Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Ina Garten on Hosting, Dessert Traditions and Dream Dinner Guests - Part 2

Episode Date: December 21, 2025

Ina Garten is a New York Times bestselling author and Food Network legend known for elevating home entertaining with warmth and simplicity. In this conversation from May 2025, Garten and Willie Geist continue their conversation from the second Sunday Sitdown Live at City Winery, in which Garten demonstrates how to build the perfect dessert tray and reveals her dream dinner guests. (Venue sponsored by City Winery.) 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. My thanks as always for tuning in again this week for a special episode two with Ina Garten. In episode one, we brought you my sit down conversation with Ina in front of a live audience at City Winery in New York City. Now, in part two, in front of that same audience at City Winery in New York City, we popped up and built a proper dessert tray. I didn't know how to build a dessert tray. Guess who does? Ina Garten. Turns out you want a mix of shapes, you want a mix of sizes, you want a mix of colors, you want some greenery on that platter, you want some fruit on that platter. We also poured a proper

cocktail, which was a Kier Royale. She will explain that to you how you mix it. It's actually two ingredients. It's very simple. We had a great time with the demo in front of the audience and then fielding audience questions as they came in. So sit back, relax now, and enjoy part two of my conversation with Ina Garten right now on the Sunday Sitdown podcast. When you're having dinner party, everybody thinks they have to do some over-the-top dessert, which takes so much time to make. I have a way to make a dessert that's equally over-the-top, but really simple. It requires no cooking at all.

Did I hear dessert? Dessert? Hello, again. And the right place at the right time. See you on the streets of New York. So I understand dessert starts with flowers, yeah? Unusually it does. Okay.

Let's go shopping. Oh, this is a beautiful shop. This is a fabulous shop. So we're not doing flowers. on food. We're doing flowers on the table. So I think these peonies are pretty gorgeous. You know, I believe in picking one flower and just doing a lot of them.

So look how gorgeous that is. Isn't that fabulous? And the other thing I always get at a flower shop is some kind of green leaves. So that will be part of the plate. It's going to be part of the platter. It just makes everything pop a little better. You think of everything? Yeah. Here we go. Let's go shopping for dessert.

So what I'm going to do is a big flatter and I'll show you how to make it look gorgeous. You know, none of my other interview subjects have ever brought a dessert platter. This is why I love Ina. Oh, I'm so glad. And then we can eat it. Let's go.

You're looking for color, texture, shape, and flavor. So you want some things that are round, some things that are natural like fruit. These are beautiful. Look how gorgeous these big, beautiful strawberries. Is it me or have strawberries and blueberries gotten bigger since I was a child? Everything's gotten bigger. I mean... Not necessarily better, but definitely bigger.

Okay, let's go to the bakery. Eli has the best cookies, and nobody alone you never turned the oven on. We have landed in heaven. Heaven, right? Well, these look good. Yeah, these look great. I love these little lemon loaves. Maybe instead of lemon bars, we'll have lemon loaves, right?

And then we'll just slice this. And let's see, where else? Oh, you know what I love? I love these raspberry bars are fabulous. Oh, I know. We have to have brownies. Do we like marshmallows? I like a marshmallow.

You like a marshmallow? Oh, my gosh. Chocolate dip macaroons. I love it. And raspberry jam thumbprints. How's that? Do we have enough? I mean, yeah, I think we do.

But, boy, it's hard to resist some of this stuff. I know. I think we are well-stocked for dessert. I think we're in good shape. But we have one last stop, champagne, because it's a celebration, right? So this is my friend Eli's wine shop, and he picks out every bottle personally. I mean, they're really extraordinary wines. So if I was going to get champagne anywhere, this would be the place.

We've come to the right place. And there's Eli. The legend himself. Pleasure to meet you. Hi, Eli. So great to meet you. I'm honored. Hi, sweetie.

So we want to make Kier Royale. Good. And I know you know champagne. Right. This coquiette is a Grand Cru, highest level of champagne. Yeah, good. And why we chose it? Because it has a certain amount of acidity to cut through the sweetness.

Because you're adding the cassis, which is a sweet dessert wine. Exactly. And Ceceis, you know, it's black currants. Fabulous. So for people who don't know Keir Royale, it's just these two ingredients? It's just these two. You put a little cassis in the bottom of the glass, and then you pour in cold champagne. And that's it?

And that's it. And you know what? If you want to drink it out of a tumbler. knock yourself out. It'll be still be delicious. Whatever makes you happy. So I think we've made our choices. Okay, great.

Yep. You take that. I'll take this. Thank you, Mila. Well, I know. I think we've got everything we need. Did we clean the place out? I think we did.

Let's go make dessert. Okay, good. Did you get the cure royale? We should have a cure royale. I think it's in tumblers. That is. Is that tumblers? Wait, I've got.

I think we need some. Let's make a little cure royale of our own. Perfect. Okay. Wonderful. Not tumblers, but we'll do our best. I like a recipe that's two ingredients, that's it. And one of them, champagne.

Now, remind you which goes in first? The Cassice. Okay. You're going to have to walk me through the portion size. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Okay?

Yep, perfect. I love these old-fashioned champagne glasses. That's great. Isn't that nice? Guys, I don't like to brag, but I was the co-valedictorian of the 1993 metropolitan bartending school. He was. It's true. I was a senior in high school looking for something to do with my free time,

so I went to bartending school, which I think was illegal. I was 17. All right, heads up now. And Willie knows the way to do it is you turn the bottle, not the core. Right, right. That's the key. Thank you. And then just top that off?

Oh, yeah. Boy, cold all, Victoria. Still got it. Still got it. Wow. Perfect. Look at this. Boy, that's a beauty.

How gorgeous is that? Cheers, everyone. Cheers. Cheers, everyone. Cheers to you. Cheers, Aina. Okay, so here are all the things we bought at Eli's the other day. By the way, how great to see Eli, your old friend. I know. Isn't he wonderful? It's amazing. Fabulous.

So what do we have here, I know, let's walk through it. You know, if you have so much to make for a dinner party, I always like to try and think of something that you can make for dessert that's just assembled. And I was in the south of France at a restaurant, and they walked in with like a six-foot board filled with strawberries and little tarts and chocolates and all kinds of dessert things and just put it down in the middle of the table. And I thought, why would you ever want to cook if you could do that?

I mean, it was so gorgeous and so appealing. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to make a dessert platter, not a six-foot one, but just a little one. And green leaves are really important because they really make everything look so much better. So I'm just going to... So you get like a little bed of leaves? Yeah, just a couple of leaves so that you can put things on top of it. Okay, so you want something in the middle to give it focus.

So these gorgeous strawberries. Look at the size of these things. Just absolutely gorgeous. And some grapes, because green is a really important color. Have you guys noticed that about strawberries and blueberries getting bigger? There's some like mutant thing happening on farms. It's just crazy. You know, the first time I did a cheese platter when I was at the store,

I had a chef and I thought well somebody asked me for a cheese flatter and I thought well I can do it myself it doesn't require cooking so I got a platter and I did the whole thing

and the chef came over to me and said okay so this is what you want to do you want to take everything off that platter I said okay and she said you want to put a big bunch of grapes in the middle of the platter and then you put the cheese around and some strawberries and some apricots

and then stop and she was right I mean, it's really about keeping the focus of like groupings of colors and flavors and things like that, but make them interesting. So what I always do is I take these squares. Do you want to help me with this? Yeah, of course. And I cut them in half in fingers and then take these little muffin cups, white muffin cups, just white ones, not fancy ones. So you like the rectangle shape.

Yeah, I like kind of like the finger of. So these are the raspberry crumble bars. Just do two of these. Okay. Maybe I'll get this? Yeah. You want to cut more for me? And brownie?

Yeah, more of these guys. You want to put a large group of each one. You don't want it to look like a bowl of M&Ms. Like a grouping of each one. Okay. And then, so if you have things that are rectangular, you want things that are round next to it. That's perfect.

Actually, we can even just put it on. How's that? We don't even need the paper cuts. We'll just put it on like that. That's nice. There's some brownies. And brownies. Don't worry.

We'll pass this around in a minute. And actually, I'm not going to put the brownies next to the crumbull bars because of the same shape. Too much rectangle. How about if we do too much? Is that good? You got the message. So if we do round cookies, these are raspberry. These are great.

Jam thumbprints. You have to make sure they're good. It's very important, extremely important. They're good. Yeah. And then something rectangular. like a lemon cake. I'm just going to put this on

and then slice it. Come on. Booze and Oz. Mmm. Wow. So it's about texture and flavor and kind of like to make it really interesting.

And everything is accessible. So if you put this in the middle of a table, everybody would just go, oh, that looks so fabulous. Do you have one of these or is it too much? Should we run out of room? I think what's too much. How about the macaroons? Okay.

You want to make sure they're good? Yeah, I should. It's important. It's important. It's important. It's very important. Okay. So big groupings, you just want big groupings of things everywhere.

Coconut macaroons. Aren't they great? Yeah, it's delicious. And then what should we put in this corner? What do you think? Maybe more strawberries. We haven't done the brownies yet. Do we want to do that?

Oh, yeah. We need brownies. Exactly. Okay, perfect. Got to have brownies. And a couple more? Is it too much? No.

Perfect. Look at this. Just kind of piled them up. I think we need one more brownie. Has that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, who wouldn't want that for dessert?

Look at that. Right? And then one more thing, what do we have? Maybe the chocolate loaf. A rectangle of that one, too? Yeah. Right. Perfect.

Like a slice? Yeah. Okay. Well done. Now, where do you put that? Like, you just put this out after dinner? You just put it right in the middle of the table that everybody help themselves.

Okay. I mean, like, who wouldn't want that? Guys, that's gorgeous. And you know there was no cooking at all. How's that? That's gorgeous. Isn't that pretty? Very pretty.

Look at that. And dessert is served. What was fun when we were shopping at Eli's was Ina already had the vision. She's going to need those to cut into the rectangular shapes. We need round of these. We need these fruits and these colors. You already kind of saw it when we were walking through the store. Yeah, I think you have to have a plan.

And you don't want all things that are rectangular or all things that are round. And you want a variety of flavors and things that are delicious. Always chocolate, something chocolate. How about it, guys? Ina Garten. Cheers. Okay. Stick around for more of my conversation with Ina Garten right after a quick break.

Welcome back now to the rest of my conversation with Ina Garten. Now, before we let you go, I know, we're going to do some audience questions. You guys have submitted. Uh-oh. We're going to get through as many as we can in the next few minutes. Okay, where's Faye Evans of Philadelphia? Faye are you here somewhere? Hi, Faye.

Okay. I love this question. Ina, do you ever have one of those nights where you just want to order takeout? If so, what is your go-to take-out? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Every day, yeah. What's my go-to? I like really simple take-out things.

like a souvlaki from the Greek restaurant or, right? I love Greek food. Just simple, simple, wonderful. There's a restaurant near us called 1770 House that has great meat loaf. So on a cold winter night, it's wonderful, yeah. Do you ever do like a fast food drive-thru? Any of whatever catch in there? Not so much.

No? Do you? Not getting a supersized, number one. No. I don't even know what that is. What is it? It's the Big Mac meal. If you supersized it, the fries are big and the drink, it's fantastic.

I mean, it's not this, but it's close. I have been known to go to In-N-Out Burger when I'm in California. There you go, In-N-Out burger. In-N-Out burger. Okay. How about Nicole from Catona, New York? Where's Nicole? She's here somewhere, or she submitted a question anyway.

This is Forayna. I am a self... Over here? Oh, great. Hi, Nicole. I'm a self-taught cook. I've always struggled with the timing for a... meal with multiple dishes. What's the secret to getting all the dishes to the table at the same

time? I grill and I struggle with that too. It's the hardest thing. And what I do is I make literally a battle plan. I figure out if I have four things I have to make and I want to serve everything at 730, I work my way backwards. And literally right, turn on the oven to 400 degrees when I have to turn the oven on and then put in the meat for 25 minutes, take it out, put the string beans in. I mean, literally have the whole thing organized. Otherwise, I'm always going, oh my God, do I have to put the string beans in now? Right. It's really hard.

At what point do you start to enjoy a dinner party? Because it is... When it's over? When it's over? Because it is stressful. All day is stressful. From the time that I lived in Washington, when I was like in 24, every single

Saturday I would give a dinner party, and every single Sunday I'd go, oh, I'm so tired. I'm never giving another dinner party again. And then on Monday, I'd start inviting people for the next weekend. Go figure. Can't help yourself. Thank you, Nicole.

Okay, this is from Susan Amarillo, Texas. Thank you, Susan. Oh. Oh, this is a good one. Do you play music while you cook? Always. And if so, what do you play? Always.

I actually have a playlist that I have on Spotify and Apple. Like, oh, you do? Oh, good. That's wonderful. I have like a French playlist and a dinner party playlist and road trip playlist. and so yeah, I always love to listen to music. Any favorite artists that pop, is it like, eat it pee off? Taylor Swift.

What else? I'm really a teenage, teenage at heart. She's working that booking hard tonight. Taylor Swift. Get that out to the press. Okay, we mentioned our lunch in Paris. How often do you get to Paris? And what is your favorite restaurant there?

Ooh. You know, Jeffrey and I go to Paris certainly twice a year, but usually like three or four times a year. And, you know, the thing I love about Paris is not the fancy restaurants. It's the groceries and the really simple places. And one of the things we love to do if we like go to Belgium for the day and then come back late at night and go to floor and have an omelet and a glass of champagne.

I mean, it's the best omelet in the world. And it's just the simplest meal. And that's kind of what I'd like to do. Simple and delicious. Simple, really? Yeah. The Ina Garten way. Okay, here's one for both of us. This is hard.

Who are the three people living or dead you would like to have dinner with? Todd from Huntsville writes this question. Yeah, Todd. And Todd points out, Ina is always on our list of three. So you're kind of having that today. How about Julia Childs? Eric Rappare from LaBernardons. Who's the other food person that would be really fun?

And Jacques Pepin. Who's so much fun. Wow. Wouldn't that dinner party be fabulous? That'd be great. Talk about stress making that dinner. Oh, God. I actually had Eric Rappere as a guest, and afterwards, I remember thinking, oh, my God, I have to cook something for him.

I was in a full panic. And then I thought, I remember that when he was a little boy, his mother used to make, literally get up at 5 o'clock in the morning and make a two-course breakfast, a three-course lunch, and a three-course dinner for them. and she worked, she was in the fashion business, and she would make him a tarté tan every day. So when he came home from school and she was away at work, he would eat the entire tarté tan.

So I made him a French apple tart one. And he was just adorable. Oh, sweet. Yeah, it was really nice. This is impossible. You can go historical figure. I went Dolly Parton, our greatest living American. Oh, yeah, that's good.

You want some energy and comedy at the party? I went Marty Short. I thought it would be a great... Can you imagine Marty Short and dinner dinner? And then if we're doing living or dead, I went a little family. My great grandfather, Herbie Lewis, my mom's grandfather, played in the NHL for the Detroit Red Wings. Really? This is a huge...

Huge figure in our family, and I would love to now sit and talk and get to know him. That sounds like a good party. Sounds like a good party. Marty Short's running that party, though. Let's be honest. Okay, time for a couple more. For those of us that do not cook, this is from Mike in Haddonfield, New Jersey. How do you recommend we start?

Where do you begin if you're not good in the kitchen, but you kind of want to get there? I would say get a really simple cookbook and learn to make two things. You don't have to make a million things. Make a roast chicken and some kind of pasta, like a pasta bolognaz. If you just follow the recipe, and you don't have to nail it on the first try, just keep making it over and over and over again until you feel comfortable with it. And then you've got two great dinners. You don't have to make a million things.

Good advice. Right? Good advice. Okay, before we say goodnight to you guys, we want to do a mug shot with everybody in the mugshot. So Mark is our photographer. He's going to be out here and Ina and I will stand here. You guys will be in the background. He's got a wide angle lens. And we're going to take the mug shot and get everybody on the show when this interview airs next Sunday, June 1st with Ina. So we'll get in position. Okay, if you have a mug, lift it up. Ready? Cheers. Cheers. Thank you.

Guys, one more time. My big thanks again to Aina for that conversation and, of course, to City Winery for hosting and sponsoring our Sunday Sitdown Live event. Stay tuned for the next one. Ina's bestselling memoir. Be ready when the luck happens is available wherever you get your books. My thanks again to all of you for listening this week. If you want to hear more of my conversations with our guests every week,

be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.