually am not that good at cook. I think of myself more as a taster. I know what I'm looking for in flavor and texture. But I don't like spending hours in the kitchen cooking. I really don't. When I wrote my first book, which was the Barefoot Contessa cookbook, I decided I wanted to have several things. I wanted to have gorgeous photographs so that when you looked at it, you thought, oh, that looks delicious. And then you looked at the recipe and you thought, I could actually make that recipe. and then you looked at the ingredients and thought, oh, I can get all those ingredients in my local grocery store.

6:12That was a guiding principle of the first book, and it's still the guiding principle. There may be a few things like truffle butter that you can order online and keep in the freezer, but very, very few things like that. Most things you can buy locally, and because this is about keeping things simple, the recipes are even easier. Do you like eating complicated food? Like when you go to a restaurant, do you order complicated food? I hate it. Really? Yeah. I'm the first one who's going to order a roast chicken in a restaurant. No, I really don't like complicated food. And I don't like tasting menus.

6:47They give me a headache. Neither do I. But all those flavors just are like, oh, my God. And I don't like when somebody puts something down in front of me that I have no idea what it is. I'm not an adventurous eater at all. And I think my recipes reflect that. I like, you know, raspberry cheesecake. You know, like, you know exactly what it's going to taste like. Let's talk about your podcast. Okay. You'll be making cocktails and mocktails with a guest. Is that right? Well, I mean, I'm going to serve a cocktail and mocktail to each person. Oh, you're not going to make it with them? No, we're not going to make it.

7:19Yeah, exactly. All right. So day drinking with Ina. No, it's not. It's not day drinking with Ina. That sounds great. No, people are invited at five o 'clock. Okay. So it's cocktail hour. It's cocktail hour. Okay. But it's really about the conversation. What makes a good conversation for you? I think what I'm always looking for is where I connect with the guest. So, for example, with Alison Roman, she writes cookbooks. She has a specialty food store in upstate New York. We have a lot of common experiences. And so it's really fun to talk about how she sees building a business, how she sees writing recipes.

7:57I think that's what I'm always looking for. And it's interesting, no matter what the guest does, whether it's a movie director or a writer like Ann Patchett, we always can find a common thread. You know, I think having a good conversation also means having a little bit of tension at some point. But I think that's probably not your philosophy. Am I right? Hadn't thought about it, but now I'm going to. Yeah. Like, what's tension in a conversation where you disagree about something? You know, there are a lot of celebrity podcasts now where famous people interview other famous people. And they're very friendly and they're very fun.

8:37But I think they often steer clear of difficult questions or touchy questions, in part because the interviewer and the interviewee are either friends or they're in the same social circles or you're going to see them again at some point. And sometimes the conversations don't go very deep. They kind of skirt the surface. And I was just wondering, have you thought about how you navigate that? I actually think it should be fun. I think the person should have an interesting point of view. But I'm really conscious that I want every conversation to have things that the listener can take away. So it's not just you and I are talking.

9:17It's that we're sharing our experience about how we do something. Allison and I talked about a book that I had read called Why We Buy. like how people shop. And I'm sure somebody listening is going to go out and buy that book and it's going to change how they retail whatever it is they're selling. So my goal is not just to have a really interesting conversation but to connect with the audience. And that's the way I write cookbooks and it's the way I do the TV show. What's the user experience? Is it enjoyable to listen to and do you learn something from it? And the other thing is I think it's really important to ask questions you don't know the answer to and let go of control of the conversation.

10:04Why did you want to do this? Why did you want to have a podcast, which is nowadays a TV show because it's going to be filmed, obviously. Because I think it really goes back to my childhood where I couldn't connect with my parents. And I crave that connection with people. And that's why my friends are very important. And I just, I find this so interesting, the stories that people have told me on Be My Guest, like Emily Blunt talking about having a stutter, which was debilitating when she was a child. And so I just, I find people's stories really inspiring. And it's the difficult things in their lives that have led to the things that have changed, like Marcus Samuelson.

10:49Do you know the story of Marcus Samuelson? When he was three years old, he, his mother, and his five-year-old sister got tuberculosis. And their mother walked them from the village in Ethiopia where they lived to a hospital to get treatment. And I don't know how long. It was like 20 miles without shoes. Walked to this treatment center, and the mother died. and left two children. And a nurse knew that there was somebody in Sweden that was interested in adopting a young boy. And she called and said, I have a young boy, but he has a sister and I won't break them up. And the Swedish family said, send them both.

11:29So Marcus Samuelson ended up, from the worst thing that could possibly happen to you, he lost his mother when he was three with a Swedish family and the grandmother said, come, come cook with me. How did this happen? He's a brilliant cook and he's got fabulous restaurants. Never would have happened if the worst thing in his life hadn't happened at that moment. What is that for you? What is that origin story for you? Well, I think that I had a very tough childhood and it was lonely and it was... You had a mother who was very... Disconnected. Disconnected. And my father was always mad at me. Yeah.

12:05I don't know why. But because he tried to control me. So, I mean, what goes in early goes in deep. And I'm always trying to recreate what I craved when I was a kid. Yeah. I think either people repeat their parents' mistakes. Well, that's intentionality. Yeah. Or they really try to move away from it. I had a lot of help figuring out what happened because I don't think I understood it until I was probably 40. and then once you understand it and you say, oh, that wasn't everybody's childhood. When you're a kid, you think everybody lives like that and then you realize, no, it doesn't and you make a decision to do it differently.

12:45Your history isn't necessarily your life. You have to break free of it at some point. You have to figure it out and then decide how you want to live. Yeah. Your story can be seen as a series of beginnings or actually a series of endings. As I was sort of looking at things, you stopped catering at a certain point, and catering had helped sort of propel you into the food world when you had your specialty store. It was allowing you to be in people's houses, and it was a lot of your business initially, and you just decided it wasn't working out because— Because I would run Barefoot Contessa during the day, and then at 4 or 5 o 'clock, we would do like 10 parties at night, and I'd get home at 1 o 'clock in the morning exhausted.

13:32And on Sunday, my only day off was basically the afternoon I had off. I couldn't even talk. I was so exhausted. I thought, okay, this is not working. Right. Because it really—I couldn't work and have a personal life at the same time. And then you sold your iconic store for similar reasons, because— I think I sold the store because I knew how to do it. Yeah. And it was no longer a challenge. And I think if you're not bringing new energy and new ideas to a business, it's time to pass it off to somebody else who will. And then you stop selling prepared foods at a certain point. You know, some people expand their business.

14:10They just keep adding and adding. And you seem to replace. And I thought that that was very interesting. It is interesting. I don't expand it. I do it sequentially. You're absolutely right. I hadn't thought about it that way. I think that when I know how to do something, I don't want to do it anymore. It's really that simple. And, I mean, sometimes I've taken, you know, one time I took a year off to try and figure out what to do next. And I remember in the middle of that thinking, this is the worst year I've ever had because I have nothing to do, which is not my favorite thing. But I never would have started writing cookbooks if I hadn't done it.

14:45I did it just to have something to do. And it turned out to be so much more interesting than I expected. So I think I kind of like the journey, you know, like just finding out where my place is and what works. And I always see it as like tapping on a wall and just tap, tap, tap until I hear like a hollow sound. And I'm like, okay, that's where I'm going to go. And it's not what I'm going to finish with. It's what I'm going to start. And I'm going to see where this leads. And maybe because I like to have control over what I'm doing. I don't like expanding it with more and more people and bigger.

15:20I like doing things sequentially. I hadn't thought about it that way, but you're absolutely right. You've always spoken about learning to trust your instincts, and I think that's one of the hardest things for women in particular, especially to do. Our inner voice is sometimes our harshest critic. How did you learn to trust yourself? I think my husband taught me because I think as a child I was always taught that whatever I wanted to do was a bad idea. And when I married Jeffrey, I think he always said, he always supported whatever I wanted to do and encouraged it and didn't question it. And I think I really learned how to be in the world that way.

16:01Because you met him when you were 16. Yeah. Yeah, very, very young. He saw you when you went to go visit your brother. Brother in Dartmouth, yeah. Yeah. Just the luckiest thing that could ever happen to anybody. I had gone from such a negative childhood to such a positive life. I mean, where everything I do he thinks is brilliant and encouraged me to do more of it. When did you realize that perhaps that inner voice wasn't – was not there anymore, the harsh critic? Because I think we do – Oh, it is. It is? Oh, it absolutely is. But I think maybe when I was around 40, I started seeing a therapist.

16:44And what I learned from that is that when I hear that voice, I say, oh, that's my mother's voice. That's not my voice. Because my mother always thought everything I would do would be a failure. So her first reaction is, what makes you think that you can do that? And I just go, okay, that's my mother's voice. That's not my voice. And I just reinforce, okay, I'm going to try this. I don't know if I can do it, but I'm going to learn a lot from it. and I'm always surprised how well it turns out. And how do you deal with external pressure when people don't believe in you? Because there's the internal voice and then there's like people in life who underestimate you.

17:23Oh yeah, there are a lot of them. Yes. And I just have this philosophy, you're either on my train or just get off, get out of my way. I think because I had such a difficult time as a child, I don't like negative people around me. I just don't like to be with them. So if you're going to be positive and you're going to bring things to the party, come along for the ride. But if you're going to be negative and question what I'm doing or not listen to what I want, just get out of my way. Is that tough? No. You know what? I don't think it's tough. I think it's clear. How then do you take feedback? Oh, I ask for feedback all the time.

17:59Right. I mean, every morning I meet my team and we talk about what we're doing. And I want to know what they think about it. but at the end of the day, it's my decision. And once I've made a decision, I don't want to discuss it. I mean, now at this stage in your career, obviously people are going to be on the INA train. Yes and no. Yes and no. But, you know, you are a person who has a proven track record, but when you were first trying to move into things... Well, I do remember my first book, and my editor was the top cookbook editor in the country. I mean, he was extraordinary. really knowledgeable.

18:35I had some of the great Martha Stewart, Lee Bailey, had really great authors. And I have no idea why, but I would say to him, that's not the way I want to do it. I want to do it this way. And he would disagree with me. He said, that's not the way it's done. And I remember thinking, okay, well, I'm not going to be happy unless it's the way I want it done. And I don't know why I—I remember thinking how crazy it was to disagree with the top cookbook editor in the country. But I just needed to have my vision in that book. And I remember saying to myself, well, either I'm wrong and he'll never have to see me again, or I'm right and he'll think I'm a genius.

19:19So I was just determined to make sure it was the way I wanted it to be. And that determination comes from the feeling that if you can't execute your vision, then it's not going to be satisfying. And why bother doing it if you're just going to do what everybody else is doing? But you have to have an idea. You have to show up 100 % and come with an idea. Martha Stewart helped launch you. She did. And in that early stage of your career, there was a lot of pressure to be a mini Martha. Yeah. She had sort of created the mold and they wanted to have more. Well, that was one of the models. That was one of the models.

19:59And she changed how it happened. I mean, she did it brilliantly in her vision. I mean, you walked away from your first foray into television because they wanted you to be a mini Martha. Yeah. How did you just have a sense that it wasn't the right fit? I just don't know. You're stubborn, clearly. I'm clear. I don't think stubborn is a bad word by the way I'm determined I think well it was her film crew that was filming a show for me and they kept saying to me no no no you can't do it that way and I was like I kept saying to them you have Martha you don't need me to be Martha you need me to be me and I don't know why I knew that but I just was very clear that you know Martha does a certain does things a certain way and I do them differently and unless that film reflected who I was, it was going to look like I was trying to be Martha and that's not who I am.

20:57According to a New Yorker profile of you from a few years ago, you and Martha grew apart. Can I just say I admire her enormously. I think what she created is stunning and she did it with vision. I mean, we're friendly. We're not, there's no antipathy. She moved to Bedford, and she used to live in East Hampton, so we saw each other then. I mean, I know you get asked about Martha a lot, and in many ways you became your own thing, the anti-Martha in some ways, you know, a different style of cooking. Is that in itself frustrating that you always get kind of put in some kind of juxtaposition of her?

21:40I had an interesting conversation with Alison Roman recently, actually. I said to her, you know, she and I are kind of in a continuum that started with Julia Child, who wanted to teach people how to cook with real food. You know, when everybody was making like box macaroni and cheese, she wanted you to appreciate a really good beef bourguignon. And then Martha came along and elevated home arts to something really worth doing well. Set a beautiful table. Make a wonderful dinner. Carve out a pumpkin for the pumpkin soup. It's just fabulous. I came along and said, okay, maybe not carve out the pumpkin.

22:15Set a nice table. It doesn't have to be over the top. And make a lovely dinner and serve it. And then Alison Roman came along and said, forget setting the table. Just put the pot of soup on the table and have a good time. And so I think everybody's getting a little simpler and simpler. But at the end of the day, we all like the same thing, which is gathering people around a table. You know, Alison Roman also said in that New Yorker profile that people were always asking her if she's a Martha or an Ina. Oh, really? Yes. Oh, I don't remember that. So there is like a sense of a continuum, but also a sort of dichotomy, if you will.

22:52Yeah, I think we've each taken what's in the world and made it our own. The reason I ask also is because in that New Yorker profile, Martha said she had never made one of your recipes, which I felt was kind of pointed. And I wondered if it bothered you. No. It's certainly hers to decide. I didn't know what to make of that. I've certainly made lots of hers. We've talked about how you've sort of evolved over time. and I do want to touch on a period of your life that I find fascinating, which is your period at the Food Network because it's really changed since you started there 20 years ago. You know, you came up with Rachel Ray, you came up with Paula Deen, and you women were really a big deal at that certain period of time.

23:47There's a lot of competition shows now, though. Yeah, that doesn't interest me. Yeah. A lot of sort of male energy, Guy Fieri, Pitmasters, Bobby Flay. I watch a lot of Bobby Flay. Can I just say how much I adore Bobby Flay? You can say. He's just extraordinary. Would you ever compete with Bobby Flay? No. See, I'm not a chef. I'm a home cook. Right. And I mean, to go to Bobby's house and watch him just make lunch was not a recipe anywhere. I mean, he's run restaurants. It's in his DNA. He's such an extraordinary cook. And he's so joyful in the kitchen. It's just wonderful to watch. And, you know, he doesn't, when he's competing with somebody, this is their identifying recipe.

24:37This is their favorite recipe. And Bobby's never seen it before. And he usually beats them. Why have you never wanted to be part of a competition show? It's just not who I am. And you know what? That's what other people do. I just like to do something different. I think part of Food Network's DNA is showing people how to cook. And fortunately, they still support my doing it. Warner Brothers, which runs the Food Network, is in the midst of possibly being sold to Paramount. Not yet. Not so fast. Not so fast. I mean, do you have an opinion about that merger? Will you stay with the Food Network if it gets sold?

25:15I think I'm going to stay away from that one. Okay. Okay. Is that all right? Yeah, I understand. It's complicated. It's complicated. Yeah. All right. Who would you say your audience is today? I'm sure you've thought about this as you're launching your new podcast. I mean, who do you think of as people who watch Ina Garten? You know, it's astonishing to me how varied it is. I just, I mean, I always, I've said this before that I loved walking up Madison Avenue one day and a woman in big fur coat was like, oh, darling, love your cookbooks. And a block later, a truck driver pulled over and said, hey, babe, love your show.

25:51And I thought, this is what food is. And I mean, I would think that my audience would be older because I am, but I mean, Gen Zers are just desperate to cook and entertain now and be together with their friends. Have you seen the many social media accounts parroting you with love? No. Oh, really? No. I would love to show you, like, in particular, you heard of a comedian called Tom Hearn? Yeah. He does the shirt, the giant margarita glass, but there's also just many, many others, you know. Somebody came to Jeffrey and said that they were having a wedding at Anne McGancet, which is the next town over from East Hampton, and that all the bridesmaids were dressed like me.