Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Ina Garten on Hosting Traditions and Dream Dinner Guests - Part 2 (May 2025)

Episode Date: February 1, 2026

Ina Garten is a Food Network legend known for bringing warmth, simplicity, and confidence to home entertaining. In this conversation from May 2025, Garten and Willie Geist continue their discussion from the second Sunday Sitdown Live at City Winery, where she demonstrates how to build the perfect dessert tray and reveals her dream dinner guests. Plus, she explains why hosting has remained one of the most meaningful parts of her life and career. (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? It 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 Gartner. right now on the Sunday Sit Down 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? Desert. Hello, again. 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 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 platter 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 I know. 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.

Bigged 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 will know you never turn 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. 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 Keer Royale. And I know you know champagne. Right. This coquiet. That 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 cassis, 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. A flute glass of some kind? A flip, whichever. 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, Elon.

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. Yeah. 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 me which goes in first? The Casice? 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 the taught. Just keep going. Still got it. Wow. Perfect. Look at this. Boy, that's a beauty. How gorgeous is that?

Cheers, everyone. Cheers, everyone. Cheers. Cheers, Ina. Cheers, Tina. 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 just 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 there's this, 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. 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. Rectangle shape.

Yeah, I like kind of like a finger of. So these are the raspberry crumble bars. Just do two of these. Okay. Yeah. You want to, and then cut more for me? Brownie or 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. Ouse 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, right? Do you want one of these or is it too much? We run out of room. I think it's too much right now. How about the macaroons? Okay.

You want to make sure they're good? Yeah, I should. 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. Want a couple more? Is it too much? No. Perfect. Just kind of piled them up.

I think we need one more brownie. How's 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. Perfect. Like a slice? Yeah. 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 and let 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? It's 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.

Like, 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 Garton. 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'll 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.

What's my go-to? I like really simple take-out things like a souvlocky 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 meatloaf. 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 prize, or, 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-Aatburger when I'm in California. There you go, In-N-An-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 7.30, 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? 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, I would, 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. There you go. 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. Always. I actually have a playlist that I have on Spotify and Apple.

Like, oh, you do? Oh, good. Oh, 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 could pop? Is it like Edith Pia off? Taylor Swift.

I'm really a teenage at a 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 I 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 Jainagarten 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. Oh, thank you, Todd. So you're kind of having that.

How about Julia Childs? Eric Rappere from LaBernardinandons. 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 full panic. And then I thought, I remembered 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 would make, and she worked, she was in the fashion business, and she would make him a tarté taint every day. So when he came home from school and she was away at work, he would eat the entire tartetin. So I made him a French apple tart. And he was just adorable. How sweet. Yeah, it was really nice.

This is impossible. Mingo 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. Oh, that would be a great thing. Can you imagine Marty Short and Indianapolis?

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 huge figure in our family, and I would love to now sit and talk and get to know Emily. 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. Yeah.

Okay. Before we say goodnight to you guys, we want to do a mugshot 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 best-selling 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.