Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Ina Garten (2018)

Episode Date: May 10, 2020

Ina Garten is a beloved chef in part because she seems like one of us – she has no formal training and she taught herself how to make a great meal by experimenting with cookbooks. In this week’s ���Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist travels to the Hamptons for lunch with the television host and bestselling author to talk about her life before “The Barefoot Contessa,” her down-to-earth approach in the kitchen and the release of her 11th cookbook “Cook Like a Pro.” (Original broadcast date: October 28, 2018) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Thank you so much for checking us out again this week. I got another good one for you. I got to say, my guest this week is a culinary icon, the one and only barefoot contessa herself, Ina Garten. If you're a big Ina Garten fan, if you watch her show, if you read her cookbooks, you follow them religiously, or even if you've just heard the name, Ina Garten, or maybe Barefoot Contessa, and you want to know more, you are going to love our conversation.

I have a feeling. She invited me out to her house in the Hamptons, where her famous kitchen lives in the barn, she calls it. It's the place where she shoots her show, where she develops her recipe, where she tests her recipes, and eventually shows them to all of us on Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network.

It's also where she lives. Her home is right across the yard. She's got life figured out kind of guys. She took me around the kitchen. We sat down, had a great conversation over a meal that she made. Oh, she just whipped up. brazed ribs, blue cheese mashed potatoes, roasted carrots, a salad called the Charlie Bird salad, which is amazing. I helped her make all this stuff. I really just kind of like dump stuff in a bowl

when she told me to. So we did that first. We made the meal. Then we sat down and had this great conversation that I really hope you enjoy. We get into her life story, which is kind of incredible. Did you know that in the 70s she worked in both the Ford and Carter administrations, making nuclear energy policy, talking about budgets and all kinds of things. But her passion, her love was food. So she gave up that job, that life, to buy this little shop called the Barefoot Contessa, which was in West Hampton, New York, brought her from Washington up to the Hamptons. She's just a wonderful, wonderful person, really fun to talk to.

You're going to get her full story. Her new cookbook is called Cook Like a Pro. Yes, she talks about Jeffrey. No, he wasn't there. I know everybody's wondering. And after we finished our conversation, not to make you more just, jealous, she took me for a ride in her mini-cooper, dropped the top on a nice fall day, and just drove around the Hamptons. God, sometimes I love my job, and I hope you love this conversation with the great

Ina Garten. So just something I whipped up in a few minutes before you got here. Just a little light lunch with Ina Garton. You know, this is the fantasy of millions of people around the world, sitting having lunch with Ina home-cooked meal. Cheers. Cheers. Thank you. So where should we start with our salad? I think you should start with your, the salad that you made. You're nice to say that I made it. Well, I gave a little direction. I was merely an assistant. It looks beautiful.

May I serve you? Thank you. Perfect. How great. See, I love all the textures and the flavors and the colors. Just great. So do you know Charlie Bird, the creator of the salad? I don't know him.

I know his restaurant, though. It's wonderful. It's a great little spot downtown downtown. All right. Let's see how we did. Okay, see how we did. Isn't that interesting? I like the warm pharaoh and the cold salad and the lemon.

See how that kind of hit of salt? Yes. And lemon at the end really just kind of brightens the flavor. How does your palate work? You taste something and you know immediately it needs more of this, less of that? Most of the time, but every once in a while I go to their fraternity, I stand there and look at their fraternity and go, what would make this work?

And I remember making a big pot of lentil soup, but it was just, it was good. And my assistant said, it's delicious. And I was like, it just needs something. And I went to the refrigerator and I thought, red wine vinegar, put just a splash in a huge pot. And it was like, whoa, it's that edge, I think, that gives things flavor. I mean, certainly seasoning properly. But I think it's that edge of like vinegar or lemon juice or sometimes just a swig of red wine.

I have a weaknake bolognaz that at the end you just put a swig of red wine into it. and it just like brightens the flavors. It's very often something that's in it, but it has to be in it at the end. Right. Well, that speaks to what you've always said, which is that you sort of cook from your gut. Because as you said earlier,

you don't have formal training, restaurant training. You just sort of know somehow intuitively what tastes good. Where does that come from? I think maybe when I was a kid, I was always searching for flavor. I didn't think things had no flavor for me. And then, as we've talked about, When you go to France and you see fruit and vegetables that are just so flavorful,

and you realize that's what food should taste like. Take something really simple that's really good, olive oil, salt, and pepper in the oven, and you've got a fabulous vegetable. This is a famous trip when you went to France, and it changed your life. For me, it was. How so? Well, I think it was the first time I'd seen real, you know, it was probably the early 70s, and we didn't make our own breads.

We didn't have, you know, like raspberries right off the vine that are being sold at the market. And Jeffrey and I were on a camping trip. And we couldn't afford to go to a restaurant. So I had to go to the markets. And I was like, oh, this is what they're talking about, about food in France and how ingredients should taste. And now that we have like farm to table and there are farmers markets and farm stands, and you can find ingredients like that, which is wonderful. That's been a big change.

How long would you say it's been, the farmer's market, farm to table culture that's in America? 25 years, what you say? Yeah, when I was a kid that didn't exist. Yeah, well, when I was a kid, it didn't exist. That's been a positive development for American food, wouldn't you say? Well, just think about from Julia Child when everybody thought, oh, fast food was really a convenience food. And then Julia Child came along and said, no, no, no, no, you have to start with good ingredients and cook the way the French do. And I think people were like, why would you want to go to that trouble?

And then you do when you realize, wow. this is not even the same thing. It's just, and she started a revolution, which I think is extraordinary. When you say you have no formal training, sometimes you catch yourself and say, well, actually, Julia Child, train me through her books and her TV shows. But, you know, I just did, I bought, I came back from that camping trip in France. I bought both of her books, mastering the art of French cooking, and I literally worked my way through those books. And if I didn't get it right, the souffle didn't come out right, I do it again and again and again. And so I learned the right way to do it.

Like when you're making a hollandaise, I learned the right way to make holidays. But then even Julia Child said, you can make it in a blender, but make it the right way first. You understand how the ingredients go together. And then you can make it in a blender. So when you're working your way through those cookbooks, are you doing it with something in mind of this might be something I do with my life? Or you just enjoyed it so much you did it. I just love doing it. I love doing.

And then when I got to be 30, I just thought, wait a minute, this is backwards. I do nuclear energy policy during the day. And I come home and I cook all night. maybe I should be cooking during the day and lose the nuclear energy policy. Well, that's one of the most amazing pieces of your bio, because we know you as this great cook. And then you go back and you read that you worked in the Office of Management and Budget doing nuclear energy policy. How did you get to that job? So you come home from France, you love to cook.

How do you end up doing nuclear budgets? Jeffrey was in graduate school in Washington, Johns Hopkins School for Adventure. advanced international studies. And then he got his first job was in the White House. And I was working at NASD, you know, like the NASDA investigating brokerage houses for fraud.

I don't know what I was doing there. But anyway, I did that for a while. And I thought, I've got to have more interesting job. And he knew somebody at OMB who was looking for somebody. I applied for the job and got it. So it was good connections. Did you enjoy the job?

I did. I really loved it because I worked for Ford and Carter. And you felt enormous way. weight of that what you're doing is going to the president. And I was there for four years, and certainly for two or three years, I thought, this is really important. You know, you're giving them options, policy guidelines, telling them what's going on and recommendations about what to do. And then after about three years, I thought, nothing's happened. And that was in the 70s. I mean, I've been working here for three years and nothing's happened from what I've done.

It's a story of government right there. The same thing over and over again. And I look at the same thing over and over again. And I, literally, I think the programs that I was working on a $20 billion project that we were trying to get private industry to take over, they wanted to take it over, they were already doing it, and it just seems silly to be in the budget. And I think to this day it's still in the budget, because the senator from the area where it was built, it was really powerful. And we couldn't get it out of the budget, and that's the way it works. So, I mean, if it was a logjam in the 70s, I can't even imagine what it's like now.

That sort of explains why you love cooking so much. There's a reward right away. It's just, I used to say myself, instead of $20 billion, it was actually $20, but it was my $20. And you saw something at the end of that least. You know, you made a decision, and when I finally bought Bear for Contessa, you made a decision about let's make chocolate cakes and see if they sell, and you would make them in the morning and put them out, and they were either gone or they weren't. You know by the afternoon exactly whether it was a good idea.

So you mentioned the Barefoot Contessa. You didn't live up here. You were living in D.C. You see an ad in the paper. Isn't that a crazy idea to leave jobs in Washington to buy a little shop up the road here? A friend of mine who's a journalist recently said she went back to the New York Times of the day that the ad was placed. It was in April of 1978, March of April of 1978 and actually looked at the paper. It was incredible.

And she said, she said, the one above, the ad above mine was for a head shop. And the ad below was like for cleaners. She said, you chose the right one. I don't know what it was about that ad that just caught my eye. I'd never looked at that section before in the Times, which is like business opportunities. Right. And the woman who was selling the store, it was the first day that she placed the ad. And it was something got me to that page.

I have no idea what, but the universe was very good to me. They were in Georgetown and McLean, Virginia. I would have understood it, but you're going to come all the way up to West Hampton. And also, I'd have never been here before. Wow. I mean, I had no idea what West Hampton was. The part about that story I love is that Jeffrey didn't, maybe he looked at you like you were a little nuts, but he also said, hey, let's go do it.

He said, he said, when I had hesitation, like I don't know anything about this subject, he said to me, I think the best advice for anybody could ever get is, If you love it, you'll be really good at it. Wow. And I loved it. So I did it. Yeah. I mean, he was incredibly brave of him to put, you know, like everything we had behind it.

And worked out okay. I should say, as we sit here today. What were those early days at the Barefoot Contessa like? What was the business like? What was the store like? The store, I had an idea that the store should feel like a party. Because I always have this feeling. We don't know how to do our job.

jobs, but we don't know how, having fun isn't so easy. What can we do today that's fun? And I felt if the store was fun and it felt like a party and there was music cranked up and there were samples of things to taste and somebody was happy to see you, that people would be drawn to it. And I think that really worked. I mean, I'd love to see people that come in and they say, you know, I just came in for a bagget and I walked out with like an entire grocery bag of things.

And, you know, there were cookies out to taste and how. help yourself to coffee, and the music was cranked up, and it was Frank Sinatra, and it was just fun. Do you remember the moment where it stopped being a crazy idea and started to become a viable business, where you said, not only is this going to work, we can probably grow this into something else? I don't think I ever felt that way. Really? Yeah, I don't.

I think, I always thought, I hope I can keep this going. I kind of don't have a long-term goal of anything. I just feel like if I do what I'm doing, what I have to. do today as well as I can possibly do it, then tomorrow it'll be, I'll grow that idea and the next day. But I have a very short-term horizon. It's just who I am. I don't say, boy, just think if I could have 100 stores like this. I just think, if I can just get through today and do a good job, I'll be okay. You're living day to day. Live in day to day. And I also don't, I never, try never to do things for money. I don't do,

I mean, I make good business decisions, but I don't do things because of, the money. I do things because I think people would really love that chocolate cake. And if they really love that chocolate cake, we'll make enough money to cover the cost of the chocolate cake. So I feel like if you do a really good job, the money will follow. Just don't worry about the money. If you do things for the money, it never works out. We hear so much about brand. Everyone has to have a brand. And you've got to have your name on things in different stores, whether it's cookware or recipes or whatever it is. You don't strike me as someone who thinks about your brand. I don't. I don't. I think about what's true for me.

And I think a lot of people, particularly young people, they go, I want to have a brand. I want to have a brand. You don't have a brand. You do something really well. You become known for it. A brand is like a set of emotions about something. You have good feelings about it. If you do something really well that's really important to you, then I think one day you

wake up and you realize, I kind of have a brand because I've kept it narrow. A lot of people try and pull you off your game. Well, you should be doing this. and you should be opening restaurants, and how about, I mean, I have somebody say they wanted me to endorse their fertilizer. I was like, why would I want to do that? So I just like to stay totally true to myself,

what interests me, I'm the customer, and then one day you find you have a brand. But you don't, I don't think people set out successfully to have a brand. Is that sound right? Yeah, I know. It makes total sense. Is it ever hard not to say yes?

Not to the fertilizer, but if something about store, comes to you and says, we want a line of pots and pans with your name on it, or things like that and we'll give you however much money it is. Is that ever hard to say no? Never. Really? I'm really good at saying no. I love what I do. I love that I walk from the house and I come to the barn and I meet two people who I love working with and we get to write cookbooks and once in a while we film a TV show and I get to go home and have a wonderful life with Jeffrey. And I just, anything that pulls me off that, I just see as kind of a waste of time. Well, it's such a good example, too, which is that you sort of strip it down and keep it simple.

Do what you do really well. And do it really well. I think if you get spread out too thin, you don't end up doing any of it well. And I just find it really satisfying to write cookbooks and know that every single recipe is going to work. That you can find all the ingredients in the grocery store. And when people serve the food to their friends and their family, everybody goes, you made this yourself? I mean, that to me is just, you know, and also teaching people how to cook. If you cook, everybody shows up, which creates a community for people.

And that's a wonderful thing to be able to do. So given how much you enjoy your life and you try to keep it simple, is it strange to you still that you're such a celebrity? I don't get it. You know that about me, right? I totally don't get it. I mean, it's nice that I think people like my work and that really pleases me.

But I just, I don't, so don't get it. You still surprise people yell at you on the street? Oh, my God. I was home the other day. And a couple of young boys were screaming, I know, from across the fence. I was like, whoa, this is getting crazy. There's something I've told this story.

It's a moment I just loved. I was walking up Madison Avenue, and there was a woman in a big fur coat, and she was like, oh, darling, just love your cookbooks. And about a block later, a truck driver pulled over and he goes, hey, babe, love you show! And I thought, that's what it is.

Food is everything. It's everybody. It's older people, younger people. It's, I mean, it's all economic strides. Everybody's interested in food. And if I can connect with those people and teach them a little bit so that they feel more confident as cooks, they're going to cook.

People talk about you. I don't know if I want to hear. It's tones where they say, I'm talking about people I know, as a friend or a sister or a mother, depending on who they are. That sense of familiarity that your audience has with you, that accessibility that you give them into your home and to your kitchen. Is that intentional or is it just the way it is? I don't think I've ever, somebody recently actually wrote an article and said that they went

back and looked at my first show and they were really surprised that I was exactly the same person then as I am. 17 years later. So I think this is who I am, and I'm not an actress, so I don't try to be anything else. And I think that comes across as being true, which it is, as opposed to somebody who's trying to get your attention. You know, I'm like there. If you want to watch, fine.

If you don't, it's okay. They're watching. I don't know if you've noticed, but they're watching. Yeah, it's working for you. Thank you. We're talking about Cook Like a Pro, your cookbook. Your first cookbook. Yeah.

Self-funded. Yes. What made you take that leap? Well, my publisher gave me an advance, but it covered a little bit of it. Right. The publicity and the photography. The first book I had in advance, but I had promised to buy 10,000, 5,000 cookbooks of the books back to sell in my store. So actually, I was paying them to do it. I never actually did the math, and when I realized I owed them a check for $85,000, I was like, whoa.

Where am I going to get $85,000? Fortunately, it sold so well that literally two days after the pub date, they called me and said, you know those 5,000 books? We need them back now. Is that right? So I never had to write them the check. So how did that happen, though? Because you're not on TV yet, right?

You've got your shop here in the Hantons. Why do you think it exploded the way it did? I think that I can't answer that. I'll just tell you what my theory about it is. Once I decided to write a cookbook, I thought, okay, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to swing for the fences. I'm going to do the best job I possibly can. And part of that is hiring somebody to do publicity

because everybody says, well, the publisher is never going to do a great job for a book that's unknown. So I hired an extraordinary publicity team at Susan McGrino Agency. And they got me written up in every magazine, every newspaper, every, I mean, they just did an incredible job just getting the word out. Because you can write a great book if nobody knows about it, what's the point? Right. And I think the recipes were really simple.

They were for roast carrots and roast chicken. I wasn't trying to prove that I knew how to make fancy food. I was trying to show you how to make really good food that's home cooking. And my experience in a specialty food store where you come in, buy food, and take it home, I think it was really useful as opposed to a fancy restaurant where they're teaching how to make demiglass and, you know, and chop up things that they have 22 people in the kitchen to do. So, I mean, that's really what we have, you know, rose carrots with orange. We have blue cheese grits, a great salad.

We have short ribs, red wine brazed short ribs. It's like good home cooking. And I think that connected with people. Should we try some of these? Yeah, absolutely. As you pointed to them, I said, my gosh. Help yourself to the salad. This is absolutely delicious to salad.

Well, I mean, I thank you too. You had a lot to do with it. I'm always going to take credit for this. I hope you don't mind. So that's orange braced, orange roasted carrots. So they're just basically gorgeous carrots that we've sliced and roasted and then orange juice. Then we've added orange juice, orange zest, and salt. So help yourself.

And can I help you to blue cheese grits? Oh, my goodness. I mean, who's going to say no to blue cheese grits? Well, it's a little thicker. It's been sitting here while we were talking. There you go. But it'll still be really good. How's that?

Perfect. I'm going to send some carrots your way. Okay. Thank you. I love these carrots. Beautiful. But see what I mean? It's roast carrots.

Everybody knows roast carrots, but these are really good roast carrots. Thank you. I can live on these. And we have red wine-braised short ribs just for a nice light lunch. Are you ready for this? Are you ready for this? Is that okay? Always.

I hope you don't mind. I'll be in the guest room if you need me. So it's cooked with all kinds of, you know. But it's, you know, carrots and celery and, um, and red wine and Guinness and Burgundy. There's Guinness in there. Is Guinness in it? Oh, wow.

Thank you very much. Is that enough for lunch? You can skip dinner tonight. I was going to say, I don't need dinner, that's for sure. Now, so this recipe feels inspired or at least has its roots in your Julia Child days, right? It does. But, you know, it's really easy.

What I do is I roast the short ribs and then make a whole pot of vegetable and red wine and Guinness and then cook the short ribs in it. So it doesn't take a lot of time. Right. As opposed to a classic recipe where you would normally braise it for hours and hours on top of the stove. I like to put something in the oven, set a timer, forget about it. And so do we at home, by the way. You tell me you have to braise it for hours.

It sort of scares me off. Forget it. Not even vaguely interested. So I hope it's good. See, I'm a nervous cook. That's what people don't know. The two things they don't know is I'm a nervous cook and I'm a really messy cook. Everything's always so perfect here.

You didn't seem too messy. You're making the salad. You were measuring it out. I mean, you got messier as we went, I will say. Yeah, we did. You say you're a nervous cook, really? After all these years, all your success? Really?

I think it makes me work harder. It's good to live in a little fear of failure maybe, right? I'm always actually pushing the envelope for myself. Is it good? Oh, good. So good. Which is perfect. I always like to push it a little bit, so I'm working scared.

Jeffrey always says, if I know how to do it on day one, I'm going to be bored on day two. So that's my modus operandi. So when you have people for dinner, you cook in the kitchen, you put it out, are you hoping everybody loves it? I hope. And at this point, I don't think anybody's sending back your food, you know? Well, you know what's funny. I think sometimes when I think it's, you know, 95% I'm like devastated. But I'm not sure that most people would notice the difference.

You focus on the 5% that wasn't there. Exactly. But doesn't that make us work harder? Absolutely. The minute you stop doing that, you're done. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So Jeffrey, obviously, is a star of the show.

He's in the cookbooks. Coming up on your 50th anniversary. Congratulations. Thank you. Amazing. It sounds like something your grandparents would do, not you. It's impressive, I have to say. So you met when you were 15 years old, is that right?

And do you remember the meeting? Oh, yeah. Yeah. He went to Dartmouth and my brother went to Dartmouth. My parents and I went to visit my brother. And I was walking around the campus. And he happened to being in the library with his roommate. And he said to his roommate, no, remember Dartmouth was all men.

And I was probably the only girl on campus. So he said, who's that girl? And his roommate said, I happened to know who she is. because she belongs to my tennis club at home. Oh, my gosh. Isn't that amazing? And I had a date with him that night. So after the date, Jeffrey said to his roommate,

are you, like, interested? He said, oh, no, I've known her since we were five. And so he asked if he could write to me. And he wrote me a letter. You know, remember when people wrote letters? And I remember running through the house, he sent me a photograph. And I remember saying, Mom, Mom, this guy's adorable.

And he literally showed up six months later when he was going home. home from school for holiday for vacation. And so I think it's amazing that he remembered six months later to stop by. And he came to my house. And what did your mom think, this college guy from Dartmouth? I don't know my mother thought. I think my father was always asleep when a boy came to pick me up. Didn't want to deal with it. Jeffrey, I think, was the first boy that he actually wanted to meet. Obviously, he made an impression. Oh, they just, they adored him, just adored him. And he's been, we talked about, but he's been incredibly supportive of your career and your journey.

And his own right, he's been incredibly successful. Of course. On his own, you know, from government. He worked with Kissinger. He worked in the White House. He was in the Clinton administration under Secretary of Commerce. Went to Wall Street, went to, was the dean of the business school at Yale. I mean, he's been extraordinary.

Yes. And then when we go through the airport in London and the guy stamping your password goes, it's you. He goes, what? He goes, my wife always says, why can't you be more like Jeffrey? He does. He sets a high bar for the rest of us. Exactly.

What does he make of all this? I mean, the cameras and the fame that you've achieved and that he is now recognized when he goes to the airport. Does he enjoy it? Oh, yeah. I think he's really pleased. I mean, I think some men would be like, why is it all about her? I think Jeffrey's like, great. Right.

Although he's become a star in his own right. Yes. Yes. People want to see Jeffrey now as well. too. They're like, when I go anywhere, I was like, where's Jeffrey? I told him you shouldn't come to any of my talks because people in the audience will be tearing his clothes off. It was raised yesterday.

It was mentioning some people? What would they say? Was Jeffrey going to be there? I said, I don't know. I'm going to talk to Ian. If he's there, it'll be great. If he's not, he's probably at work, but he doesn't have other things to do. But I guess they do ask for him.

No question about it. When did you, so the cookbook is a big hit. Yet, when did the Food Network call? What was that leap from the pages onto the screen? I had sold the store, started writing cookbooks, sold the store in 96, started writing cookbooks. My first one came at in 99. And in 2002, Food Network started calling. And I was like, there's no way.

This is like, no. And I just would send them away and they'd keep coming back. And I go, no, no, no, you don't understand. I don't want to do this. Right. And they were like, well, isn't there any way that we could, I was like, no. I just couldn't imagine why anybody would want to see me on TV. And in the meantime, somebody saw a show, a British show that had been produced for Nigella Lawson.

And I asked Food Network to get me a copy of that show. And I saw it and I thought, well, that's great, but Nigella is unbelievable. I'm not going to be like that. So I said, no, unbeknownstonying Food Network, went to London. Found the producer, hired her, and called me and said she's coming to your house in two weeks. And I was like, what about no, didn't you understand? And I'm like, oh, just do a few shows and we'll see how it goes. And here we are.

Like 16 years later. Just couldn't have imagined. I still can't imagine. I still don't get it. Was it strange in those early days, having the cameras everywhere and trying to have me to perform to camera and do the thing you did, but do it for a TV audience? I've always found it. I remember after we did one show, my director sent the film back to London to edit it

and show me what it looked like. And I remember seeing it the first time, and I thought, it's actually not awful. It's not good, but it's not awful. And I said to her, just think how much better it's going to be when I know what I'm doing. And she said, not necessarily. She said that nervous energy

of not knowing quite what you're doing is really good on film. And the good news or the bad news, I'm not sure which is I'm still nervous in front of a camera. So that nervous energy seems to work. I don't know. I mean, I just show up. You know, you really just, for film, you know,

you just have to show up. Yeah. And you don't love watching yourself on TV. Oh, I never watch myself on TV. Never. Never. Ever. You never flipped past it on TV and catch yourself?

No. I did once or twice, I was like, whoa. Just keep going. Check it out sometimes. Very good show. I think you'd really enjoy it. She's excellent. We interviewed Bobby Flee at his house not far from here a few months ago.

He's great. And he said... Does he ever watch his shows? Well, he's... No, he doesn't like watching his shows. But he said at the beginning, he would watch just to... Oh, just to see. And he said, he watches it now.

And he said, how did they put me on TV? How did they give me a second season? I'm looking all over the place. I don't know what I'm doing. And here he is. I mean, I think he's been on longer than I have. Am I right? Yeah, he was the original.

He kind of helped them launch the Food Network. Yeah, yeah. When we interviewed him, he said his thing is big, bold flavors. So if I asked you what your thing is, what would you say? My thing is something that you already like, like roast carrots, but it's better than you think it is. It's just take something. I always admire somebody who makes it. bitter potato chip. So, I mean, everybody likes potato chips, but let's make something that's really

good. And I think each of these dishes is exactly that. It's something you know what it is, but I've like turned up the volume. So it's incredibly delicious. And that's the cook like a pro philosophy, right? That's a good. And this book has a lot of detail so that you can do that. And that's, I think that's what Cook Like a Pro is. It's the tools to do a really good job. So you're confident. And the dish turns out better than you could have expected. Well, I will say this is... What else would you want? Turned out better than I could have expected.

Oh, good. I love all of it. I'm really into the blue cheese grits, I have to say. Aren't the blue cheese grits good? What a good touch on grits. Amazing. Thank you. That's a good illustration of what you're talking about.

I already loved the grits. Yeah. Never thought to be the blue cheese. But the blue cheese really elevates the flavor. Totally. Oh, good. That's excellent. I did it?

You did it. I think you always do it, though. I don't you'd be surprised if you didn't do it. One of the other things people say about you, Ina, is that you are sort of a feminist icon to a lot of women. Really? That's nice. And I think you've talked about a little bit that you came up in a time when women didn't have options. Didn't have choices. And I think they look at you.

Has it changed a lot? It's changed somewhat, but it hasn't changed as much as we would like. But I think what they say about you is that the value that you, that you, that you, that you give yourself, a lot of it comes from your livelihood and what you do, and that you invest a lot in your job. I believe in what I'm doing. Yeah. You know, I think there was a moment when I was at OMB,

and I remember looking at the head of OMB and thinking to myself, could I ever be that person? Could I ever, and I just didn't see it happening. I don't know whether I couldn't, I mean, now I know it's a political pointy, so that's a whole other story, but I just couldn't see myself being asked to be the head of a company. And I thought, okay, I'm just going to do it my way. And I'll just go off and do it on my track, on my terms.

And I think the thing that, rather than being out there politically, looking for change, I just thought the best thing I could be as a role model for people that are doing it on their own terms. And it's really worked for me. I'm really happy I did. Do you see yourself as a feminist? Well, if a feminist means I believe in women, yes. Yeah. too. So are you aware of your folk hero status on the internet, on social media? There are all

these memes about you. Really? As you may know, you say store-bought is fine. Here's one that reads, if you don't have time to travel to Madagascar to pick your own vanilla beans, store-bought is fine. I love them. I just, I remember one where I, somebody, two kids had done this thing where one was me and one was Jeffrey, and I sent him out to get lemons and he came back with limes. And I, I, I, I put him in the basement, and he was like, no, no, not the basement. And I thought, how great. I mean, we're just having a ball. And you're on Instagram.

Do you enjoy that? I do love it. I actually, I kind of resisted it. Right. And Lydie Hoick works with me, and I asked her to come do social media with me. I needed a millennial to do it. And I said, I just don't have time for Instagram. And she said, okay, fine.

So she put it on my phone and just put it on my desk. And I was on the phone playing around with it. And I thought, wow, this is fantastic. So, and it's literally the first thing I do every morning when I wake up and the last thing when I go to bed. I just, I love the visual aspect of it. In the beginning, I couldn't quite understand why I was posting things. And I realized that it's like a postcard from home.

You're just sharing what you're doing. And I love that people connect with it. It's wonderful. And it lends itself well to food, too. And it doesn't, yeah, exactly. I think of myself as kind of more than food. It's about entertaining. So it's about flowers.

It's about gardens. It's about food. It's about people that I'm doing things with. And I just think it's fun. It's really fun. You're famous for having music on when you cook? Oh, I do. I always have music on.

Who's on the playlist right now? Well, Talley Swift is always number one. I think my staff is really sick of it. And she loves you back, as we know. I just adore her, just particularly now. But we listen to everything. We listen to Lydie has a playlist that's all kind of 60s music, which is really fun.

We listen to, I mean, it can be anything. What are the big ones? That, by the way, must be another of your... I have a dinner party in Paris playlist. Oh, do you? Which is really with cost music. You know, cost is a hotel, and they have great mix playlists.

There's one I love. It's a Welsh group called Novo Amour, which I just did. or Diana Kral or I just you know whatever we feel like that day so what does the music do for you while you cook um just gets me juiced up yeah it's your pump up music exactly yeah the Taylor swift friendship must be another one of these well pinch me aspects of your totally of your career I think there are a few people I admire more than um Taylor I think she's young and wise and incredibly good at what she does incredibly talented.

And she's, I mean, talk about a brand, she's just doing what she loves to do. And she's writing music from her heart and singing, doing incredible performances and talking to people. And when she's on the stage, I remember one time we went to see her, what's the Meadowlands? It's called. MetLife Stadium.

And she, in between songs, she said, she went to the microphone and said, to 65,000 young girls in the audience. You know, we worry about what people say about us on the internet. But what we say about ourselves is so much worse. And, you know, here I am. I'm not a teenager. And it just really, I thought, how did she get so wise?

She was, I think, 26 at the time. And she's so right. So I just think she's got a lot to tell people and a lot to share. And she's amazing. She's otherworldly. I took my daughter to that very stadium a couple of months ago. Oh, my God. It was a driving rainstorm in July.

Oh, that's the one where she was in the rain? She was out there in the rain. She was out there in the rain. She was out there for two hours and 15 minutes, uncovered. Uncovered. And probably like on catwalks. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

She rode on a wire across the stadium and a driving rains. It was incredible. I have great respect to her. There was a moment when she was on a catwalk. And this must have been not this tour, but the one before. And she was way up in the air on that the catwalk is moving. And as it came by, I just sort of, I don't know, just naturally just went, and she happened to see me and went hi. And I thought, this is a woman who's connecting

with people in the audience. I've talked to groups and it looks like a sea of people. But she was really specifically connecting with people as that cack walk moved around. So people knew that they were seen. And, you know, that's just extraordinary. Another famous woman who you've touched is the Duchess of Sussex. Is that what we call her now? Have you heard the story? Well, I do know that she'd like to cook my roast chicken, right? Which we call engagement chicken.

Right. Because whenever you make it, somebody asks you to marry them. Whoever you make it for them, asks you to marry them. And there are rumors that that's what she did for Prince Harry, right? So what we're driving out here is that you are responsible for the royal wedding. Without you, there's no... It would never have happened. It closed the deal anyway.

Take that credit. And it's a roast chicken. I mean, isn't that a wonderful story? Yeah. And then that came from, I met some young woman at Glamour magazine, and they said to me, oh my God, we make your roast chicken all the time. We call it engagement chicken because every time somebody in the office makes it for her boyfriend, they're engaged within 24 hours. And I thought, it's a rose chicken.

How great? How powerful is that? It's just wonderful. That's great. Thank you so much, Ina. Thank you, William. What a pleasure. Thank you.

Thank you for having me. My thanks again to Aina for Hina for. opening up her beautiful home to us, spending the day with me. Her latest cookbook, again, is Cook Like a Pro. It's out now, and of course you can catch the latest season of Barefoot Contessa every Sunday on the Food Network. My thanks, as always, to all of you for tuning in to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Make sure to click subscribe, if you haven't already,

for more of our extended conversations with my guests every Sunday. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. You know,