Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast - The European Summer that Changed Ina Garten's Life

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

America's favorite kitchen icon Ina Garten opens up about the tumultuous relationship she had with her mama's kitchen when she was a child. She walks us through how her relationship with food evolved in later years, thanks to her husband Jeffrey and a summer spent camping across Europe on a shoestring budget. Plus, we learn how to make the one dish Ina enjoyed from childhood: Chicken Parmesan. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

February 35 is a running conversation between two good friends, me, Dori Shafrier. And me, Elise Hu. In this wild time to be alive, we're a show about the many ways we take care of ourselves. Sometimes that might mean upgrading our skincare routines. Or it might mean more rest. Or stretching. We talk about all of it. With each other and with our thoughtful and funny weekly guests.

Boundary making really is just a reflection of how you think about yourself. Cream blush is the best thing you could do for your life. How, Sway? You need to build my this for me. All right, so we aren't actually 35 anymore. But we are still the show called Forever 35. Find us wherever you listen. New episodes drop Mondays and Wednesdays. Hey, everybody. It's Rob Lowe here. If you haven't heard, I have a podcast

that's called Literally with Rob Lowe. And basically, it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox. There are new episodes out every Thursday, so subscribe, please, and listen wherever you get your podcasts. You have to remember, we never had toys.

I didn't have dolls. You didn't have dolls? We didn't have anything. If it wasn't educational, we didn't get it. Hello, hello. Welcome back to Your Mama's Kitchen. This is a place where we explore how we are all shaped as adults by the kitchens that we grew up in as kids. Not just the cooking

at the stove and the meals at the table, but all the stuff that happened, the games, the tears, the laughter. And we're in for a special treat today because we're joined by someone who really, really, really knows her way around the kitchen. Today I'm talking to one of America's favorite food people. And I think you could just say one of America's favorite people, the Barefoot Contessa herself, Ina Garten. And I feel like I need to pinch myself because she is like a companion to me with her 13 cookbooks, Barefoot Contessa Parties, Barefoot Contessa family style, Cooking for Jeffrey. Of course, Jeffrey is her beloved husband, Cooking Like a Pro. All of these cookbooks

have been in my home and have given me wisdom and have brought joy to my own family. And Ina, I'm so glad that you're with us. Thank you for joining your mama's kitchen. Thank you. It's so nice to see you. It's great to see you. We met the first time in Paris. It's great to see you in person. Yes. And in fact, you know, there are so many things that are wonderful about what you have done. You have won half a dozen Emmys, James Beards awards. But I think that the thing that truly makes you special is that for people who don't even

know you, you feel, as I said, like a companion, like a trusted friend. And so when I saw you in Paris, I just rolled up on you like we'd known each other forever and started a conversation. And in that conversation, I asked you to join me on the show and I'm so glad you said yes. I am too. Thank you. Just in time for your memoir, which is beautiful, Be Ready When Luck Happens. You know, we always began in the show with a simple question, those six words, tell me about your mama's kitchen. In your case, you begin your book in your childhood and because of that, I know that asking you to go back to the kitchen is asking you to go back to a fairly complicated

space. It certainly is. My mama's kitchen isn't anywhere I'd like to be. I would say my mother was austere, cold, didn't take pleasure in things, cooked for nutrition more than pleasure or sharing food. I think looking back, my brother and I were talking about this, I would say that my mother might have been somewhere on the spectrum, didn't know how to have a relationship. So cooking for people wasn't about love, it was about feeding them. And to me, when you cook for someone, it's about taking care of them, about showing them they're important to you. I mean, it's nice when the food is really good, but it's also really important to me,

the sharing part and the community part. I think people hearing this will be surprised. Yeah. Well, no, one of the things I decided when I was 15, and I remembered making this decision that if I was dating somebody who so much has raised his voice to me because my parents were very, very harsh, that I was out of there, that I really wanted to do it differently, that I wanted to have a different life than I had as a child. I don't think I really understood how bad it was at home until I was maybe 40.

And I kind of sorted out that what happened to me was not okay. But a lot of people decide to do it differently from their childhoods, and they end up doing the same thing. I really do it differently. My parents only cared about achievement, and every day they would say, what did you accomplish today? And if I had knit a fisherman's sweater, if I'd won a tennis tournament,

if I'd done anything I wanted to do, that was not considered an accomplishment. It had to be something I didn't want to do that was academic. And I've built my life around things that I love to do. So I think that experience both made me much more empathetic because I know how people feel and stress, but also it made me decide to do it the way I wanted to do it. And I feel like I've really done that. Al, you definitely have done that.

Thank you. I loved reading this book, but I have to say, in that chapter, what goes in early goes in deep. I had to put the book down for a minute and I was thinking, I wish I could engage in time travel. I wanted to go back and find the young Ina and give her a hug or a chocolate chip cookie or a little pep talk and say, girl, it's going to be okay, you're going to be just fine, you know, because I've seen your future, you really go there in that space. And I wonder if you had to literally go there in that space. Did you have to put yourself back in that home and

in that kitchen in order to write with the clarity. I actually did. I actually went to the house that I grew up in. And I mean, I didn't go in, I drove by and I sat outside. And I thought about, did I want to go in? And I thought, I don't ever want to go in that house. And it kind of forced me by going to those places to actually think about what it felt like to be in that house. And there was no place I ever wanted to be again. It's even hard to talk about it.

Oh, I'm sorry. Well, you know, if you want to let me know if I'm going places you don't want to go. No, no, no, it's fine. It's fine. Picturing you though sitting outside in the car outside of your childhood home, you know, that actually happened to me. I did that. I took my kids back and I was busted. By whom? They recognized me and brought me through the house and showed my kids, you know, my childhood bedroom.

That sounds like that would have been a terrifying experience if that happened to you. It would have been. I wouldn't have gone in. I really wouldn't. I think the reason why I told that story was not, you know, a lot of people have had worse childhoods by far. But I just wanted people to know that the story of their childhood

doesn't have to be their personal story. That you can actually decide with enormous determination to do it differently. And you have to check yourself along the way because it's very easy to slide back into something that's comfortable, even though it's painful. I mean, I think if you grow up in that environment, you live with a very deep sense of shame, even though it's not your fault.

And you have to check yourself all the time. Is this something I should be ashamed of or is this an old feeling that I have to just pass over? And when you recognize it, it's easier to quiet that voice. It's easier to say, this is someone else telling me I can't achieve. It's not internal, it's external. Exactly. And I can ignore it.

And I think it's important to know that it's somebody else's voice in your head, not your own. And as long as you can extricate that, I don't think I'll ever lose it. I'll always be checking it, but I can overcome it. And I'm just wanting people to know that they can. Your mom was a nutritionist, which is ironic because she was serving food that I get. Maybe not ironic, maybe that explains why she was serving, as you said, food that was nutritious but not delicious.

No carbs, no butter. Did your mother really send you to school with a sardine sandwich? Yeah. As I think I wrote in the memoir, no sane child would trade a sardine sandwich for anything else. All I wanted was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich like the other kids, and it was absolutely forbidden. You write about a difficult childhood, but you had, as you say, two personalities.

In the outside world, you were full of joy. The rest of the world didn't see the shy, quiet child that spent most of her time in her room and you're someone who loves to entertain. And it sounds like you figured that out pretty early when someone gave you, it almost is like your rosebud moment, a gift that meant so much to you, that little pink tea set? When I was about four, I think, an uncle of my father's brought a gift. And you have to remember we never had toys. I didn't have dolls. You didn't have dolls? We didn't have anything. If it wasn't educational, we didn't get it. So, I mean, maybe we had

a chess set and, but we didn't play games. I mean, games were considered a waste of time. So my father's uncle brought me what I thought was, I mean, for a four year old, the biggest tea set I've ever seen. And it was all like pink, and I'm sure it was plastic, but it was all pink tea cups and plates and everything else. And I used to play with that. And I mean, when I think about it now, how educational was that? When children play, they learn things. And we just didn't have an opportunity for that.

Well, socialization is a big part of childhood, figuring out how to deal with the world. How did your parents react when they saw how much joy that brought you in that you had imaginary friends and you were giving them tea cakes and My parents weren't around when I was, you know, they were off doing other things. I don't think they were really that engaged with us. I don't remember my mother being in the same room with me. So if I was playing with the tea set, that was what I was doing. So it was, it was pretty door childhood. I'm sorry, you just said you don't remember your mother being in the same room with you?

No, I really don't. Because it wasn't about a relationship. She was the parent and she was just doing the things that a mother should do. Because if you don't have an emotional connection with a child, then you don't have any reason just hang out and talk to them. But I'm more than made up for it. It certainly hasn't defined my life, but it certainly informed my life. And I made very strong decisions

to do it differently. And how glad I am that I did. Well, and how good for the rest of us. No, thank you. Were there outside influences? I'm thinking about your grandmother, your grandparents. My mother's mother was extremely cold. so that was not an outside influence. My father's mother loved to cook. And when my father was in medical school, we actually lived in their brownstone. They lived in Brooklyn and we lived in the lower level.

And I used to go upstairs and watch her cook. So I'm sure that had an influence. What did you learn watching her? Oh, I don't know. I was probably two or three, but I think probably watching somebody cook like that was a big deal. And she just adored me. I think we had a real connection. I can see that when you talk about her, your face just changed. Yeah. Is this the grandparents, the house where they live next to the junkyard?

Yes, exactly. Better known as scrap metal. And she invited employees and customers in? Exactly. She would invite employees, knew that they could come. My grandfather started, had several businesses, but the one that I knew about was what was called scrap metal, but it's basically a junkyard. They would take like a car and separate it into separate metals. And he had a lot of employees working for him. And they knew that they could come into the house and open the refrigerator and help themselves. And so my grandmother would cook for them.

They would just come in and I'd like some sauerkraut. I'm hungry. Yeah. And she'd be having the ladies for tea and they'd come in and I'd like some sauerkraut. I'm hungry. Yeah. Yeah. And she would be having the ladies for tea and they'd come in and say, hey, mom, and just go help themselves in the refrigerator. So I think she made them feel welcome and cared for. And I like that feeling. Who doesn't? Who doesn't like that feeling? Everybody loves that feeling. What did you learn in that kitchen that informed you as a home cook, as a hostess, and as a business owner because you sort of ran the Barefoot Contessa as an extension of your home kitchen?

Well, running Barefoot Contessa was really the beginning of my career in food. The New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New Yorker, the New York. It had this summer feeling, the screen door slamming behind you. When you walked in to the right, there was coffee that you could help yourself in the winter with an apple cider on the heater. So you could help yourself to hot apple cider.

And it made the store smell good. When you walked in, there was music playing. And it wasn't like current music. It was old-fashioned music. It was Frank Sinatra and the Beatles and just great music. There were samples of food everywhere so you could taste things. So all of your senses were engaged. And I think that's what I like to do when people come to my house, that when you walk in, it smells good, that there are cocktails waiting for you, that there's somebody there to give you a hug,

that you feel welcomed. I think that's a really important part of it. And I think that's the way my grandmother made people feel when she walked into her kitchen. Could you describe her kitchen? What did it look like? They had an attached townhouse. So you walked up the stairs to an outdoor porch

where they had chairs with I'm sure, you know, they were probably 60 years old and they were just sitting in the chairs and watch this, you know, watch the world go by people when in that era when they were 60 they were old. And then you walked in and the kitchen had a huge table in the middle with the actual kitchen part behind. But I remember the room basically was filled up with that table and everybody just sat at the table. And then there was a parallel room that was the living room. And then there were some bedrooms in the back, but it was fairly, it was very modest.

And where did you eat? Dining room table or kitchen table? There's only one table. It was both. It was with the kitchen in the back and this big table that everybody, my grandfather would sit and read his newspaper on the other side while we sat and talked. We used to go visit them every Sunday actually, from Connecticut. We were all piled into the car. They actually died within three months of each other, which is, I mean, I think that my grandfather died first and my grandmother was just devastated and died three months later. And I think I must have been about eight when they died. So I have a memory of them, but

not an adult memory. Do you have a memory of a Sunday supper that you really loved? I don't remember. She wasn't well when I remember her going to visit, so she wasn't cooking. So we would go and have tea, I think, but I don't think we would go for a meal. But they would come to us every other Sunday and they would bring huge bags of groceries because they were sure there was no food in Connecticut. So they'd go to a really classic Jewish deli and bring pastrami and hot dogs and good mustard and caniches and you know, classic old fashioned Jewish deli kinds of things. And we would have that on

Sunday afternoon. That's love though to show up with, you know, a big bag of food. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's an expression of love. When you think about sweets are so important to you, but did you have sweets much as a kid? At home, never. I mean, there wasn't a cookie in the house.

If I asked my mother for a snack, she'd say, oh, just eat an apple. I'm sorry, an apple is not a treat. I mean, it's nice to have an apple. It's good for you, but... That's not exactly what I had in mind. It's funny, I asked Jeffrey the other day, did he have milk and cookies when he got home? He said, yeah. And my mother, I mean, she wasn't even there.

Never had milk and cookies. So did you roll over to somebody else's house to have milk and cookies? Did you raid the cookie jar at your friend's house or your grandma's house? When you came home, you went into your room and stayed there for the night. You came out for dinner and then went right back. And at least that's what I did. I don't know. It was a combination of that's what you were supposed to do to study, but also to keep myself safe. It sounds like there was always an impending storm in your household. You write that everybody lived in the shadow

of your father's anger. Do you have a better understanding of the source of that anger? And with that, did a certain kind of forgiveness come over you? I don't really understand the source of his anger. He was the children of immigrants and his parents came here when they were in their late teens. And in one generation, they went from not speaking English to my father being a surgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital. I mean, it was an extraordinary story of success. I don't know if I can make generalizations, but as a lot of people feel, surgeons tend to be very controlling. And he was just very controlling.

And it was the 50s in all fairness. It's not like now with helicopter parents. In the 50s, you did what your parents told you to do. It's just that if you didn't do it, there wasn't violence involved. So they were very harsh on me, but I don't understand my father's anger. And the irony is I'm actually very much like him. He loved parties, he loved his friends, style was very important to him. I mean, there are a lot of extraordinary similarities and I'm nothing like my mother. But I don't have his anger. I just don't understand where

that came from. Yeah. If I may make an observation, you know, they said this in the 50s, assimilation was But I don't have his anger. I just don't understand where that came from. Yeah. If I may make an observation, you know, they said this in the 50s, assimilation was so important in the 50s. Yeah. You know, if you go back and look at, I have a bunch of cookbooks just over there, they're from the 1950s.

And some of it was about food, but also some of it was about, you know, getting with the program. This is the way things are supposed to look. This is the way your table is supposed to look, your house is supposed to look. And you know, when you describe your family, they went from, you know, newly arriving in America almost as country people to moving to Stanford and then becoming, you know, people who were enmeshed in a country club lifestyle. That's- Well, these were their parents were immigrants. So they were the first generation in America.

But you're right, it's a very short distance from immigrants to the country club, exactly. Your dad also at some point, I remember marking up the book, your dad had a conversation with Jeffrey, your husband, who was interested in going to medical school and he said, he talked him out of it. And I wonder if he was in some way saying, don't do what I did. No, I don't think he loved what he did. He loved being a doctor. I think he saw in Jeffrey that it was, you know, I think it was a lot of people expected

him to Jeffrey to do well. And that was a very classic road to success is being a physician. But Jeffrey was always interested in other things. He was interested in foreign affairs, and he was interested in countries and world affairs. And I think my father wisely saw that in Jeffrey, that he wasn't really interested in medicine. And many years later, I think when he must have been

about 40, I realized that Jeffrey's dyslexic. I mean, Jeffrey was so smart, I realized that Jeffrey's dyslexic. I mean, Jeffrey was so smart, he always overcame his dyslexia. But at some point, I thought, this is really interesting what he just did. And I thought, oh my God, he's dyslexic. And I realized when he was a child, he was always overcoming that. But he taught himself how to read a certain way that other kids weren't. I mean, it's just extraordinary. And he spent his life looking at spreadsheets at Lehman Brothers. And how do you do that? And living in Thailand, I mean, that's amazing.

He spends his entire life reading. And it's reading is not easy for somebody dyslexic. But he does it with enormous intention and determination. And that's what he does. Well, it's interesting that he has to figure out how to decode language. But one thing he didn't have to decode is when he saw you. I love the story of how you first met. He looked, he saw you out a window and he knew she's the one. I mean, talk about be ready when the luck happens. Yes. Can you tell that story? Well, my brother went to Dartmouth and my parents and I went there for a fall weekend just to visit him

and Jeffrey happened to be sitting in the library with his roommate and he looked out the window. I remember it was all boys school at the time so I was probably the only girl walking around and he looked out the window and he said to his roommate, hey, look at that girl. I was 16 and I don't know, I guess he liked what he saw. And his roommate said, I actually have a date with her tonight because his roommate belonged to our country club. We used to play tennis together. And Jeffrey, can you imagine how unlikely that is? That A, he would see me, B, he would say something and then that his roommate had a date with me. So after that evening,

when I went to the movies with his roommate, he said, are you like dating her? And he said, no, we're just friends Shafrir, and me, Elise Hu. In this wild time to be alive, we're a show about the many ways we take care of ourselves. Sometimes that might mean upgrading our skincare routines. Or it might mean more rest. Or stretching. We talk about all of it.

With each other and with our thoughtful and funny weekly guests. Boundary making really is just a reflection of how you think about yourself. Cream blush is the best thing you could do for your life. How, Sway? You need to build my this for me. All right, so we aren't actually 35 anymore. But we are still the show called Forever 35. Find us wherever you listen. New episodes drop Mondays and Wednesdays.

Hi, it's Michelle Norris. I want to tell you about another podcast I was a guest on recently. On Dinner SOS, Chris Morocco and a guest from the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen solve your toughest cooking questions. Chris and I had a wonderful discussion about food memories and we answered some listener questions together.

It was so much fun. I even confessed to one of my biggest kitchen fails from the first time I cooked from my husband's mother. Some people consider cooking to be torture, but with Dinner SOS, cooking becomes the ultimate labor of love, making it the perfect podcast for chefs of all skill levels looking for inspiration. Get your weekly dose of Bon Appetit's Dinner SOS available now wherever you get your podcast. I'm trying to remember what you said in the book.

There was something that you were wearing that really caught his eye. Was the ribbon in your hair? I had a ribbon in my hair. How 60s was that? How early 60s was that? Yeah, 60s was that? But it was probably the smile that got it. And then once Jeffrey came along, you guys started to write letters to each other. I love that you had a whole relationship built on letters. Yeah. That was an old fashioned idea, but I still have the letters, which is wonderful.

And it's a lot of what I referred to when I wrote the memoir. So all these years, you've been carrying them around because you've moved around a lot. You've lived overseas, you've had a trove of letters that you've kept in some sort of shoe box somewhere. Oh no, it's more than a shoe box. Actually, it was at my parents' house because I kept them when I was living there. And then when my parents sold the house, maybe, I don't know, when I sold their house, I found the box when we were cleaning it out. And so I took it. So no, I didn't carry it around.

I've had it maybe for 15 years. Wait, wait, wait, go back. You found the box? I found the box of letters. Tell me about that. Well, I'd just forgotten about it. I'd forgotten I had it. And there was, you know, in my room at their house, I was just cleaning out the closet

and there was this huge box of letters. And what's so interesting about them is that going through them to write, I didn't really read them then, but going through them to write the memoir, there were letters in there that I would never have imagined were predicting exactly what we did. I mean, one of the letters was, Jeffrey said to me, I think we must have been in college at the time. He said, I want to take you to Paris.

He said, maybe in the beginning, we won't be able to afford a hotel, but maybe we'll go camping. And then hopefully someday we'll be able to afford a hotel, but maybe we'll go camping. And then hopefully someday we'll be able to afford a hotel and maybe someday we'll be able to rent an apartment. Neither of us have any recollection of this letter. And yet that's exactly what happened. When we went in 1971, we went camping because we literally only had $5 a day, we couldn't afford a hotel. And years later, we went and stayed in a hotel. And in 2000, we bought an apartment. And it's just to look back and think that that was already in our minds.

But we thought we were thinking of something new. And it turns out we weren't at all. We were just fulfilling what we'd originally intended. There's maybe a lesson in that, in manifesting things. Yeah, exactly. Like actually writing things down because maybe what you're doing is not just writing something down, that you're creating a map for the rest of your life because that's incredible. You did all of those things.

We did all of those things and we had no recollection of having predicted that we wanted to do that. Yeah, there is something there. I was surprised that you were as enthusiastic as you were for camping. It was fun. He had a great time. I mean, there were times I wanted to come home and wash all my clothes and go back again. But there was something really free about it was between the time that he was in the military and he went to graduate school and we had about four or five months with nothing to do and no money. And we were not about to go live with my parents, that's for sure. So Jeffrey said, why don't we go to Europe? We'll rent a car. And if we're really careful, and we stick to $5 a

day, we can afford a campsite, we can afford food, and we can afford gas, and we'll be free as birds. And we were so aware at that time that it might be the last time that we had nothing to do for four or five months. And we would get up in the morning and just say, okay, we're in Saintropez. Where would you like to go today? And we're like, let's go to Nice. And we would pick up the tent and we'd put it in the back of the car. We'd drive to Nice, find a campsite and stay in Nice for as long as we wanted to stay. It was just heaven, absolutely heaven.

And we spent four months in a tent like that. Now, you should explain because people will listen to this conversation. You can't buy a latte for $5 now. So it was a long time ago. But this was a part of a movement. I mean, there was a very popular book about doing this city on $5 a day. And so there was a little bit of a guidebook for that. Did you follow that guidebook or was that more of just an inspiration and you just tried to figure out

how to do everything on $5? I thought it was an inspiration. It was Arthur Fromer wrote a book, Europe on $5 a day. So you know it was possible, but it seemed extreme. And hotels were, you know, you couldn't stay in a hotel for $5 a day. I mean, I'll tell you how tight it was. Yeah, we didn't feel that we were on a budget. We just felt like we had to be careful. We were in Switzerland and it was freezing cold. It was probably June and it was like 20 degrees, maybe 25 degrees and we're in a tent. And at some point I said to Jeffrey, maybe we should go see if we can get like a little tent heater. And he said, okay, so we go off to town, wherever, I think we're in Davos, and we find the camping store and the heater was $35.

Oh, which was seven days. So we could either buy the heater and go home seven days early or forget the heater. And that's what we did. And I think back now and I think, well, it was no big deal. We just decided not to buy the heater, but to be freezing cold and just say $35, it's beyond our budget. And it was fine. But you probably made really smart decisions later in life because you learned how to handle money and you learned how to trust each other. And I think something comes from frugality.

And it didn't matter. It really didn't matter. We had a wonderful time. And we just, you know, we just love being together and we loved exploring on our own terms without having somebody say you need, you should be doing this and you should be doing that. And we knew ahead of us was graduate school and jobs in Washington and being serious and we could just be, just have a really good time. And this turned out to be the most formative time for me because it's when I discovered

French food, French cheese, French markets, real peaches that are ripened on the vine, great baguettes, when all you could find here was a loaf of white bread and a plastic wrapper. So again, what looked like play turned out to be really, really important professionally. Yeah, French food in France will blow your mind. I think Americans think of French food as fancy and kind of stuffy because that's the way French restaurants here tend to be. But this was country French food. This is real food. This is eating things in season, which we didn't do, you know, and we sometimes don't

do now, but it was real farm to table. It was, you know, the chicken farmer came to the market and sold rotisserie chickens and the berries were, raspberries weren't just one kind of raspberry, they're different kinds of raspberries. Strawberries were different strawberries in season. So it was a real education for me. And I'll actually tell you this one story

when we were in the Mont Saint-Michel. We drove into the campsite. I had a little guidebook and it had stars rating the campsites. So we couldn't afford a five-star campsite, but we could afford a two-star campsite. So we drove into this campsite at Mont Saint-Michel and the woman who ran the campsite said, I just made some cacao van for my husband, would you like some? And I don't even know if I knew what cacao van was, but who would say no to that? And it smelled great. So I said, sure. And we took it back to the tent and I heated it up for dinner. And I just thought, I need to know how to make this.

This is amazing. And that's country French food. I mean, that's not some fancy French restaurant. And you have a recipe for that in the book. I do. Yeah. And it's Julia Child's recipe because that's the first one I used. I admit I've never had it. I've actually I've had it in a restaurant. I've never made it. It's actually not that complicated. I have a recipe in Barefoot in Paris that's based on Julia Childs, but it's simpler. I'm definitely going to be making this one and the recipe that we're going to talk about in just a bit that stems from your childhood. But I want to ask you something about Jeffrey because your love story is just beautiful

and people who read your books, people who watch you on TV, Jeffrey is a constant character, not just in your life, but in your work life as well. And there's a section of the book though, where you talk about a moment where you sent him away because he wasn't treating you as an equal. You wanted to be seen as an adult and not a child and you separated for a time. It's interesting that you included that. And I always think about the reasons and the motives when people write books. Was it just something that poured out of you or were you thinking of your audience that trusts you so much? And were you maybe trying to send a message to them that this is what marriage sometimes means, this is what happens in relationships.

Sometimes you need to take a breather so that you can lean back in even more strongly. I just, I didn't do it to just expose anything. I did it because I think sometimes in a long-term marriage you do need a break. You need to figure out what you want and what your partner wants and then come back together and figure out how to do it together. Again, this was the 70s when Jeffrey expected to be the husband and expected me to be the wife and reasonably so because nothing had ever been different than that. But it was the era of Gloria Steinem and the women's movement and women were kind of finding

themselves not in roles, but as equals. of Gloria Steinem and the women's movement and women were kind of finding themselves not in roles, but as equals. And I think it was very hard to make that shift. And remember, I came to Jeffrey kind of broken, and he really brought me up. And I'm forever grateful that he did that. But at some point, I felt like I couldn't get out of the parent-child relationship. I'm sure he saw us as equals, but I didn't feel like I did. So we took a break. I just said, I just bought the store. I just wanted to work. I wanted to be left alone. It must

be, I don't have this experience, but it must be like how people feel with a new baby. They just want to be there in the moment and block out everything else. And I just, I felt like I needed to be on my own for the first time in my life. Because I went from my parents' house to Jeffrey's house. So we really separated for about five or six months. We each thought about what we wanted going forward. And I learned a lot, he learned a lot. And I just wanted people to know that sometimes you need to do that to have the kind of relationship that we have, which is we are equals. And he has as much respect for me as I have for him. And if there's

something, I mean, there was a year when he wanted to work in Japan, and I had just signed a lease for a store in East Hampton. And any normal person would say, well, whoever's the investment banker in Japan, they're the one who gets to decide. But Jeffrey had as much respect for what I did, even though I didn't make nearly as much money as he did. And he said, okay, let's figure out how we can do both things. And we did. And I would go to back and forth. I would go to Japan for a week a month and he would come to East Hampton for a week a month. And we got through a year, two years actually doing that. And it was great.

I appreciated the way that you told the story also because it wasn't like you ran back into each other's arms running through Heather, you know, along some sort of beach that you told the story also because it wasn't like you ran back into each other's arms running through Heather, you know, along some sort of beach that you were sitting on a stoop and you were having a really difficult conversation and trying to figure out which one was going to be the person that said, let's try to make this work. Because that's often how it happens. It's a little bit more rocky, more clumsy. It's done with enormous respect and consideration. And it worked out.

Thank goodness. We always gift our listeners with a recipe that means something to somebody and it usually harkens back to their childhood. And the recipe that you want to share with us harkens back to your childhood, difficult as it was, and it was something that your mom made that you actually liked. Yeah. Are you talking about the Par made that you actually liked. Yeah. Are you talking about the Parmesan chicken? I am.

Yeah. It's probably the thing I've made the most. And it's just the simplest really. It's boneless chicken cutlets that are pounded and flattened. And then it's dipped in flour and egg and seasoned bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese and then just sauteed. And then I added a fresh salad to the top, like an arugula salad with fresh lemon vinaigrette, lemon juice, vinegar, salt and pepper.

And it's just delicious. I was trying to think of what childhood recipe you were thinking of, but that actually does come from my mother. Did your mom do the salad on top also? Because I think that that's, I've done it with it on the side and it's a difference. It makes a big difference when you put the salad right on the top. I don't think there was a salad involved and I think she just did the chicken cutlets. I think there was probably canned peas involved rather than a fresh salad.

Canned peas, not the same. And there's a generation of us that grew up eating a lot of canpeas. Can and Harvard Beets don't even get me started. Or those little asparagus stalks that came in the tall can. At least there's some frozen vegetables that are actually perfectly delicious. Frozen asparagus, it's not the same, but artichokes, peas, some things that are okay if you're using frozen vegetables, but canned vegetables, they have no texture, no flavor. No, no, no. Sorry.

Did you grow up on that? I did. And my mom canned also. So we also had vegetables that came from like a larder in the basement that at the end of the summer, she would can a lot and those were different and a little bit better. And she'd make things like cha-cha, which is like a bunch of vegetables and vinegar. But I am actually very forgiving when it comes to frozen vegetables. Yeah, I think frozen peas are fine if you're making a soup. Absolutely. And or risotto.

I mean, fresh peas are really a pain. I mean, you have to peel them and they're always like starchy or they're, it's very hard to get them. Exactly the right moment. Exactly the right moment. Exactly the right moment, exactly. So like beef, for my beef stew, I definitely use frozen peas and frozen pearl onions. Yes. They're great.

Yeah. And frozen okra. I make gumbo. There's gumbo season in my house. And you know, okra is hard to deal with. Frozen okra is just fine. Just fine, exactly. That's why I say store-bought is just fine. Just fine. Exactly. That's why I say store bought is just fine.

Yeah, it is. So I must say before I let you go that you have the most amazing resume. My resume? Well, I mean, you know, working backwards, we know what we see on TV and we know what we read in the books, but I think a lot of people don't know that you worked for the OMB or that you spent a summer camping know that you worked for the OMB or that you spent a summer camping or that you worked for a place called the body shop, which was not about mechanics, which you have to read the book to find out that story. I wasn't working in the body shop.

I was working in the back office. Where the police came and I guess your boss said run. My boss said, tell them I'm not here. And I thought, that's my exit strategy. I'm leaving. So you have a really interesting resume. But thankfully for all of us, you answered that little ad that want had for the cheese shop called Barefoot Contessa.

How lucky are we that you said that you picked up the paper and that you found that ad. You've changed a lot of lives. One of the things I realized in writing this book is I realized I had something that I never imagined, which is courage. I never thought of myself as having courage. At a lot of different places, I really jumped off a cliff and I just thought, I'll just figure it out. And fortunately I did.

But I think it's the things that we do with courage that really make our lives. And I just want to encourage people to take a chance. And you know, sometimes I say this often, it's one of the, you know, mantras in my life. Sometimes you have to write your future in pencil. You know, it's okay to change your mind, to pivot. Well, I think we're brought up actually to believe that we should know what do you want to be when you grow up is the question everybody gets. And the thing is, you don't need to know what you're going to be when you grow up.

You just need to know what you're going to do tomorrow. And then tomorrow you'll figure out what you're going to do the next day. And if you stay open and you're swimming in a stream and all of a sudden you go, oh, that stream over there is really interesting. Maybe I'll splash around in there and see what that is. And maybe you'll come back or maybe you'll just follow that stream.

But I think we're much more able now to follow wherever the stream takes us until, as a friend of mine says, you're in a stream where the stream is carrying you along. And I feel like that's where I found myself, which is really a nice place to be. And when that happens, you know, if you've ever done that, you just relax. You float at that point. Well, you just know you're in the right stream as are you.

Yeah. Well, I feel like that in this conversation, I have loved talking to you. I spent the past year talking to people about their parents and it's made me think a lot about mine. My parents were gardeners. My dad in particular grew beautiful roses. People around the neighborhood would come to watch his champion roses, but every so often he would take one of his rose bushes and he would plant

it in an unusual spot. He would put it in bad soil or rocky soil or a place where it didn't have enough sun. And the roses that bloomed on those plants were not abundant, but they would usually produce some kind of bloom. And the bloom that they produced was usually big and bright, and it may have been the only one, but it seemed like it was bigger and brighter and more resplendent because it had to work harder to find the sun. And I'm telling you this story because it reminds me of you. Oh, thank you.

That a rough childhood somehow has created something in you that has made it easier for you to reach for joy and to share it with all of us. So thank you very much for reading that ad, for saying yes when I met you in Paris and for joining us. Thank you, Michelle. It's an absolute pleasure talking to you. And I hope to see you again soon. I hope so. The book is called Be Ready When Luck Happens. It's a pretty good title for a book. It's a great title for a book, but it's also a great mantra for life. Thank you, Ina Garten.

Thank you, Michelle. Ina Garten is the barefoot Contessa, a kitchen confidant, someone who brings us joy and wisdom, who models a life well-led, a marriage well-nurtured. And now with this memoir, a story well told. I love how she told us that she didn't understand that she was a courageous person, that she only realized later in life that she's been courageous all along. I bet that applies to a lot of us. Thanks for listening. We're glad you're here.

But guess what? We want to listen to you. We want to hear about your stories, your memories. Tell us about your mama's kitchen. Send us a voice memo. You can use your phone to do it and then send us a voice memo at ymk at highergroundproductions.com for your voice to be featured on a future episode. And if you want to try out that parmesan chicken that Ina mentioned, we will have that recipe

at our website, yourmommaskitchen.com. I will also post some information about that recipe on my Instagram page. That's michelle__norris. Again, that's two underscores and you can find that recipe there. Thanks for listening to us. We're glad you're here. We'll hope you come back next week because we are always serving up something special. And until then, be bountiful. ACAS powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.

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