Speaker 1: Okay, Katie, we're at your house in the heartland of America,
Speaker 1: East Hampton, New York. And why are we here? Very funny.
Speaker 1: We're here because we had a very special opportunity to
Speaker 1: interview and really spend time with Eina Garten in her
Speaker 1: kitchen here in East Hampton, where it all happens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was really a dream come true for some of us,
Speaker 1: especially the truffled scrambled eggs that she decided to make
Speaker 1: for us. But we covered a wide range of issues
Speaker 1: from her own history. How is she able to pivot
Speaker 1: in her career too, of somebody who wrote nuclear policy right, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: for somebody who worked for the Office of Management and
Speaker 1: Budget writing papers on nuclear energy to being the queen
Speaker 1: of cookery. It all began here in the Hampton's when
Speaker 1: she bought a little food store in West Hampton called
Speaker 1: Yes the Barefoot Contest, which was named after a movie
Speaker 1: from the fifties with Ava Gardner. That's right. And then
Speaker 1: like twenty years later she pivoted to becoming a cookbook
Speaker 1: author and TV host. That's right. And uh, I know,
Speaker 1: I think is as warm and gracious in person as
Speaker 1: she appears on her television show and she has a
Speaker 1: very enviable life, don't you think, Brian, I envy it personally.
Speaker 1: So we spent a lot of time, actually the whole
Speaker 1: morning in her kitchen, talking to her about cooking, talking
Speaker 1: to her about Jeffrey, about her life and her career path.
Speaker 1: And I think people can take some lessons from Aina
Speaker 1: about taking risks. And we talked to her employee, Ldy,
Speaker 1: who probably has the second best job on the planet. Ye,
Speaker 1: this is Iinah's assistant, and she has a really instructive
Speaker 1: story to tell about how you can kind of invent
Speaker 1: your own job. By the way, we spent most of
Speaker 1: our time with Ainah sitting at her kitchen table in
Speaker 1: joint a delicious breakfast. And so if you hear some
Speaker 1: birds chirping or refrigerator humming, that's because we were there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think a little bluebird sort of perched on my
Speaker 1: shoulder at one point. You've been smelling the truffles even
Speaker 1: watching Cinderella too many times, find nickel for every time
Speaker 1: somebody accused me of that. Well, you're cooking with me, right,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna make I mean, I'd like to take
Speaker 1: something really obvious like scrambled eggs, and do it in
Speaker 1: a different way. So the two things that we're going
Speaker 1: to do that are different. One is we're going to
Speaker 1: cook it the way the French do, very very very
Speaker 1: slowly over a very low flame, and what it makes
Speaker 1: is very custody scrambled eggs. Is that? What is that?
Speaker 1: How they do it? Well, they do it in a
Speaker 1: double boiler, but we can do it in a in
Speaker 1: a pan if we're really careful. And they use a
Speaker 1: ton of butter, Yeah that's except on this case, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna use truffle butter. It's butter that has white truffles
Speaker 1: in it, and I love truffles. You do like white ones?
Speaker 1: So good? I love her things for you. There are
Speaker 1: people who are truffle haters. I don't understand that. My
Speaker 1: husband doesn't like do have that sort of Jim sucks
Speaker 1: kind of flavor? Doesn't never feel the same about trufal
Speaker 1: I ruined it for you, delicious, Jim suck. But there
Speaker 1: are these little pots of truffle butter that you can
Speaker 1: get there like eight dollars, but it's real truffle shavings
Speaker 1: in it. Yeah, that sounds delicious. Through your process for
Speaker 1: a second, how do you come up with the idea
Speaker 1: for a recipe. I mean, how does it This is
Speaker 1: a good example, actually is I start with a remembered
Speaker 1: flavor and you know we don't remember scrambled eggs and um.
Speaker 1: And then I think, how can I do it differently
Speaker 1: so it has more flavor, and how can I do
Speaker 1: it so it's simpler. I just wanted to be something
Speaker 1: you think you're gonna like, but it's better than you remember.
Speaker 1: I know I have some go to in a recipes.
Speaker 1: For example, I love the pasta pasto salad with the
Speaker 1: peas and the and the pine nuts. But when you
Speaker 1: say I just want to make something that I know
Speaker 1: is going to be delicious, what recipe do you do? Well?
Speaker 1: You know it's funny because I think about I mean,
Speaker 1: after eleven books, I've really I mean, I'm working on
Speaker 1: the eleventh now, you know. I think, well, I have
Speaker 1: have like a thousand recipes, so it must be I
Speaker 1: must be making a different thing all the time. And
Speaker 1: yet I go back to the same things that I
Speaker 1: know that I can nail. And what are the parmesan
Speaker 1: chicken with a salad on top? I think it's in
Speaker 1: family style, Yeah, it's in family style. Um. One of
Speaker 1: the things that we make all the time. This is light. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're wondering. How did you come to work with Aina
Speaker 1: U through harassment? Um. I was friends in college with
Speaker 1: someone who is the son my lawyer, Dinah's lawyer, and
Speaker 1: I wrote a letter. It was this year, my last
Speaker 1: spring of college, and I didn't know what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do, and so I wrote a letter saying, hi,
Speaker 1: and I really want to come work for you. And
Speaker 1: I sort of thought I could do social media for
Speaker 1: of her. It seemed like a natural fit. And well
Speaker 1: what happened was it? I mean, probably once every ten
Speaker 1: years we might be looking for someone, and it just
Speaker 1: happened to the moment. And what I loved about Lydie
Speaker 1: was so, I mean before I even knew her, is
Speaker 1: that she didn't graduate from Boden and say I just
Speaker 1: want a job. She graduated from Boden and said I
Speaker 1: want to have my dream job and that's working for Aina.
Speaker 1: And so she just kept harassing her friend Untilie he
Speaker 1: called his father and I said, well, how are you
Speaker 1: even going to get here? And she said, don't worry
Speaker 1: about it, I'll get there from Maine. And she showed
Speaker 1: up on her doorstep with an entire social media plan
Speaker 1: all laid out, and I just, I mean, we just felt.
Speaker 1: And then do you remember the final final straw was
Speaker 1: that I said, what what draws you crazy? In school?
Speaker 1: She said, my my roommates don't clean up the house,
Speaker 1: the kitchen and the house. Why thought you was so hired?
Speaker 1: What her brown knows? There? It was there were twelve
Speaker 1: girls living in one house. I mean, it's it's in
Speaker 1: one kitchen. And I think it's really instructive story about
Speaker 1: how you can kind of create your own job. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean you're listening for this job. And
Speaker 1: also the lessons I think people can take from what
Speaker 1: you did to going for it, being persistent, right, not
Speaker 1: taking no for an answer, and then being so prepared
Speaker 1: and not making the onus on Aina to figure out
Speaker 1: all your logistics and to come with the whole media
Speaker 1: plan well played. Like, thank you. So all you college
Speaker 1: graduates out there who may be listening to our podcast,
Speaker 1: all two of you, my daughters, you should take take
Speaker 1: this seriously because I think it's a great example of
Speaker 1: finding your bliss. As they say, and here we are.
Speaker 1: My bliss is truffle scrambled eggs. Come with me. Okay, so, um,
Speaker 1: are you in charge of the recipe. So when we
Speaker 1: test a recipe, what we do is read every single
Speaker 1: word to make sure it's specific thicken, it's exactly the
Speaker 1: right word. So okay, I read what was that's a
Speaker 1: medium um sautae pan? Right? Do you place some medium
Speaker 1: ten inch sautapan over? Like? Well? Ten inch is very
Speaker 1: helpful because I wouldn't know how big a medium sawta pana.
Speaker 1: Thank you. That's exactly right because you never know. And
Speaker 1: then you turn it on low heat. So is it
Speaker 1: two tablespoons or three? It says um? Two table spoons? Oh? No,
Speaker 1: one and a half tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature.
Speaker 1: Now why unsalted? I know? Um? Do you know? I
Speaker 1: think you can control the salt better if you start
Speaker 1: with unsalted butter and then add salt because different kinds
Speaker 1: of butter have different amount of salt and salt. You know,
Speaker 1: I think the two most important ingredients that anybody used,
Speaker 1: You're gonna tell me butter and salts. Third, the two
Speaker 1: most important ingredients in that cooking every single person has
Speaker 1: in their house. Salt and pepper. They make all that
Speaker 1: you can taste, like chicken stock that has no salt
Speaker 1: in it tastes like dirty dishwater. You put salt in it,
Speaker 1: it tastes like full, rich vegetables and chicken and wonderful flavor.
Speaker 1: So that's a huge mistake that home cooks make all
Speaker 1: the time. They're afraid of salt. And this whole thing
Speaker 1: about salt is totally different now. I mean, everybody thought
Speaker 1: that salt was bad for you, but it turns out
Speaker 1: too little salt has a higher incidence of heart attack
Speaker 1: and stroke, and too much salt has so apparently exactly
Speaker 1: by the way, I know, what I think is so
Speaker 1: exciting about cooking, and the little I I cook is
Speaker 1: all the delicious salts you can get. Now, someone introduced
Speaker 1: me Bobby Flay not to day dropped tolden salt. Yeah
Speaker 1: it is texture of its delicious. And also this one
Speaker 1: I love. This is oh I have that you're doing?
Speaker 1: Isn't it's just do you have it? It's just a
Speaker 1: great hostess gift if you're coming to a Yeah, it
Speaker 1: sounds flour decent. It's really really good. Okay, who's in
Speaker 1: charge of cracking eggs? Will? Okay? That? So I need
Speaker 1: eight eggs? Eight eggs? How's that excellent. Now do you
Speaker 1: take the little white thing that's attached to the yolk off?
Speaker 1: My mom always did you know that little white stringy
Speaker 1: thing that is attacked attached to the yolk? You don't? Well,
Speaker 1: now I don't have to you don't. You're free. That's
Speaker 1: true what it is. But we always took it off.
Speaker 1: Actually when do we both do it? Actually, one thing
Speaker 1: I do is I crack it here so you don't
Speaker 1: get chills with me. That's smart, she says. So the
Speaker 1: recipe says, in a large bowl, whisk together the eggs,
Speaker 1: half and half, one teaspoon of salt and a quarter
Speaker 1: teaspoon of pepper. Okay, so who's in charge of whisking?
Speaker 1: Good nice whisky? Brian, Thanks Katie. How a lot of
Speaker 1: whisking practice. How much salt and one and a half
Speaker 1: teaspoons of salts on a quarter of pepper? I like
Speaker 1: having a recipe reader. So wow, that's a good amount
Speaker 1: of pepper. But it looks great. So you have to
Speaker 1: be careful when you are. When it comes to putting
Speaker 1: butter in a pan, don't you wind it? Well? Sometimes
Speaker 1: you want to burn it if you want brown butter,
Speaker 1: which is burning waste is Um, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: great thing to use like in vegetables because it has
Speaker 1: that kind of like a little sort of burnt butter flavors,
Speaker 1: which is natty. It's nutty. That's exactly right. That's why
Speaker 1: it's called theistte, not not nutty butter. I think in
Speaker 1: English it doesn't work. It was interesting and preparing for
Speaker 1: this show, I read that your mother had a kind
Speaker 1: of a dietetic background and you grew up which she
Speaker 1: was a dietitian, not being able to eat a lot
Speaker 1: of carbs or butter or where did you find that
Speaker 1: you did some research. My mother was obsessive about food,
Speaker 1: so we weren't let any carbs, we weren't let any butter.
Speaker 1: We had margarine. Um, she just kind of got dinner
Speaker 1: on the table and I was wouldn't let you cook,
Speaker 1: She wouldn't let me cook, And and her idea of
Speaker 1: a great dessert was an apple. That just doesn't work.
Speaker 1: That's so funny. So is this the ultimate rebellion? It's
Speaker 1: the ultimate rebellion. I'm still working at my issues from
Speaker 1: my parents, but that's funny that that she just just
Speaker 1: and she felt like your job was to make good grades.
Speaker 1: To study and not to help in the kitchen, right exactly. Okay,
Speaker 1: here we go. I'm just gonna pour it in. This
Speaker 1: is the eggs, including the show. I must have done that, No,
Speaker 1: that must have been me. That's how you know it's
Speaker 1: real eggs. There's a little crunch in it. So again,
Speaker 1: this is very very very low heat. I'm gonna let
Speaker 1: it just sit, okay until it just starts to heat
Speaker 1: up a little bit, until it's a little warm, and
Speaker 1: you'll see what happens in the meantime. What about don't
Speaker 1: we need a little brioche toast to put this on? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: I think so. Just's sort of very similar to hollow,
Speaker 1: isn't it. It is waspy hollow. That's really great. So
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna do some slices, and then what we'll
Speaker 1: do is we'll put the eggs right on the brioche toast,
Speaker 1: will put some slices in the toaster. Let's see. So
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do now is just as it's cooking,
Speaker 1: just sort of fold the bottom over the top, and
Speaker 1: then as it heats up a little bit. And in
Speaker 1: case you don't benefit of being here, which I assume
Speaker 1: you don't, we're talking to you on the podcast. The
Speaker 1: eggs are just beginning to come together, but they're still
Speaker 1: mostly liquid. Was gonna say, you're cheering for the eggs.
Speaker 1: I'm rooting for the eggs. So are you stirring? Ye?
Speaker 1: Are you in charge of stirring? Sure? Just make sure
Speaker 1: that you get the eggs off the bottom of the pants. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's where they're going to tend to. Okay, And do
Speaker 1: you stir this constantly? Pretty much? A little bit? Yeah? Ok?
Speaker 1: And then I think the more you stir at, the
Speaker 1: more slowly. Yeah, more slowly. It heats up. And because
Speaker 1: eggs are protein, and if you cook protein in a temperature,
Speaker 1: it tends to get tough. This is so interesting. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to ever make scramp And it's such a
Speaker 1: simple thing to do, and yet it really you wit
Speaker 1: you taste it, it just transforms. It just transforms it.
Speaker 1: And one of the things too, is to cook it
Speaker 1: until it's just undercooked, because it's gonna as it sits,
Speaker 1: it's going to continue to cook. You know, you've said
Speaker 1: something very funny once. You said you can feel bad
Speaker 1: before you eat a cookie, you can feel bad after
Speaker 1: you eat a cookie. But nobody feels cookie, And I'm
Speaker 1: just curious, you know, since there's since people are so
Speaker 1: sort of health obsessed. Now, Aina, do you ever feel
Speaker 1: pressure to come up with the ways of cooking delicious
Speaker 1: things that aren't quite as rench. I do, and I
Speaker 1: mean I do anyway, because I don't think anybody wants
Speaker 1: all rich things for dinner. So for example, last night,
Speaker 1: I did short ribs on a bed of um blue
Speaker 1: cheese grits for dinner, but then I did a coffee
Speaker 1: granita for dessert. So you balance things, you know, you
Speaker 1: want you want things to be crisp and fresh, and
Speaker 1: I made roasted broccolini, so it was so very simple vegetable.
Speaker 1: And you're doing really well. I'm seeing how interesting is
Speaker 1: it's really just starting to like cook a little bit
Speaker 1: without actually big those big crumbles of scrambled eggs. And
Speaker 1: you know what, one thing I know I was going
Speaker 1: to bring up, you know, because I I'm sort of
Speaker 1: obsessed with I try to eat healthy and all that,
Speaker 1: and one of the things time about that, but one
Speaker 1: of the things that they've studies that they found is
Speaker 1: you're much more sated if you do have food if
Speaker 1: you eat some fat, because it makes you less hungry later,
Speaker 1: and so as opposed to an entire box of cookies.
Speaker 1: So I start disgusting those low fat cookies have the
Speaker 1: real sugar, and they replace the fat with sugar. But
Speaker 1: I think that people don't need to be afraid necessarily
Speaker 1: of having some some rich food or some fat, as
Speaker 1: long as long as it's abound. Right. Okay, how's it?
Speaker 1: It's absolutely perfect. See how custody it is. Now, So
Speaker 1: the next thing I want to do is put in
Speaker 1: a tablespoon or two, depending on how we feel, so
Speaker 1: one or two tablespoons of truffle butter. Okay, it's just
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have this. Isn't it good? Should we taste it?
Speaker 1: Make sure it's okay? Here, I want to make sure
Speaker 1: the truffle butter is all permeated in the eggs. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Make sure it's and the toast is almost ready. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's give this a try, Brian. Okay, when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're gonna sit at INA's kitchen table and enjoy the
Speaker 1: fruits of her well our labor, I guess. And now
Speaker 1: back to our interview with Dinah Garden. So good, so good,
Speaker 1: it's so good, and it's just scrambled eggs, but it's
Speaker 1: done in a different way and a shall we sit him?
Speaker 1: It's almost risotto better and faster? Now would you put
Speaker 1: herbs on top of that? I do? Actually I am
Speaker 1: Why do you should mention it? Katie? I actually have
Speaker 1: some um chives? Because can I just say? I have
Speaker 1: serious garden empty? I'm looking garden. Oh my god. The
Speaker 1: first thing up in the spring is the chive. I'm
Speaker 1: looking out on your garden. You have gosh how many
Speaker 1: rectangles out there? Like fifteen or six of gosh o twenty?
Speaker 1: And you what do you grow out there? In flowers?
Speaker 1: And every year it's different tomatoes, lots of tomatoes. I
Speaker 1: love cherry totos. That's so much. Shall we sit? Yes?
Speaker 1: Let's so. When I told people in that I was
Speaker 1: coming here, after everybody told me how jealous they were.
Speaker 1: The second thing everybody said was, well, you got to
Speaker 1: ask about Jeffrey. Everybody's obsessed with Jeffrey and your relationship
Speaker 1: with Jeffrey and how you have this kind of perfect
Speaker 1: storybook marat Well. And we were coming through the airport
Speaker 1: in England and the guy checking passports in London um
Speaker 1: looked looked at his passport and he said, it's you.
Speaker 1: You're the one. He said. My wife is always saying,
Speaker 1: why can't you be more like Jeffrey Garten? That is
Speaker 1: so funny. But you guys have a I mean, Jeffrey
Speaker 1: is still teaching at Yale right and I was the
Speaker 1: dean of the business school for ten years and he's
Speaker 1: been teaching for a bad ten or twelve. So is
Speaker 1: he So he's not here during the week, he's not.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, he comes and goes, but usually
Speaker 1: he's night here during the week. Yeah, but seriously, is
Speaker 1: that the makes the heart grow? Far from New York
Speaker 1: during the week? So we you know, we see each
Speaker 1: other like Tuesday Wednesday night. So yeah, it's it's no,
Speaker 1: that's not the secret. The secret is that you just
Speaker 1: take care of each other and you admire each other
Speaker 1: and support each other and and you get that back.
Speaker 1: You met him when you were a teenager and you
Speaker 1: were visiting your or at dartmoun was we did our homework.
Speaker 1: I want to apologize that people hear me chewing, I
Speaker 1: feel terrible if you weren't, if he went, I don't
Speaker 1: want to eat this. So how old were you? I
Speaker 1: was sixteen, I was fifteen. I was sixteen known at
Speaker 1: him and uh he came to he saw me walking
Speaker 1: around the campus. Um, he said to somebody, his roommate, UM,
Speaker 1: I wonder who that girl is. Now. You have to understand,
Speaker 1: Dartmouth is all men at the time, so I was
Speaker 1: like the only girl walking around and that was much
Speaker 1: competition exactly. It wasn't like I was mac Fierce and
Speaker 1: walking around Dartmoun And six months later showed up at
Speaker 1: my doorstep, which is amazing that he remembered. And Uh, anyway,
Speaker 1: you and Jeffrey never had kids, And did you spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time with other people's kids or did
Speaker 1: you just not have that desire so much? I mean
Speaker 1: we we didn't. We decided not to children. Um. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate that other people do, and we always have
Speaker 1: friends that have children that were close to But it
Speaker 1: just was a choice I made very early. A lot
Speaker 1: of my married friends who don't have children, or some
Speaker 1: of them who don't have children. Um, children, right, yes,
Speaker 1: but but they also feel like I did a whole
Speaker 1: talk show on this when I had my my talk
Speaker 1: show about the kind of how society sort of treats
Speaker 1: couples who have decided not to have kids, and were
Speaker 1: you ever faced with that? Did people ever to kind
Speaker 1: of judge you at all? I never felt like people
Speaker 1: did that. People did. Um. I think the one thing
Speaker 1: that we missed is a lot of people's friends are
Speaker 1: the parents of their kids friends. So we never had
Speaker 1: that connection with other people that I see a lot
Speaker 1: of that network that network exactly. UM. But no, I
Speaker 1: just I never felt judged by it. Maybe people did,
Speaker 1: but I didn't notice. But I really felt I feel
Speaker 1: that I would never have been able to have the
Speaker 1: life I've had. Um. And so it's a choice, you know,
Speaker 1: that was the choice I made, you said, saying that
Speaker 1: really struck me. You were asked at some event, you know,
Speaker 1: what issues do you have in your marriage or how
Speaker 1: do you overcome the issues in your marriage? And you said,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't have dogs and cats and kids
Speaker 1: and things that make it messy. We don't have We
Speaker 1: don't actually because I mean we you know, we have
Speaker 1: respect for each other. And if Jeffrey and I disagree
Speaker 1: on something, he always agrees with me. I let that
Speaker 1: reminds me of a toast. Here's to you, here's to me,
Speaker 1: And if we disagree, screw you heres to me. You
Speaker 1: can use that very ay, it's a very appropriate Easter Sunday,
Speaker 1: you can that. I also think one of the nice
Speaker 1: things about Jeffrey, among many nice things, is he really
Speaker 1: encouraged you to do what you love and totally some
Speaker 1: people know this, some people don't ee up. But I
Speaker 1: always find it fascinating that you actually were writing nuclear
Speaker 1: policy for the White House. It was for a period
Speaker 1: of time, so clearly you're a bit of a brainiac.
Speaker 1: Now give that jump to anybody, But what what drew
Speaker 1: you to do that? And how did how did you
Speaker 1: land that job? I was really interested in science, and
Speaker 1: I had a job doing legislative work um in an
Speaker 1: Office of Management and Budget for two years, where all
Speaker 1: the legislation comes to you have to write up a
Speaker 1: paper for the president with you know, recommendation, whether he
Speaker 1: signs the legislation or not. UM. Scary that they give
Speaker 1: that to twenty five year olds, but that's what I did.
Speaker 1: But I was really interested in science, So after two
Speaker 1: years I switched over to the science and technology area
Speaker 1: and they assigned nuclear energy budgets to me. No idea
Speaker 1: so much. It was really interesting and I really got
Speaker 1: a sense of what I wanted to do and what
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do, right because because and you
Speaker 1: didn't want to do that. You know, one of the
Speaker 1: things I, oh, this sounds so crazy, but the one
Speaker 1: of the things I was sure I wanted in my
Speaker 1: next life. Because you had to get dressed up. I
Speaker 1: mean you had to wear silk blouses and heels and
Speaker 1: stock that the arrow when we wore little ties around
Speaker 1: our profession. It was such a that exactly, it was
Speaker 1: the seventies, that's exactly. I mean, women who wanted to
Speaker 1: be taken seriously, you know, got dressed up. And I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: I just want a job where I can wear sneakers,
Speaker 1: And here I am sneakers and actually usually I'm in
Speaker 1: my bedroom slippers. But even better, I'm decided to dress
Speaker 1: up for us dressed. But finally you were like, you
Speaker 1: know what, I don't really love this. And Jeffrey said something, really,
Speaker 1: I think that transformed you. It totally transformed me. And
Speaker 1: he's always so encouraging. He said, I came home one
Speaker 1: day from I said, I just this isn't me, This
Speaker 1: isn't what I really want to do. And he said,
Speaker 1: pick something that you think would be fun. Pick something
Speaker 1: that would you know, don't worry about whether you make money.
Speaker 1: Just pick something would be fun. If it's fun, you'll
Speaker 1: be really good at it if you love doing it.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, funny. She that I've seen this
Speaker 1: ad for a business for sale in the New York
Speaker 1: Times and it was a tiny specialty food store for
Speaker 1: sale in a place I've never been. And he said,
Speaker 1: let's go look at it. And that was in West
Speaker 1: Hampton's And when that was the Barefoot contest called the
Speaker 1: bare Contessa, but named after a movie with Ava Gardner.
Speaker 1: It was named after there was a movie with Ava
Speaker 1: Gardner and the owner when she was a little girl
Speaker 1: that used to call it the Bear for Contessa because
Speaker 1: she was Italian. So she named the store of the
Speaker 1: Bear for Contessa. And you you went and saw it,
Speaker 1: and you get offered. You made an offer the next
Speaker 1: right then and there, and I walked into the store
Speaker 1: and they were baking cookies. I thought, I want to
Speaker 1: be here. And I made her a low offer, thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: she'll come back, we'll negotiate, we'll have time to think
Speaker 1: about it. And um. She called me the next day
Speaker 1: in my office and said, thank you very much. I
Speaker 1: accept your offer, and I remember going, oh, ship, I
Speaker 1: was one of my boss's office and said, I think
Speaker 1: I just bought a food store. And you did that
Speaker 1: for how long? Eighteen years? Wow? A long time, which
Speaker 1: was fun, I mean. And and when I stopped doing that,
Speaker 1: I thought, I don't you know, I thought it was
Speaker 1: time to do something else. I've done that for a
Speaker 1: long time, and I thought it's really time to do
Speaker 1: something else. But I just didn't know what it was there.
Speaker 1: And you just back up for a second in the chronology,
Speaker 1: how did you get excited about food and cooking? Because
Speaker 1: we heard that you grew up in a house where
Speaker 1: food was not special, and I think I was starving.
Speaker 1: I think I was always hungry. And you took this
Speaker 1: trip to France with Jeffrey. We went on a camping trip.
Speaker 1: We had four months with nothing to do and no money,
Speaker 1: and we decided the only thing we could afford is
Speaker 1: a tent and sleeping bags, and so we took a
Speaker 1: four month trip to France. And I remember coming into
Speaker 1: in Normandy into a campsite and it was kind of
Speaker 1: late in the afternoon, and the woman who owned the
Speaker 1: camp site said, I just made I think it was
Speaker 1: Coco van for my husband or before or something like that,
Speaker 1: and would you like some for dinner. I was like yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember thinking I need to know how to make this.
Speaker 1: And I came home and after this trip and we
Speaker 1: and I just budget the Chounts mastering the art of
Speaker 1: French cooking Wow, and started cooking while I was working
Speaker 1: in Washington. That's what I would do at night as
Speaker 1: cook and then I would have people over for dinner
Speaker 1: on the weekends. And I think that's why when I
Speaker 1: was doing nuclear energy during the day and cooking at night,
Speaker 1: and I thought, wait, this is crazy. I want to
Speaker 1: do that. So that's how that's kind of how it started.
Speaker 1: I also thought it was interesting that when I know
Speaker 1: you were making a decision after eighteen years running and
Speaker 1: owning and cooking and baking the coconut cupcakes and still
Speaker 1: obsessed with at the Terrify Contessa. By the way, they
Speaker 1: were about the size of my head in cocakes, you decided,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to I want to do something else,
Speaker 1: or I want to transition into some other aspect of
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. And you took a year off because
Speaker 1: someone said to you, can you figure out what you
Speaker 1: want to do? Next if you don't have time to
Speaker 1: really think about it, because I think many of us
Speaker 1: feel like you can't get another job unless you have
Speaker 1: a job is somehow you're less desirable. But that year
Speaker 1: off was really important to you. But you said it
Speaker 1: was the hardest year of your life. It's the hardest
Speaker 1: year of my life because I went from like baking
Speaker 1: athasm me guests and having customers coming to the store
Speaker 1: and the energy and sort of I always felt like
Speaker 1: the store felt like a party, like when you walked
Speaker 1: into the party, like the music was on and the
Speaker 1: coffee was there, and I'd forgotten that something's got to
Speaker 1: give that scene that was filmed in the store, isn't it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I just I thought, well, for a while, I
Speaker 1: tried to figure out what to do next, and I
Speaker 1: just couldn't figure it out. And this friend said, you
Speaker 1: have to stop type A. People think they can figure
Speaker 1: out what they're going to do next while they're doing something,
Speaker 1: and they can't. And I was like, Okay. I built
Speaker 1: myself in office upstairs and then I had nothing to do,
Speaker 1: I mean like nothing. So for a year and out
Speaker 1: of complete boredom, I thought, well, very said, well, stay
Speaker 1: in the food business. You love the food business. And
Speaker 1: I thought, well, people have asked me to write a cookbook,
Speaker 1: but that's not the kind of thing I want to do.
Speaker 1: So because I can't imagine i'd be able to write
Speaker 1: a cookbook, and it seemed like a very solitary thing
Speaker 1: as opposed to the store, which is very social and
Speaker 1: fun and up. And um, I thought, well, at least
Speaker 1: after a year, at least I have something to do.
Speaker 1: So I wrote a book proposal, thinking maybe I'll do
Speaker 1: that while I'm figuring out what to do next. And
Speaker 1: you ended up loving it. Can we pause for two
Speaker 1: seconds so people can hear me take a bite of
Speaker 1: my breathe delicious? Okay, sorry, go ahead. The eggs don't
Speaker 1: make much sound, but the areas definitely does. That was
Speaker 1: both affected and totally genuine. So and you ended up
Speaker 1: loving the process of writing cookbooks, loving it and loving
Speaker 1: the people you were working with. It turns out it's
Speaker 1: not a solitary thing because there when we do the photographs,
Speaker 1: there's you. You have to have a sense of design,
Speaker 1: You have to know where you want to go. The
Speaker 1: photographers and the stylists and the remember the first time
Speaker 1: right here in this kitchen. Actually, I did a photo
Speaker 1: shoot with the food stylist. I thought what a food
Speaker 1: stylist did was like I would make the food, they
Speaker 1: would um, put it on a plate, and then they
Speaker 1: would die. They would exactly exactly, or brush it with
Speaker 1: motor roy or somebody like that. And I was terrified
Speaker 1: because I thought, how I have to make every single
Speaker 1: recipe in this book for somebody to photographs. And I'm
Speaker 1: standing behind this counter and I'm going, okay, what do
Speaker 1: you want first? And the food style is said, I'm
Speaker 1: the one who does the cooking, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is great. And so she made everything in the book,
Speaker 1: and the prop stylus brought the perfect plate, and um,
Speaker 1: the photographer was just wonderful. And I remember thinking, this
Speaker 1: is so much fun and so creative and so interesting,
Speaker 1: and you know, I hope somebody's going to buy this
Speaker 1: book so I can do it again. And now eleven
Speaker 1: books later, well, I guess you're coming out. I've done
Speaker 1: ten and I'm working on the eleven. What is the
Speaker 1: eleventh going to be called? You're not going to tell
Speaker 1: you have to come back? Can you give us a hint?
Speaker 1: We have recipes in it? Can I tell you why
Speaker 1: I think your cookbooks are so great. I think you know,
Speaker 1: don't tell me. I think you acknowledge, unlike a lot
Speaker 1: of other people, that entertaining is difficult and stressful and
Speaker 1: anxiety producing, and you make it so that you can
Speaker 1: kind of go step by step through the process and
Speaker 1: figure out how you're not going to be a nervous
Speaker 1: wreck when people show up, and the food is going
Speaker 1: to be delicious, and it's going to be done pretty
Speaker 1: much when people walk in the door. And I think
Speaker 1: that's pretty uncommon for cookbooks, which sort of expect you
Speaker 1: to be standing over a hot stove while you're supposed
Speaker 1: to be simultaneously entertaining people. Is that the well, you know,
Speaker 1: the irony is. I remember thinking going into the cookbook business,
Speaker 1: what makes me think that I can write a cookbook
Speaker 1: when great restaurant chefs write cookbooks. But I realized very
Speaker 1: quickly I knew two things that restaurant chefs didn't know.
Speaker 1: One is I'm not a trained professional cook. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've cooked more than most people, but I'm really I
Speaker 1: never went to see a culinary institute c I A.
Speaker 1: I never went to really formal training, so I know
Speaker 1: it's really stressful for me to cook, So it's important
Speaker 1: for me that it's really simple to make. And the
Speaker 1: other thing is when you own a specially food store,
Speaker 1: you find out what people like to eat at home
Speaker 1: as opposed to in restaurants. So you'd like to eat
Speaker 1: coconut cupcakes, roast chicken, roast carrots. Um, when you got
Speaker 1: to a restaurant, you want something a little more challenging
Speaker 1: like Rosa buco, or you want something like um uh,
Speaker 1: will you bez which is harder to make at home.
Speaker 1: So um, so is that sort of your motto or
Speaker 1: your atics? Simplicity A totally simplicity as much as possible.
Speaker 1: That it's if it's something that I make and we
Speaker 1: that night, my assistant Barbara goes home and makes it
Speaker 1: for her family. I think, yes, that was a great recipe. Um.
Speaker 1: If if I make something and three quarters of the
Speaker 1: way through I get bored with it, it goes in
Speaker 1: the trash and never makes it in a book, it
Speaker 1: has to be something I'm willing to make again for company.
Speaker 1: Let me pick up mine on something Brian said. Because
Speaker 1: I do try to entertain and what I find myself
Speaker 1: totally pittying out about which is so appealing, and talking
Speaker 1: about cooking is getting everything ready at once, and I'm
Speaker 1: so bad at that, Like I can do most of it,
Speaker 1: but then I panic at the end. Well that's part
Speaker 1: of the deal too. I mean, it's not like I
Speaker 1: don't either. Jeffrey knows in the fifteen minutes before people arrived,
Speaker 1: I'm always going to talk to me, do you do
Speaker 1: you try to do dishes that I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: I try and do. I try and do something that's
Speaker 1: in the oven, something that's on top of the stoves
Speaker 1: and they're not competing with each other, and something I
Speaker 1: made an advance that um is served room temperature so
Speaker 1: that you don't have to think about having all those
Speaker 1: things hot at the same time. That's that's good advice.
Speaker 1: So it's really about the planning more than it is
Speaker 1: the doing. It's if you plan it and you say UM,
Speaker 1: and you plan it carefully, you don't end up with
Speaker 1: one of and and two things that go in a
Speaker 1: different temperatures. But that goes back to the you know
Speaker 1: what I call the game plan. And if you do
Speaker 1: the game plan and you figure it out so like
Speaker 1: you plant your dinner parties like the Normandy invasion, which
Speaker 1: are very helpful. Actually, you know, every time people come
Speaker 1: for dinner, and I have a whole written list of
Speaker 1: like seven ten, put the ham in the oven, seven thirty,
Speaker 1: take the ham out, put the broccoli, and then I
Speaker 1: don't go at at noon. I'm I'm not panicking. I
Speaker 1: should start cooking now. No, I'm not. I shouldn't start
Speaker 1: cooking because my list says it starts at five thirty.
Speaker 1: That's really that's really smart. It's pretty simple. But it's
Speaker 1: such a great way to organize yourself. But you can
Speaker 1: also start in the morning if you want to make
Speaker 1: like a water or melon and fedan mint salad or
Speaker 1: whatever you might do, and you can do it and
Speaker 1: put it in the reference. It's actually better because all
Speaker 1: the flavors get to get YEA. So beyond the cookbooks
Speaker 1: and the TV show, you briefly had a line of products,
Speaker 1: both frozen foods and mixes did and then those kind
Speaker 1: of came and went well for different reasons. But I
Speaker 1: love the products. I was really proud of what we did.
Speaker 1: But the companies changed, and um, we didn't. We didn't
Speaker 1: love the way the direction of the companies were going
Speaker 1: in and I just I love what I do. I
Speaker 1: love the cookbooks, I love the TV show, I love
Speaker 1: um having a life, having time left off life, and uh,
Speaker 1: I just if it's not making me happy, I don't
Speaker 1: want to do it. I think that's a really powerful
Speaker 1: lesson from your life for other people. You you edit,
Speaker 1: I did constantly, and you just think, if I'm not
Speaker 1: enjoying this part of my life, I'm going to get
Speaker 1: rid of it. If it doesn't make me happy, it's
Speaker 1: not gonna make anybody else happy. I think it's um
Speaker 1: that really translate. And if I don't have time to
Speaker 1: do things gonna say, I think it's this much about
Speaker 1: spreading yourself too thin. I went to this meditation retreat.
Speaker 1: I know you're learning so much about people. I didn't
Speaker 1: really stick, but they told us that the Maharishi's that
Speaker 1: he said, what do you think the most important word
Speaker 1: for happy life is no, no peacefulness, no discernment. Discernment
Speaker 1: isn't that interesting? So deciding what is important, deciding how
Speaker 1: you're going to spend your time, And clearly you practice
Speaker 1: that by saying I don't want to do so much
Speaker 1: that perhaps it'll keep me from doing the things I love. Well, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's exactly I mean, he said that I'd like you
Speaker 1: to bring back the scone mix. I'll make some mix
Speaker 1: for you and I'll drop it off. That's well, that's
Speaker 1: what I mean. I was really proud of those products.
Speaker 1: I thought we did a really good job and we
Speaker 1: worked really hard on them. But unless the company is
Speaker 1: going to stay with the quality of what we wanted
Speaker 1: to do, then it doesn't work. But you talk about
Speaker 1: how people come to you all the time with this
Speaker 1: proposals and you say no to almost all of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I say no almost all of them. I mean, people
Speaker 1: wanted me to design a line of clothing. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I wear the same thing every day. They did want
Speaker 1: you to do. Somebody want to make a clothing. Somebody
Speaker 1: wanted me to do furniture. I'm like, furniture, well, I
Speaker 1: think you know what they wanted to do in it,
Speaker 1: which I think you see more and more of these days.
Speaker 1: They wanted you to be a lifestyle brand, and you
Speaker 1: see so many people becoming from Jessica Alba to Race
Speaker 1: Witherspoon Paltrow the ultimate lifestyle brand, and that just didn't
Speaker 1: appeal to you. I just I mean, I loved as
Speaker 1: you say, I love doing what I do really well
Speaker 1: and having life, you know, just having a wonderful Somebody
Speaker 1: asked me if I would do a line of fertilizer,
Speaker 1: did you say, just go to a cow past ship, Like,
Speaker 1: why would I do? Do you do you think of yourself?
Speaker 1: And it's different from fertilizer to you? Do you do? You?
Speaker 1: I consider yourself a feminist. You're a powerful working woman.
Speaker 1: I yeah, I do. Um I think that. Um My.
Speaker 1: When I left working in the White House, I knew
Speaker 1: I was never going to be the head of that organization.
Speaker 1: This was the seventies. It was never going to happen.
Speaker 1: And the only way that I was going to determine
Speaker 1: my own future was to do it myself. And so
Speaker 1: I think my decision to own my own business was
Speaker 1: part of that. Is that and I think a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of women fight with the existing system
Speaker 1: rather than creating their own system. And amen to that, sister,
Speaker 1: don't you think? So you can't change the system, and
Speaker 1: maybe you can move it a little bit, but it's
Speaker 1: very hard to change. And so I've always chosen to
Speaker 1: to create my own system in I can be successful.
Speaker 1: And I think you were ahead of your time, because
Speaker 1: now I think there's a much more entrepreneurial attitude among people,
Speaker 1: and obviously we all know whole new businesses are popping
Speaker 1: up because of technology, and women are very successful in corporations.
Speaker 1: But in the seventies that's not true. That wasn't true, right,
Speaker 1: But even now, Uh, you look at the number of
Speaker 1: CEOs and the fortune five hundred and spathetically small. If
Speaker 1: you look at you know, of course it is women,
Speaker 1: and the women's pretty well not right. If you look
Speaker 1: at women actually in tech and high positions in tech,
Speaker 1: it's actually dis worse and so um, yes, it's gotten
Speaker 1: perhaps better, but in many ways the obstacles are still there.
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of subtle sexism too in
Speaker 1: the workplace that can be very demoralizing at times. But
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's people. I'm saving that from my book
Speaker 1: the next podcast. But it's interesting. You're rand is kind
Speaker 1: of a combination of the old fashioned and the modern.
Speaker 1: You're you're cooking for your husband. Your latest book was
Speaker 1: called Cooking for Jeffrey. But at the same time, you're
Speaker 1: a powerful, independent female business owner, thank you. So it's
Speaker 1: interesting I think that people can can have both and
Speaker 1: can can sort of reflect their values in a multitude
Speaker 1: of different ways. Well, I think Jeffrey's advice really was
Speaker 1: great is do what you love and if you love it,
Speaker 1: you'll be very good at it. But it's not it's
Speaker 1: not without risk. And we got a voicemail from someone,
Speaker 1: It's a very sweet voicemail who wanted to talk to
Speaker 1: you about your decision to really switch career. So let's
Speaker 1: listen and you can respond. Hi, Katie and Brian. My
Speaker 1: name is Kendra. I live in North Carolina and I
Speaker 1: have a new listener to your show and love it
Speaker 1: so much. And then I heard you were going to
Speaker 1: have Find a Garden on the show, which made me
Speaker 1: jump up and down. Um I have a question for
Speaker 1: her about her relationship with risk. I'm all is moved
Speaker 1: by women who make choices that are daring, who are troublazers,
Speaker 1: who do things that they might fail at, especially in
Speaker 1: the public eye. And so I I would love to
Speaker 1: know Dina's thoughts on her journey, the evolution of her
Speaker 1: journey of risk and failure when she opened that first
Speaker 1: shop in the Hanton years ago and up to now. Um,
Speaker 1: I would love to just open her head and write
Speaker 1: out what she thinks about risk to inspire me to
Speaker 1: not be so free, So please change my life. I
Speaker 1: thank you. Guys. We don't want to open up your
Speaker 1: head because that sounds very uncomfortable. But you know, I
Speaker 1: think people um stand at the side of the pond
Speaker 1: talking about what the pond is. Is it too hot?
Speaker 1: Is it too cold? Is it deep? Is it all
Speaker 1: the things are there? Think murky things under there? Um,
Speaker 1: I think that you have to just jump in the
Speaker 1: pond and answer to Kendra. Um. I have a very
Speaker 1: low threshold of boredom. If I'm bored, I need to
Speaker 1: change things. And I just I can't stand being bored,
Speaker 1: and so I'll take a risk which heightens your awareness
Speaker 1: of what you're doing. It makes you a little scared,
Speaker 1: and you know that. I think that's good being a
Speaker 1: little scared, because if it keeps you up at night,
Speaker 1: you'll figure out the problems. But when you're jumping in
Speaker 1: the pond, it's not that you're just going to stay
Speaker 1: in that pond. That's just the beginning of it. It's
Speaker 1: then you look over there and you go the ponds
Speaker 1: really interesting over there. So you go in that direction
Speaker 1: and then you go in another direction. And you keep
Speaker 1: going until you find the stream that feels right to you.
Speaker 1: So it's not a one time thing. It's just you're
Speaker 1: just pushing yourself off the cliff and going where it
Speaker 1: takes you. And even and I like being scared, and
Speaker 1: and and also I think failure is not the worst things.
Speaker 1: If something doesn't work out, you learn from it and
Speaker 1: it helps you move forward in a different way. Don't
Speaker 1: you think I just calling it a failure is the
Speaker 1: wrong way to think about it. It's just a lesson learned,
Speaker 1: and you go and and then you find out what
Speaker 1: worked in that and what didn't work, and then you
Speaker 1: go to the thing that worked or the thing that
Speaker 1: you liked and go in that direction. You're right, we
Speaker 1: need to we need to redefine failure to stop using
Speaker 1: the effort. I want to ask you a question about
Speaker 1: all those years before you ventured off on your own
Speaker 1: as a cookbook writer and a TV star. You know,
Speaker 1: you you were owning and operating this shop. You were
Speaker 1: kind of serving wealthy summer residents, and you became part
Speaker 1: of the community of people who live here year round,
Speaker 1: who don't have mansions on the ocean. Did that teach
Speaker 1: you something about inequality or divides in the country because
Speaker 1: you've been able to sort of traverse both those worlds.
Speaker 1: While East Hampton is not just wealthy people with big
Speaker 1: houses on the ocean. Their farmers and fishermen and builders
Speaker 1: and all the trades that exist anywhere else are here. Um.
Speaker 1: I think East Hampton has gotten I mean, the Hampton's
Speaker 1: have gotten a reputation from you know TV shows as
Speaker 1: being just you know, well healthy people behaving badly. Um.
Speaker 1: And so I think it's a you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: like any community. There's a broad spectrum of people that
Speaker 1: live here, and they all love coconut cupcakes, and so
Speaker 1: it's you know, the price of admission to bear for
Speaker 1: Contesta with zero you can wander through and have some
Speaker 1: samples of coconut cupcakes and and and be out on
Speaker 1: the street. Or you can buy a baguette for a
Speaker 1: few dollars and have a wonderful time. So they're like
Speaker 1: everyday pleasures. It's not like, um, you know, buying a
Speaker 1: mansion on the beach. So I think, you know, food
Speaker 1: appeals to everybody, and I like that kind of feeling
Speaker 1: about it. There's an expression these days. I think my
Speaker 1: daughter taught me food porn, and when it comes to
Speaker 1: things like Instagram and even the various food networks, there's
Speaker 1: something so mesmerizing about watching people cook and make food.
Speaker 1: And I could watch some of these videos on Instagram
Speaker 1: and we don't love them. Yeah, I mean all day long.
Speaker 1: Many people watch these videos. Would never cook what they're watching, No,
Speaker 1: but it's just so much fun. Why do you think
Speaker 1: people are so Do you think it's escapism in a
Speaker 1: weird way? Ina, I think that we all long for
Speaker 1: that mother who's in the kitchen cooking for us, and
Speaker 1: she's not there anymore. And there's that center where somebody's
Speaker 1: rolling out pasta or cooking roasting a chicken, and she's
Speaker 1: a doctor and a lawyer and a you know, you know,
Speaker 1: doing podcasts. Someone say more um, and so that sort
Speaker 1: of core of us is missing. That is mom home
Speaker 1: in the kitchen that we're familiar with, and I think
Speaker 1: people are coming back to that. And I think Food
Speaker 1: Network had a huge amount to do with it. There's
Speaker 1: so many chefs, celebrity chefs out there. Do you ever
Speaker 1: get competitive? Is there a bitchy side to Ina Garten?
Speaker 1: Please tell me there is? Thank you. Brian's true I've
Speaker 1: actually never looked at what other people are doing. I
Speaker 1: just look at what I'm doing and do the best
Speaker 1: I can. I just, I mean, i'd like to. There's
Speaker 1: there's an edge there, but is that true? I don't
Speaker 1: want to. Somebody once said, you're exactly the way you're
Speaker 1: on TV. Your language is a little worse. But you
Speaker 1: were reluctant to host a cooking show you had written,
Speaker 1: I think your second cookbook, and the Food Network came
Speaker 1: to you and you didn't really want to do it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just couldn't you know. I had gotten
Speaker 1: used to writing cookbooks. I love doing it. I wasn't bored,
Speaker 1: so I wasn't looking for something else. And they kept
Speaker 1: coming back over and over again and saying, please, won't
Speaker 1: you do it? And they kept upping the offer, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm not negotiating. I don't want to do it.
Speaker 1: Just lose my number. And they found a production company
Speaker 1: in London whose work I loved um but it was
Speaker 1: Nigella Lawson's show. But I'm thinking, I'm not jeal a
Speaker 1: loss and I can't do that, And and they hired
Speaker 1: them and called me and said they're coming to your
Speaker 1: house in two weeks to do the show. I said,
Speaker 1: I said, I'm not doing it, and I said, oh,
Speaker 1: just do thirteen shows. And I thought, well, I'll be terrible.
Speaker 1: I'll do thirteen shows and then we'll be done with
Speaker 1: it and I'll lose my number. So that two years ago,
Speaker 1: and now you have a whole barn on your property
Speaker 1: and that's where you shoot your most Mostly what I
Speaker 1: do is cook tester. I mean that's my office. That's
Speaker 1: where we meet every morning and we test recipes for
Speaker 1: the cookbooks and then twice a year we do the
Speaker 1: TV shows there. So and we're actually just doing a
Speaker 1: new series which starts I think the end of May.
Speaker 1: Um please plug it. As as people are going more
Speaker 1: towards like food, food, porn and game shows, we're going
Speaker 1: in the other direction. And I'm doing a series called
Speaker 1: cook Like a Pro, which is all those sort of
Speaker 1: little tips you need to know, like how to cut
Speaker 1: a butternut squash in the best way and how to
Speaker 1: how to do there. It's recipes, but more information than
Speaker 1: just tips. It's about processes that interesting would be interested
Speaker 1: to know. Yeah, definitely, yeah, because those kinds of tips,
Speaker 1: then you know it and it can serve you sort
Speaker 1: of the rest of your life, and you have to
Speaker 1: come up with a new show. Someone's in the kitchen
Speaker 1: with Aina in the kitchen, people are someone's in the
Speaker 1: kitchen with and you can some sombled eggs with truffles ambrios.
Speaker 1: This is kind of our tradition. By the way, every
Speaker 1: thing on every podcast now, the audience demands it. If
Speaker 1: we go an episode without singing, they get annoyed. So
Speaker 1: give the people what they want. So in addition to
Speaker 1: all the things that you're doing, Aina, are there other
Speaker 1: things about you that people don't know, issues that you
Speaker 1: care about, things that you talk about with your friends
Speaker 1: that are important to you. But one of the things
Speaker 1: you and I have talked about is um is organizations
Speaker 1: that happen. I think elliots with one of working with
Speaker 1: the sudden poverty carry actually my younger daughters working with
Speaker 1: the centers, And I mean organizations that help people locally
Speaker 1: and nationally, like the a c l u UM with
Speaker 1: immigrants that have issues. And I think there's so many
Speaker 1: incredible support systems in this country, and I think it's
Speaker 1: it's getting harder and harder to rely on the government
Speaker 1: to fund them, so people have to We really need to.
Speaker 1: I've been involved in the Innocence Project is which is
Speaker 1: I think they do an amazing job, isn't it. I mean,
Speaker 1: my witness testimony is so unreliable and so many people
Speaker 1: have been convicted of things they didn't do. And so
Speaker 1: that's that's one issue you really care about. Are there
Speaker 1: are there others that you spend a lot of time on?
Speaker 1: You know, I think there's so many organizations that UM
Speaker 1: need help. UM. I mean I support Plan Parenthood. I think, um,
Speaker 1: they do an amazing job, and I know they're under
Speaker 1: enormous stress now. Um, And frankly, people don't understand that.
Speaker 1: I don't know, like of what they do as women's health,
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's a very important organization for women
Speaker 1: that can't afford good doctors. And the thing that is
Speaker 1: so political is a very very small part of what
Speaker 1: they do. And the money that they get from the
Speaker 1: government already cannot go to fund abortion services. People don't
Speaker 1: understand that. But how do you get your news? I'm
Speaker 1: just curious. That's interesting. Um, New York Times, Washington Post online,
Speaker 1: both hard copy and online. I think it's a different experience. UM.
Speaker 1: I still like, I do you know why I just
Speaker 1: like the I'd like to see the layout because it
Speaker 1: tells me a lot about the editorial choices that have
Speaker 1: been made in terms of how they prioritize articles. I
Speaker 1: totally agree with you. Yeah, I feel if I don't
Speaker 1: get the hard copy, I miss stuff for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: Because online is so targeted to my interests, I can't
Speaker 1: find the unexpected thing. But I'm like the only one
Speaker 1: know I know. Under forty I have the body of year.
Speaker 1: Do not stop saying that, well, this has been such
Speaker 1: a treat for us. It's really been, and I think
Speaker 1: you know it must be. I don't know. Do you
Speaker 1: get uncomfortable about the fact that there are so many
Speaker 1: people who feel connected to you and admire you so much?
Speaker 1: And I think in many ways I feel that your
Speaker 1: presence is really comforting to them. Thank you. That's wonderful,
Speaker 1: you know that. I know. I love as Brian said,
Speaker 1: that you know people how to cook, because when you cook,
Speaker 1: everybody shows up. I mean, nobody's ever called and said
Speaker 1: come for dinner, I'm cooking and said no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I really don't want a home cook meal. But when
Speaker 1: everybody shows up, that's when you create a community for yourself.
Speaker 1: And so it's not really about the food, although it's nice,
Speaker 1: if it's delicious, it's really about the people that share
Speaker 1: it with you. Are you and Martha Stewart buds? I
Speaker 1: mean we've been we've known each other for a really
Speaker 1: long time. Yeah, we used to do parties together. Actually
Speaker 1: one time we do benefits together. Really one time Martha
Speaker 1: made a ham and brought it on the Today Show
Speaker 1: and after the segment, I asked our food crew if
Speaker 1: I could take the ham, and uh so I ended
Speaker 1: up serving it for Easter and it was a big
Speaker 1: conversation piece. It must have been a really good ham.
Speaker 1: Was a really good ham. It was a really good ham. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we'll speaking of really good hands. Yours is in the oven.
Speaker 1: We don't want to keep you too long because it
Speaker 1: is Easter and you have to prepare for Easter dinner.
Speaker 1: But thank you. I know this was such a such
Speaker 1: a tree. Really happy East, Happy Easter, too happy over
Speaker 1: whatever your Spring Awakening holiday is, happily, have a wonderful time.
Speaker 1: And just when we thought we got everything, who walks
Speaker 1: in the door but Jeffrey Garden in the flesh and
Speaker 1: uh and in the sweatpants and of course we got
Speaker 1: to talk to the man, not I guess behind the woman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh my god, are you nice to see you? I'm good?
Speaker 1: How are you? This was such a treat. So we've
Speaker 1: been talking about you, Jeffrey. Yes, we have all things,
Speaker 1: these two. This show was going to be called Aina
Speaker 1: and Jeffrey the real story. Well, I don't think that
Speaker 1: was in the contract. Do you feel like, Jeffrey, you
Speaker 1: finally learned to cook be marre to this wonderful woman
Speaker 1: all these years. You're kidding, right, It makes really good coffee.
Speaker 1: I have a very lame excuse that we were married
Speaker 1: so young. With the exception of my time in the army,
Speaker 1: I never lived alone, so I never had a chance
Speaker 1: to cook. She preempted from the very everybody. Sorry for Jeffrey.
Speaker 1: And when you were in the military, by the way,
Speaker 1: you know we know too much about you. Learned to
Speaker 1: speak THI, Yes he did. He lived in Can you
Speaker 1: say something to me in Thai? Well you wouldn't understand.
Speaker 1: That's okay. Anyway, Well, we've got so much fun. This
Speaker 1: has been really, really a treat. Thanks very much to
Speaker 1: Aina Garten for opening up her home and her heart
Speaker 1: to us. But it is a beautiful on a beautiful
Speaker 1: Sunday morning with the sun coming through Sunday. That's right,
Speaker 1: the sun coming through the windows and the birds chirping,
Speaker 1: and it was just idyllic. Also thanks to Gianna Palmer
Speaker 1: for producing the show, to Jared O'Connell for mixing and engineering,
Speaker 1: or Richie for additional production assistance. And thanks also to
Speaker 1: our social media Maven. I think that has that on
Speaker 1: her card, Alison Bresnick social media, Maven and your cards
Speaker 1: bad that's right and right my new cards. And to
Speaker 1: Emily Beena for her part in producing. And I should
Speaker 1: add one thing, Katie, thank you for cooking us an
Speaker 1: amazing dinner last night, maybe inspired by I know a
Speaker 1: little bit. You made this leg of lamb and lemon
Speaker 1: pasta and asparagus and cupcakes and hala and halla for
Speaker 1: those of us who are celebrating the Paysach as well
Speaker 1: as the Easter, and you put us all up at
Speaker 1: your beautiful house last night. Well, it was a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. And that's a train in the background. Everybody,
Speaker 1: we're right near the tracks and cars on the wrong
Speaker 1: side of the tracks. And Mark Phillips, thank you as
Speaker 1: always for our wonderful theme music. Katie Kirk, Mitch Semmil
Speaker 1: and I are our executive producers. And remember you can
Speaker 1: email us at comments at currect podcast dot com, or
Speaker 1: you can find me on social media. I'm Katie Couric
Speaker 1: on Twitter and Instagram and Katie dot Kurric on Snapchat.
Speaker 1: And Brian you're on social media as well, primarily Twitter, Twitter,
Speaker 1: Goldsmith be on Twitter, and best of all, you can
Speaker 1: rate and review our show on what is now known
Speaker 1: as Apple podcast used to be iTunes. iTunes is so March,
Speaker 1: It's so yesterday, April is all about Apple Podcasts. Don't
Speaker 1: forget to subscribe to the show as well. That's how
Speaker 1: more people can find it. And we'll talk to you
Speaker 1: next time. Thanks for listening.