Ina Garten
Appearances
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
Are we overthinking these details, you and I? I don't think so. I think it's really important. Right. And I think it's a skill. You get better and better at hosting people. And I think, I mean, you and I obviously find it's really worth doing because it's the glue between people.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
So the first thing is baked Virginia ham. So what I do is I buy a fully cooked smoked ham, really good quality ham, that's pre-sliced. Wow. So you don't have to slice it at the party. And all I do is make a glaze with like five ingredients in it, goes in a food processor, put it on the ham, goes in the oven, and it bakes for an hour.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
One thing you need to know about me is I follow a recipe exactly. So, six cloves of garlic. Are you in charge of garlic? I would like to. Choose your weapon. I'll get the garlic. I'm ordering my clobber around.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
There's no wrong way to do it, period. Okay, so we need eight and a half ounces of mango chutney, which is exactly what I have. Can you describe this chutney? Well, it's mango, but it's got raisins in it, and it's chutney, so it's both sweet and sour. Half a cup of Dijon mustard. I can do that. I'll just dump it in. One cup of light brown sugar. Now I need the zest of one orange.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
It's called the pith, which is the lighter part. And you don't want any of it because it's bitter. So you just go absolutely, just the absolute surface where it's really dark orange or dark lemon. And then we need a quarter of a cup of freshly squeezed orange juice. I love a juicer.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
Okay, we're ready to go. So, got a food processor, garlic in. Garlic in. Okay, so just turn the food processor on. Okay. Until it's all pureed. This is the best glaze, it's so good.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
Just to hold it all together. Mm-hmm, because it's pre-sliced. Because it's pre-sliced. And then we're gonna pour the glaze over it.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
Okay, so this is what I love about roasting. You put it in the oven, set a timer, and forget about it. Mm-hmm. So this is one hour, and in one hour, we're going to have a delicious ham. That was stunningly simple. And it feeds 20 people. I mean, it's really quite extraordinary. Yeah. No, it feeds more than that, like 20 to 30 people. Okay, ham is now in the oven.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
Okay, how about a cranberry martini? So you want to make it with me? I would love to make it.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
It absolutely does. Would you like your martini in that glass? No. I have it right here.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
This is like a... It's glass? It's like a birdbath. It was given to me as a joke, but I mean, I had to use it. And there's two of them. And there are two of them. They're like vases. Well, you don't want to drink that by yourself. So let's make that cranberry martini. You're gonna love this.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
So, first thing we need is three quarters of a cup of cranberry juice, and it's actually cranberry juice cocktail, so it's got a little sugar in it.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
Half a cup of good vodka. Ooh, this is from the freezer. It's from the freezer, yeah. Quarter of a cup of triple sec. Which is a sweet liqueur. Orange liqueur, exactly. Is that perfectly measured? And now we need a cup of ice. And this is the key to cocktails with ice, is you have to shake it for 30 seconds.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
Nice to see you. I hear you all the time. May I hug you? I insist. Oh, I'm so happy to see you, Michael. Thank you so much for coming.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
And what it does is dilute the cocktail enough so that it's not like that, like really harsh. So it's absolutely delicious. So how about you do 30 seconds and I'll time it. Okay. Go. It's longer than you think. That's only five seconds.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
Especially when you're thirsty. That's 30 seconds. Okay, I'm getting the glasses in the freezer.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
This is a day to cheer. It's really nice. Isn't that good? Yeah. You know what I love? It has no bite. It has no bite, exactly. But also, the flavors are layered perfectly, and it doesn't have that hit of vodka, even though you and I know how much is in there. The orange and the cranberry kind of bubble up a little bit. It's not too sweet, not too tart.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
That would be the ham. Ham's ready. Okay. Well, it smells pretty good, doesn't it? It does. That's the first test. How's that look?
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
Isn't it? And then, so what I like to do is I like to serve it like a slice of ham with a little bit of the glaze from the pan.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
Isn't that, it'll be our little secret. It's just something I whipped up in the few minutes before you got here, and I actually did. And you actually did, because you planned it out.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
But it doesn't overpower the smoked ham. I think it's really important that the intrinsic flavor of the thing that you're cooking shines through and the ingredients just make them taste better. Kind of layers of mustard and orange and chutney. Not bad, is it?
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
Thank you. Thank you. Where's my martini? Excuse me, I need to get mine too. I can't have you drinking alone. What a great day. Cheers. We made that sauce. We did. We worked so hard too, didn't we? Look how gorgeous that is.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
Depends on the meal. If it's not a sandwich, bread on the table.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
I love stuffing, but I make it as bread pudding. A savory bread pudding.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
I live next door, and my commute is on the grass. It's 90 feet.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
I actually do one better than that. I actually make another Thanksgiving dinner. I'm sorry, what? When I make Thanksgiving dinner, I make a second one so that I can cut it up and give it to the guests to take home because everybody wants Thanksgiving dinner sandwiches the next day. They do. Turkey and cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
And it's really terrible the next day when you've gone to somebody else's dinner and you don't have those things. So I make sure everybody has everything.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
Well, it's what I love to do because my whole goal in life is to connect with people I love. And it doesn't happen easily. When you have that connection, you feel like you're taking care of people and they're taking care of you. And God knows we need that.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
Well, you know, in my memoir I tell the story that my mother was very cold. I think she just wasn't capable of being warm. So I think I never felt connected to her at all. At all? At all. At all.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
I think I was really hungry for that in my life. And so that's what I try and do with my friends. I think entertaining for me is really about bringing people together and making them part of my family.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
I do. And it was a total disaster. Jeffrey and I had just gotten married. He was in the military. And I decided to have a party for 20 people. Bad idea.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
20 people. And they didn't know each other. And for some reason, I decided I was going to make an omelet for everybody. Now, I barely know how to make an omelet now. I mean, I kind of do, but I certainly didn't know how to make an omelet then. And what I know now is you have to make them one at a time. Yeah. So I spent the entire time in the kitchen making omelets.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
So poor Jeffrey was in the living room with 20 people trying to keep the conversation going.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
It was like I was on a cruise ship. I was the chef. And we didn't have a table for 20 people, so there were chairs in the living room that were just in a big circle, and everybody had a plate and an omelet on their lap, but not at the same time.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
I think I was so busy making omelets, I didn't even think about it until afterwards. And I knew it was a quiet party. And with 20 people, you can't connect with them. Mm-hmm.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
I think by the time Jeffrey and I got to Washington, I had been to France, and I was really interested in the food. And I started working my way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. And so my first parties were very elaborate affairs. You know, they were fancy. It was fancy food. And so I picked the most complicated things. Which is how I taught myself how to cook.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
So I'm glad I did. And then one day we were invited to somebody's house for dinner. It was a guy. And I said to Jeffrey, oh, this is going to be a disaster because no men cooked in the 70s. I mean, they just didn't. And we went there and he served a simple filet of beef that was roasted, simple vegetables. It was an absolutely simple, elegant meal. And I remember thinking to myself, this is it.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
Everybody had a wonderful time. His hair wasn't on fire. He wasn't cooking from Julia Child. He wasn't making some elaborate thing. And at that moment, I decided to change how I cook. And so the thing that I expected to be a disastrous dinner turned out to be a lesson I'll never forget.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
And the simpler the meal is, the more fun everybody has. The irony is it's not about impressing your guests with a great dinner. It's about making a dinner that's perfectly delicious, that allows everybody to have a good time together.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
So I was interviewing Frank Bruni, who I just adore, and I said to him, what's the key to a great restaurant? And he said, the most important detail is how you greet it at the door. And I thought, that's exactly true of parties. Because once you feel like you're welcome, you're always going to feel good.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
Well, first I think about who I want to see, but I also think about who would like to see each other. So people who know each other that don't see each other or who would enjoy each other's company. Jeffrey and I pretty much choreograph each dinner party. You sit there and you talk about it. You think about it ahead of time. We totally think about it.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
And we think about how the party is seated, which is really important. So inevitably in a group of six people around a round table is my ideal dinner party. And inevitably some people are extroverts and some people are introverts. So some people are more talkative than others. So if you think about six people around a dinner table...
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
I always put the most talkative people opposite each other and the least talkative people opposite each other in the other quadrant. So that if you put the talkative people next to each other, that's where the party's going to be. And then people can listen that want to listen and people can talk that want to talk.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
And you'd be shocked how too big a table or two people on the same side of the table that are talking can just wreck a perfectly good dinner party.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
So this is like a New York Times puzzle. There are a lot of layers to it. And the first one is I just remember these are my friends and I want them to be happy. So when I'm doing the menu, the first thing I do is find out, or if I know, figure out what everybody doesn't like or doesn't eat.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
And I want to make one menu that everybody can eat because you never want to be having the roast veal dinner and this person over there alone by themselves is having pasta. I want everybody to share the same meal. So that's the first thing. Then I'll write down a menu of what I'd like to make.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
And then I just start crossing things off and just go, well, do we really need four vegetables when two would be fine? Cross two off. Do I have to make that peach tart or can I get it from a bakery? Cross that off. Is it hard to make a first course while the meat is in the oven? Don't make a first course. Then I figure out how am I going to make this meal?
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
Are there four things that need to go in one oven? Or is there one thing that's room temperature, one thing that I can cook on top of the stove, and one thing in the oven, so that I'm not trying to juggle things while it's happening? And then the last thing I do is make a timeline. How is this meal going to happen? I feel like I'm at NASA Command Center. It is like that.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
And I think people are shocked that when I have six people for dinner, I do this. Because otherwise, all day I'm like, oh my God, should I start the dinner? And then I look at my schedule and I say, 5 o'clock, I have to turn the oven on. It's literally that detailed. 5.15, put the meat in the oven. 5.45, take it out. It's really detailed. But then I know that before 5 o'clock, I'm fine.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
I can relax. And it's hard. It's a complicated thing to get everything out on the table at the same time when it's perfectly cooked. And that's the only way I know how to do it is to make a schedule.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
And why does it even matter? Well, first I would say paper and plastic are nice for a picnic on a boat, but I'm not sure that they belong on a table. I knew it. So that should settle that. I think the table should be lovely, but I really like a modern table that's simple.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
I think there's nothing more horrifying than sitting down to a really fancy dinner table where there are like six glasses at each place setting. And you know you're going to be there forever because there are six courses, each with a different wine. Right. Or a different fork or a different knife. Oh, my God. It's just horrible. So modern simply means? As simple as possible.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
As simple as possible, but it can still be beautiful. And I use the same things over and over again. I like really good napkins, good linen napkins. I have a wine glass, a water glass, a dinner plate, tableware, and that's the table setting. And then what I like to do is have garden flowers from the flower shop or from my garden.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
If you do little vases filled with flowers in the same color palette as the napkin, then it all feels coordinated and you can move those vases around until they look great. I think things that are fancy are actually meant to impress rather than make people feel comfortable. And I feel that way about food, I feel that way about table settings.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
If for the holidays you don't have enough chairs of one kind of chair, then who cares? It's fun. Just put chairs around the table. If you only have six white dishes in one pattern and you have six white dishes in another pattern, just mix them all up. And I think that makes something feel simple and elegant and fun, which is, at the end of the day, you just want your friends to be there.
The Daily
Thanksgiving With Ina Garten
That's pretty hard to think of what to do except to invite them to come join you in the kitchen and say, this isn't okay. But how do you do that? It's very hard to do. And probably everybody would like to do it. I mean, I try and change the subject. I try to change the subject. Yeah, I think that's the only thing you can do. And I think everybody's so grateful that you do.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
You know, what's really great is roast pork loins because they're very small and you can marinate them and roast them really simply. Serve them with like a potato and apple and fennel puree and some shaved Brussels sprouts. It'd be a great holiday meal. And it's not like cooking a whole ham.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
What happened was, and I actually started this at the store in the 80s. I started roasting Brussels sprouts instead of boiling them. And they were so good because they're like crispy and they're more like French fries. They're fantastic. So then I started, thought, well, if you can roast Brussels sprouts, maybe you can roast butternut squash. So we started roasting butternut squash. And
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
String beans. I mean, we roasted everything. And the best part is it's the easiest thing in the world. You put whatever vegetable it is on a sheet pan, olive oil, salt and pepper, and into the oven.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
A hundred percent. I think it brings out the flavor, it caramelizes the sugars in it, and it's much more delicious.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
A lot. I have drawers and drawers of scarves. She's absolutely right. I have them everywhere. I just love having a scarf around my neck. I just think it feels good. David, I was just thinking to myself, can we just do this again tomorrow? We can do it all day. This is so much fun. Okay. Thank you. Ina Garten, thank you so much. So much fun to talk to you, as always, David. Thank you.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
We're not cooking. We'll cook in person. How's that?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Nothing worse than having your wife laughing at you. Your very, very smart wife laughing at you.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
My mother was making dinner. My father was an ear surgeon. And my mother was very, I think now I might say that she would be diagnosed with Asperger's, didn't have relationships, and she had no interest in food. So she would get dinner on the table, but there was no joy in it.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
And no child likes Harvard Beach. You might develop a flavor for it, a taste for it afterwards, but not when you're 10. And it sounds like dinner was not a joyful time. It wasn't a joyful time. And my parents, particularly my father, was a very stern taskmaster and would grill us about whatever was in school. He would criticize us. So when dinner was over, I had a nice knot in my stomach.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
And they would always want me to eat faster. So they would say, every time your brother takes a bite, you take a bite. And I'd be like, I just can't.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
A hundred percent was when I got married. I was never allowed in the kitchen. So my mother never taught me how to do anything. And I mean, she didn't see any joy in it. She felt that my job was to study and it was her job to make dinner. And I think she wasn't comfortable with me being in the same room with her. So she would always say, you go study. And so I was in my room my whole childhood.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
And I think I was pretty lonely. I think that that's why Now, cooking for friends and Jeffrey and doing the show, Be My Guest, where I'm connecting with people, is so satisfying.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
I prefer to cook by myself. You do. And I do. Cooking's hard for me. I mean, I do it a lot, but it's really hard. And I just love having the space to concentrate on what I'm doing so I make sure it comes out well. Cooking's I mean, when you go to the butcher and you order a chicken, it's a different size every time. It's a different kind of chicken.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
I mean, you know, some chickens, they're allowed to add water to it. You have no idea what you're going to get. So it's, I mean, just the simplest thing is chicken can be complicated. I do find it hard. I'm not confident that it's going to come out well. And I have to say, I'm surprised when it does. Maybe I have high standards.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Well, probably as soon as we got married because it wasn't like we had the money to go out for dinner. So when we were engaged, before we got married, I remember going out and buying Craig Claiborne's The New York Times cookbook. And I went to, what was it called? It was a store like, I think it was called Caldor. And I bought an entire set of kitchen equipment.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
And I just was really excited about being able to cook. But I remember within the first month, I made a challah. And I remember thinking, that's what you're going to start with? But I did. I really love things that challenge me, that I think I can't do, and then make them and show myself that I can do them.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
It actually does come full circle, doesn't it? Because once I've learned how to cook, and then, of course, I got Mastering the Art of French Cooking, both volumes, and worked my way through those. So I learned the French techniques from Julia Child. And I really believe in simplifying things. But what happened in the pandemic is we were also completely stressed.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
We didn't know what we could do, what we couldn't do. I was making a recipe every day for Instagram so people could figure out what to do with those white beans that they had in their pantry.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Exactly. So many white beans and whatever they had. I was making recipes for my cookbook, for this book. And I was cooking lunch and dinner for Jeffrey and me every single day. And by sometime around May or June, I was like in bed with the covers up over my head. And I thought, I really need to simplify. So it is true that I came full circle, but for a different reason.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
I think there's one thing everybody should know how to do, which is a roast chicken. And I do it in all different forms. I do it with potatoes and fennel. In this book, I have a spring roast chicken or roast chicken with spring vegetables, things like asparagus. You can put almost any kind of vegetable in a roasting pan and a chicken on top of it and put it in the oven.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
It's the easiest thing in the world. And the only thing you have to do is make sure you don't overcook the chicken. People get really nervous.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Any kind of roast chicken. Or the chicken in a pot, which is just as easy as can be. You put it in a big pot with chicken stock and vegetables. And then you add saffron to give it a little heat. And then orzo. And you've got a whole dinner all in one pot.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
He's just so appreciative. And I think it's one of the reasons why I love to cook. Because if you cook for somebody who doesn't appreciate it, there's no satisfaction in it. One day I made him a cup of tea and he said, oh, this is the best tea I've ever had. And I was like, Jeffrey, it's a cup of hot water and a tea bag. It was a particularly good tea. But I mean, still, nothing goes by him.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
He really appreciates it, which I love.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
You know, I thought of it as a party. When you walked in the door, I wanted all of your senses engaged. I wanted you to smell something wonderful. I wanted you to see a wonderful display of produce. I wanted to hear great music, but it was old-fashioned like Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra or whatever was fun to listen to. There were samples of things all over the store so you could taste things.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
And people would just come in just because it was fun. And I thought if they're going to come because it's fun, they'll always come when they're hungry. And I think that's what worked. It wasn't really about the food. It was about the feeling of being in the store.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
You know, I didn't think anybody would want to watch me cook on TV, actually. Food Network kindly made me an offer, and I kept saying no, and they kept coming back. And there was someone there, Eileen Opetut, who just kept saying no. make me a better offer. And I kept saying to her, no, I just don't want to do this. And she just kept coming back.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
And finally, I had heard about a show that somebody said was a really good cooking show. And it was Nigella Lawson's show. And unbeknownst to me, they went to London, found her producer, told me that they were coming to East Hampton on like in two weeks. And I was like, whoa, whoa. I said I wasn't going to do this. And Eileen said, just do 13 shows, thinking how hard could that be?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
And they arrived on my doorstep. And I thought, OK, let's see what we can do. And one of the things I think about in life is you've got to jump in the pond. Right. You say no to things without really understanding. Like I said no to Instagram before I understood what it was. And I kept saying no about TV. I was just like, I love writing cookbooks. I want to keep doing that.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
I am the same person you see on TV. I found a coach recently. Right. Right.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Go ahead. Do you know what I believe? I think we should eat real food. And if it's delicious, it's worth cooking for. My favorite expression is, if you eat a low-fat diet, it's not that you live longer. It just seems longer.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Exactly. That's really daunting. You know what I would do is I'd make potato latkes. I think that would be great.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
I do. And what you can do is you can prepare them in advance, put them on a sheet pan and reheat them in the oven, warm them in the oven.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Okay, I really don't know the answer to this, and I will say that I also wonder whether a bay leaf makes a difference. And there are a couple of things that I use bay leaves in, and I've always wanted to make them without the bay leaves to see if it made a difference, and I never have. So I'm not sure.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
I remember thinking at the time, this is crazy. I don't know how to run a specialty. I didn't even know how to run a store. I'd never had an employee before. I didn't know anything. So I made a deal with the owner that she would stay with me for a month and teach me what I needed to know. And she was a great teacher. And I remember thinking, do I really want to do this?
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
And Jeffrey said, if you do what you love, if you love it, you'll be really good at it. And I thought, okay, I'm going to go for it. And looking back behind me at running, you know, writing nuclear energy policy papers, just that wasn't an option anymore. So I thought, this may not be where I end up, but I'm going to start the process. And, you know, who knew? Yeah.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Who knew that's where it was going to end up?
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
What did you expect to happen? Even better, it gave me a life that was just so much fun, surrounded with people that I love to work with, doing something I really care about. taking care of people. I mean, in the store, we've made dinner for them, which was taking care of them. But writing cookbooks, I feel like I'm giving people the tools to make dinner for people around them.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
So they create a community for themselves.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
What was going on? Well, I think, you remember, we got married in 1968. Yeah. And the 70s women are kind of sorting things out. And when we got married, it was assumed that he would be the husband and I would be the wife and I would make dinner and he would do the finances and we would have kind of prescribed roles. And I think those roles kind of annoyed me in the 70s.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Even though Jeffrey thought of me as an equal, I just feel like, I don't know, we just had roles that we were playing. And then when I bought the store and I found I had my own business and I had my own life, I found those rules really confining. And so I just said to him, I just feel like I need to be on my own for a little while.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
And he, I mean, as Jeffrey would, he said, if you feel like you need to be on your own, you need to be on your own. And so we kind of took a break for about four months. And he was to the State Department. He went on this big trip around the world. And afterwards, at the end of the year, we met in Palm Springs. And we just talked. We just sat and talked about what he wanted and what I wanted.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
And he always has this great attitude. Let's just figure out what each of us wants and how we can do both of them. It's never about what he wants to do or what I want to do. How can we do both of them? Wow. Sounds like the perfect mate. Sounds like the perfect mate. He's the best. He's the best. He really is. He should be a role model for every guy. Yeah.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
He really is so wise. He is. And so his advice is never, this will be good for me. His advice is always, this will be good for us.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
From you, Oprah, that's unbelievable. Thank you. I'm good. I've done everything I need to do in my life now. Thank you. Oh, it's so good.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
I think I was working all the time, and I wasn't having fun. And I remember going to her the first day, and I said, I'm just not having fun. I mean, it's just I work all the time, and it's easy to get wrapped up in that. And these were the days, and it was true for us for a long time, when Jeffrey would leave on Monday, and if he was an investment banker, he'd go to New York or –
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
zimbabwe or costa rica and or when he was in the government he'd go to um washington on monday and then come back on friday so the weekdays i pretty much had on my own and um i would just work all the time and so i went to my this therapist and i mean we did a lot of really good work but the first day she said to me what would be fun And I was like, I don't know. I really don't know.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Maybe a convertible, maybe a masseuse, you know, just I needed something that wasn't work that would be fun. And she said, go do it. And so that week I rented a red Mustang convertible, which was so much fun. And I hired a masseuse who literally has been coming every single Sunday at six o'clock for 40 years. Wow. Isn't that amazing?
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
And I still have a convertible. Not the same one, but I have a convertible. And it was, you know, when I think back, very often when you can't, you know, when you're not having fun, you can't figure out what's fun. Yes. But I knew those two things would be fun and they still are.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Just trust your vision. I think the thing that works is if you're really true to who you are. If you believe in it so fiercely, somebody out there is going to believe in it. It's true. It's not, I'm going to become this perky, whatever it is, person that people will love. Just do what you... Just who you are. Just put out who you are and do the best job you can possibly do. And I think people...
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Trust that. They honor that. They believe in that. And I always see it as like I'm on a train and people are trying to pull me off the train and I just keep it right on the tracks. If I feel like I'm so sure what I'm doing is right... I don't let people pull me off my game.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Exactly. Yes. That's what I call the barn. But a few people have said barn isn't exactly what comes to mind when they say it.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
What I tend to do is I talk to everybody in the beginning and I get everybody's point of view. And I hear and we talk, we kind of build something together. But at the end of the day, it's my job to choose. And once I've got all the information in, and I love surrounding myself with really creative, smart people. Once I've got all the information in, I know exactly what the right thing to do is.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Yes, absolutely. But instinctively, you know what's right. Absolutely. And it's right for you. It may not be right for somebody else. That's right.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Yeah, I would. And it's really important to me. I love working with happy people. And you have to invest in that. So, yeah. Yes. You share a few lessons. At the end of the day, I want to come to work and have fun. Yes, and you want the people around you. Yeah. You want to surround yourself with happy people.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
I think one of the things I learned from writing the book, and I hadn't really thought about it before, is that I always do what's in front of me today. I do the best job I can possibly do on it. And then at the end of the day, I decide what I'm going to do tomorrow, get everything organized so that I can do it tomorrow. I don't have a long-term vision. I don't have a goal.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
I don't think, oh, I want to get over there in a year. I don't have a five-year plan. I never did either. I just do the best job I can do now, and then tomorrow I'm going to do the best job I can do then. And things happen along the way. And I think if you're looking at your goals, first of all, the goals are the wrong goals because things happen along the way that you would never have imagined.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
like television coming along. I mean, I would never have imagined being on television. It just wouldn't have occurred to me. And it turned out to be a great thing. So I don't have those long-term goals. And I think it leaves people, it left me at least to do a really good job because I'm not busy looking around. I'm just doing a good job on what I have in front of me.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
And it also leaves me open to what things that might come along.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Isn't that interesting? I never really thought about it until I wrote the book. And actually, I was talking to Stephen Colbert, and he has the same philosophy. So it's obviously working for some people.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
He really is. Hi, Jeffrey. I mean, it really means something bad happens, and you don't know whether it's bad. It could turn out to be the best thing that ever happened. That's right.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
It opens to something else that wouldn't have happened. And it's, I mean, in my show, Be My Guest, it's been really interesting because so many of the people who are guests have had something really horrible happen to them. And... And they didn't let it stop them. They pushed right through it and they figured it out and they kept going.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
And it was their success wouldn't have happened if that bad thing hadn't happened. That's right. And it's so interesting to me to see that happen over and over and over again.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
I think the force was that I was determined not to recreate that. Yes. And I think a lot of people say, I'm not going to live in that world. I'm going to create a different one. And then they end up marrying somebody who's just like their parents. Am I right about that? Oh, yes. Most people do. Because it's comfortable. I think the thing I learned from... It's comfortable and familiar.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
I think I learned from a difficult childhood when I was uncomfortable. I learned to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. And I kind of used that to push myself to places that are not comfortable. like starting a specialty food store when I don't know what I'm doing. I love the challenge.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
I love to decide what I'm going to do as opposed to somebody else deciding it and then really challenging myself to see if I can do it. And every time I think there's no way in hell that this is going to work out, but I'm going to try doing it anyway. And it always turns out better than I thought, which is, I don't know, I just keep doing it over and over again. So there must be something there.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
It turned out to be a strip club. I had no idea. Yes, yes, yes. That job lasted a week.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Yeah. My therapist actually described it as a lot of people stand on the side of the pond convincing themselves there's something, you know, that pond is dangerous, that bad things are in that pond. But you can't figure out what you want to do until you jump into the pond. And then when you're in the pond, you figure out where the stream is, where the stream is carrying you along.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
If you're knocking against the riverbanks, then you're not in the right stream. But if the stream is just carrying you along, that's the right stream for you. And I think that's why we have to try different things. It's not like I want to be a lawyer, I want to be a doctor. You just try different things and see which one works and which one feels good.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
exciting and that where you feel like, you know, it's carrying you along. And I think that's what I've been able to find at each point in my life. And it's just been, it's just been amazing.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Well, I've really created it since then because I have none from my childhood. I mean, nobody would say broiled chicken and canned vegetables. That's right.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
I think that I probably was always craving that. And I think in a funny way, if when you're a child, I mean, this wasn't me, but you're forbidden candy. All you want is candy. Yes, yes. So I think since we were forbidden things that were delicious and felt good, you know, if I asked my mother for something, you know, for a cookie, she would just go, oh, just to eat an apple.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Can I just sit with that for a second? Thank you. Yes.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
She was always annoyed. Wow. I was like, nobody thinks that an apple is an appropriate substitution for a cookie. Yes. So I think I as soon as I got married, I remember getting Craig Claiborne's The New York Times cookbook and I was making challah. I was making mashed potatoes. I was making stews and chili and things that were just satisfying.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
And, you know, I think one of the things in my books is that my first requirement is, does the title tell you what it is? It's lemon chicken with orzo. You think, well, that sounds good. That's a good combination. And that sounds like it would be satisfying to eat. So my first requirement when I'm writing a recipe is, what is the title?
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
And then the second one is, what does the photograph look like?
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
It is. I mean, after I finish a book, I think my team is always like, you're going to start right away. I'll make a list of 50 ideas of recipes that I want to work on. And every morning I'll get up and think or at night I'll decide which one I'm going to do tomorrow. So I have the ingredients for it. And I'll just go, you know, it's a it's a it's a hot summer day.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
And, you know, I'm going to make a salad or I'm going to make some grilled thing. Or if it's a cold winter day, I'll make, you know, I feel like I'm making like some kind of a soup or stew. A stew. Yes. Something off the list and just start working on it.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Yes, it feels... And also, I'm very conscious of... The person who's reading the book, it's very important to me, kind of the user experience. Like, is somebody going to want to make this? And then I literally give the recipe to my team and I just say, can I watch you make this? So I see if they're going to have any problems making it. Do they have any questions about the text?
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Are they going to cut the carrots the right way? I'm really conscious that I want somebody at home using the book to feel good about it and to know that they've got the recipe right.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
I do, but they've gotten smaller and smaller. Really? I used to like to have big parties, but now I like really small ones, like six people around a round table. What kind of parties do you like to give? I like six to eight.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Yes. I'd rather do like two parties of six than one party of 12. Then you really can connect with each other. Absolutely. Absolutely. Which is, at the end of the day, why we give parties?
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Yes, I do. Actually, it's funny. I've developed this over the years. If I know all the guests, I can do this in advance. But if somebody brings a guest, you know, bring somebody and I don't know them, I always assess who the two most talkative people in the group are. And I make sure they're seated. I always have a round table. So I have them seated at opposite sides of the table.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Because if the two talkative people are sitting next to each other, they end up talking to each other and everybody else is left out. But if the talkative people are opposite each other and the quieter people on the other quadrant, everybody's part of the same party. That is a good idea. And even if it's a rectangular, does that sound right to you?
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Yes. Yeah. So I always kind of choreograph the table where people sit by that.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
It's a very small empire. Yes. I mean, my team is like the three of us. We meet at my office every day and we decide what we're all going to do. What I like is very hands-on. I don't like doing a million different things and not feeling like I'm doing them well. I like doing... one thing at a time. I like working on recipes and writing books and then doing TV and then going back to writing books.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
I really like that. I also like having things that are not work that are creative that I do. So I love working on the garden. I'm not in the garden myself, but designing what the garden's going to be. I always have some kind of construction project, renovating the house or building something.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
I just like to feel that I have a life outside work that's creative as well as having a creative work life.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
I think writing the book has really made me realize this. Yeah. I think the thing that we can do is matter to each other, is that my work matters to other people. And it can be as simple as I've given somebody a recipe for a coconut cake and they've made it for their family. And their family goes, you made this yourself? Yes.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
You know, I think I never really made a decision to write it. I just decided I would start. And I was working with a friend of mine whose name is Deborah Davis, and she's an amazing researcher. And she would interview me and record what I was telling her, the stories I was telling her. But she took me back to places I'd been and asked me about it. And I recalled things I didn't remember.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
So it makes me feel like what I've done, I've given them something that makes them feel good. And that matters to me. And the thing about mattering, which a very good friend of mine, Jenny Wallace, talks about mattering and she's writing about it, is that it's so actionable that we can do things that make other people feel they matter to us. And that makes them feel good and vice versa.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
And it's as simple as bringing a pot of chicken soup to a friend who's sick. You're saying to that person, you matter to me. And that makes them feel good and it makes you feel good. And I feel like my books have mattered to people. And the TV show, so many people said I taught them how to cook, which is just amazing to me. I did it because I thought it would be fun to do, but
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
To have that as the legacy of it is just fabulous. Yes. And I think that really is everybody's legacy is, did my work matter to people? Yes. As yours obviously has done for decades.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
What matters to me is taking care of people and that I give people the tools to take care of other people. I think we just need to stay connected. I think the world is very stressful. And I think the more we can create a community around ourselves and take care of the people around us, the more we can deal with the difficulties.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
And I think cooking brings people together and it makes us feel good about ourselves. And it's not about being with people that love us. It's about being with people that we feel love for. And we can do that with cooking.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Do the work. I think a lot of people say, how can I have a show on Food Network? Well, you know what? Bobby Flay said to somebody, first you have to wash the dishes in the kitchen and then you have to learn how to chop vegetables. And then maybe you go to culinary school and You need to do the work. You can't just go directly to a show on Food Network.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
You need the experience and the knowledge and the information that you can share with others.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
But I think when I started, I said to her, let's just start this. I'm really not sure it's going to be interesting because it's my life. I've lived it. I never look back. And I said, at any point that I think it's not interesting enough for people to read, then I want to just pull the plug. And she said, fine, let's just start. I think she knew it was going to be more interesting than I thought.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
I thought, who wants to watch me cook on TV? I guess I was wrong.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Oprah, thank you. I'm just such a joy to be with you.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
But the process of doing it changed how I feel about my life. It was just quite extraordinary. Tell me how so. I thought, well, you and I are going to talk about this, I'm sure, because I always thought I'd been incredibly lucky in my life. And I also thought I did this, and then I did that, and I did something else, and I figured it out, but I don't know how I did it.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
And when I had to go back and look at my whole life, I realized that connecting the dots... It was really easy. I continued to do the same thing over and over again. I kind of challenged myself at each time. But at the moment that I started doing a specialty food store, I realized I had already figured I taught myself how to cook. So I actually was ready. Yes.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
I didn't think I'd done the work, but I actually had. And so... Writing the book made me realize that I was prepared for each stage that I got to.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Maybe it was a love tap. It was a love tap. I don't remember slapping you. You were just like, whoa, wait a minute. You make your own luck. And I was like, no, I've just been really lucky.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
The title came from a very dear friend of mine, Rob Marshall, who's the Broadway and movie director, was when he was on Broadway, I think he was 23 or 24, he was the dance captain for Liza Minnelli's show. And Liza said to him, be ready when the luck happens. And he never forgot it. And what she was saying is, do the work. So when the luck happens, you're ready for it. Preparation. And I was...
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Almost done with the book. I didn't have a title. I was just coming to terms with the idea that I actually, yes, I'd been lucky, but I was ready when it happened. I'd done the work so that I was ready when it happened. And I thought, oh, my God, that's what my life has been about. is getting ready, so I'm there when a lot happens. And that's why, so I asked if I could use that as a title.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
And that's why I told the story. I know you have the same experience. It's in a different format, but still we have the same experience. I wanted people not to know that I had a terrible childhood. Certainly people have had worse childhoods than I did. But I wanted them to know that you can...
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
You can make a decision with enormous determination and change your life and not make that the definition of your life. And I just remember when I was 15, I remember making that decision. I wasn't going to live like this. That if I was dating somebody who so much has raised his voice to me, I was out of there.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
That I wanted to be with somebody who was supportive and positive, and I wanted to surround myself with people that were positive.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
And, you know, it's interesting because when Jeffrey, I met Jeffrey when I was 17 and he thought I had the perfect family. Yes, yes. And he thought, you know, my father was a doctor. My mother ran a real estate business. I mean, it all looked perfect. We're very, you know, upper middle class. I went to great schools and, you know, everything looked great.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
And yet it was, the more I look back, and I think as a child, I didn't understand that it was so different, that it was so wrong. I just thought this is the way people grow up. And I think it took me until I was maybe 40 to really sort out how stressful that situation was and how wrong it was.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Thanks for including the pictures. Oh, thank you. Most memoirs have the pictures in the well, in the middle, and you have to sort out where's that picture from. Yes, yes, yes. My book designer, Mary Sarah Quinn, and I decided we wanted it to be a picture in the beginning of a chapter and a picture at the end of the chapter, and maybe even a recipe from the story.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Jeffrey never told me what to do, which was so the opposite of what my upbringing was, where I was told how to do everything. He just made me feel like he believed that I could do anything and that... We would talk stuff out, and he would say, have you thought about this? And have you thought about that? And we would have a conversation about things.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
So he just made me, right from the beginning, he would say to me, do what you love. If you love it, you'll be really good at it. Because he knows I have a lot of enthusiasm and energy for things. He was so ahead of his time, though. I mean, nobody was saying that then. Nobody was saying that in the 70s.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
I mean, when I was, you know, when we got married in 1968, he said to me, you need to do something with your life, otherwise you won't be happy. And it's funny, the other day when I made number one on the New York Times bestseller list, he turned to me, he said, you know, you really need to do something with your life. It just reminded me where it started. Wow. It was just great.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
After all these years. But he just thought I was very capable and I would be happy if my life was, you know, productive.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
How crazy is that? How crazy is that? I know. I look back and I think they left it to 25-year-olds. I can't even understand it. Ina Garten was writing energy policies.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
I think when I was working at the White House, actually the whole time I was in Washington, I was teaching myself how to cook just because I thought it was fun. And I was buying old houses and renovating them because I thought it was fun. And, you know, I think my work was serious, but it wasn't really fun. And so I did these other things.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
I always thought I'd either go into the food business or I'd go into real estate. And I didn't know which one it was. And so then I saw this ad for a specialty food store for sale in a place I'd never been before. It was in West Hampton Beach. And I thought, God, that sounds like fun. And I went home and told Jeffrey about it. And I said to him, I really need to do something fun.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
I really, you know, my job's just not fun.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
When I married Jeffrey, I started at baking bread. Yes, yes. I was like, this is great. I can make anything I want.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
I think I was starving. I was starving for flavor. I was starving for fun. I was starving for connection. I was just starving. And then Jeffrey came along and he just encouraged my craziest whims.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
Well, I had driven, Jeffrey and I had gotten in the car in Washington and driven, I don't know, like six hours to this small town in the Hamptons. And it was April. So it was dead. I mean, there was nobody in town. There wasn't even a cat walking down the middle of the street. And I turned into this little store. It was like 400 square feet. And they were baking chocolate chip cookies.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
And, you know, there were specialty cheeses and there was smoked salmon and they were... There were dinners for sale and I just walked in and just inhaled the fragrance of it, the cookies baking and the cheeses. And it just looked like so much fun and it just looked so pleasurable. And I just walked in and I thought, oh, this is where I want to be.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Ina Garten Share the Secrets to a Successful Life
I wanted to come to work in sneakers and an apron and bake cookies. And if they sell, great. If they don't sell, we'll bake something else. And it seemed to me like a big puzzle to figure out. And I love that.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Listen Again: Julia Gets Wise with Ina Garten
I haven't either. And the garlic scapes that grow on the top, you can grill them. They're really great. Oh, no way. Really? Yeah.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Listen Again: Julia Gets Wise with Ina Garten
Plant it, yeah.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Listen Again: Julia Gets Wise with Ina Garten
Isn't that great? Yeah. Yeah. Does gardening teach you patience? I don't tend to be patient, but I like seeing something evolve in a garden.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Listen Again: Julia Gets Wise with Ina Garten
It does. And also the structure of the plant is different from the flower itself. Right. When the flower dies, the plant itself is beautiful. And then the seed pods are different from the flower. So it just keeps evolving.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Listen Again: Julia Gets Wise with Ina Garten
It's just great.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Listen Again: Julia Gets Wise with Ina Garten
And the circle.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Listen Again: Julia Gets Wise with Ina Garten
And you have rosemary hedges, which we couldn't even begin to have here, right? Yeah.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Listen Again: Julia Gets Wise with Ina Garten
Yeah, I'm totally aware of it. Right? It's not an accident, exactly. It's not an accident. I think that if you enjoy science, cooking is really another kind of science.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Listen Again: Julia Gets Wise with Ina Garten
And I always think that if you work in science, you end up with nuclear energy or you end up with gibberellic acid or whatever, you know, whatever it is. In cooking, you end up with a chocolate cake. Yeah.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Listen Again: Julia Gets Wise with Ina Garten
Yeah. So I think they are very related. And the way I test a recipe is absolutely scientific. I'll make a recipe once and I'll analyze what the result is. And then I'll change one or two things about it and then make it again and then change one or two things about it and make it again. And it's a very scientific process for me.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Listen Again: Julia Gets Wise with Ina Garten
Right? Yeah, I take notes along the way. And I start out, I think, the way you often do in science with hypothesis of what I want it to be. If I'm doing a chocolate cake, I want to know what texture I'm looking for, what flavor I'm looking for, what range of flavor, you know, like what things I want to have bubble up. And if I don't know where I'm going, I'll never finish.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So I have to have something in my head. where I'm going. And I keep testing it until I kind of hear that ping that says, that's what I'm looking for.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Not really. I will... I'll start with an idea of something that I might have seen in my travels. I might have seen at a restaurant. I might have read in a book. But then I'll read a lot of other people's views on that thing, whatever it is.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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If I'm making, like, an Italian soup, ribollita. I'll just read a lot about ribollita, and then I'll put all the books away, and I'll start cooking.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So it's kind of what my idea of what ribollita should be.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And how I can make it taste better.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Leveling it off.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Yeah, the detail. Yeah. I follow recipes exactly, even my own. I measure everything. And then, because once you've spent the time to make sure it's absolutely perfect, why do you want to start throwing ingredients in there?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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You want it to be exactly right. That's right. Especially as a baker.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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My dad loved to have parties. Oh, he did? My mother hated it. Hated it. But it was my mother that had to give the parties. So it was always a struggle. It was always, I mean, she did parties because he liked his friends. But I think it was never a happy experience. And as soon as I got married, I was like, I remember being in our first house. It was a garden apartment in North Carolina. Yeah.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And I remember looking around going, I can do anything I want to do now. For the first time, I have nobody criticizing me, nobody telling me what to do. I can do whatever I want. And I just wanted to have parties. So I just started teaching myself how to cook. It was then. It was then, literally as soon as I got married.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Were you a food lover or did that really come? Not really. No. And I was never allowed to cook when I was a kid. Really? So I really didn't, I don't think I ever connected with it. I didn't know that it was something that would be fun to do at all. Well, I mean, I think when I was a kid, I didn't even know I would do anything.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So I thought, you know, I was kind of of the generation when when I was in college, I thought, well, I'm go to college and then I'll get married. And that's that. It was Jeffrey who's like who said to me, you need to figure out what to do with your life. He said, unless you do something, you're not going to be happy. And I was like, whoa, never, never even occurred to me.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I was 20, yeah. I was 20. So that was really the beginning of trying to figure out what I wanted to do.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And I totally credit him with that.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I gave some pretty bad parties in the beginning. No way. I don't believe it. Seriously. I remember one party in North Carolina. I decided to invite everybody for brunch, which I hate. But I invited everybody for brunch. And I thought, well, I'll make an omelet for everybody. It was like 20 people. It was the worst idea. And I don't know. You know, now I know how to make an omelet. It's not easy.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I don't know what the hell I made when I was 20. I was in the kitchen the whole time. Of course you were. And I think it took like a year to get over that and give parties. I think my mother had anxiety about the people. Yeah. As well as the food. I mean, today, I have to say, I'm not a comfortable cook.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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If I'm giving a dinner party, I'm beside myself with anxiety that it's not going to come out right. Even after all this time. Even after all this time.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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really great. I hadn't gone that far, but that's, no, I totally understand.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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It's just the worst. It's the worst. One of the things that I'm aware of when I'm writing a cookbook is how hard it is to give a dinner party.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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It's so much work. It's so difficult. And it's so much anxiety. Unless you're I don't know, unless you're a restaurant chef. It's so hard. That's why I want the recipes to be really easy. So you can just put the carrots on a sheet pan, olive oil, salt and pepper, throw it in the oven and hope you remember to take them out. Yeah.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I mean, considering that I do this professionally, I can't cook and talk at the same time. I mean, I do it on TV and that's okay. But if I know it has to come out perfectly, I mean, Jeffrey's always, you know, hanging out and talking to me. I'm like, Jeffrey, I can't talk. I just have to, because I'll forget to do something.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And especially if I really know the recipe, if it's something I make a lot, I'll always forget an ingredient if I'm not focusing on it. It's like my attention span isn't that good. So I have to really concentrate to get it right.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Don't offer to help. Just get out of my way. And it's really inhospitable to say, don't touch it.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Anyway, it's fine. You know what? At the end of the day, the only thing that's really important is you have time with your friends. Completely. I keep trying to remind myself, don't get obsessed about whether something's absolutely exactly the way you want it to be, as long as everybody's having a good time. And if they feel like we're anxious about it, It's going to it'll bomb.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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It's going to ruin the evening.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So on top of being anxious about the meal, we have to look like we're not anxious, which makes you more anxious. Right. Of course.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Yeah, that's good. Everything goes in the washing machine. It does? Yeah, I just love these shirts. I got a shirt from Talbots that I just loved, and I asked if they could make it for me in different fabrics. And they said, sure. Wow. And so I have them in corduroy for the winter and I have them in denim chambray for the summer.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And I know I can put it on and feel comfortable and feel like it looks put together. It does. It does? Oh, good.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I mean, I wouldn't say I'm confident about everything, but I think professionally I feel very confident that I know what I want and anything less than that is not okay with me.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And I've really pushed through a lot of times where a publisher or a TV producer will disagree with me. And I'm just like, no, this is the way I'm going to do it. And I feel that way about my clothes, too. I'm sure that they would like me to change my outfit all the time. That's not who I am. And where does that come from, Ina? I don't know. I really don't.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Because when I was a kid, I was always criticized for everything. So I think it was just internal. I have this sense of who I am, and that's who I am. And I'm perfectly comfortable with it. And if you don't like it, that's okay. Okay. It's not your problem. Turn off the TV. Right. Exactly.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Maybe it was. You know? Yeah. We never know whether it's in the DNA or whether it's developed. But I love to listen to everybody's opinion.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And then choose what I want to do. And once I've made that decision, I'm good to go. Are you the same way?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Oh, I totally do, yeah.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Well, I mean, whatever you're doing, keep doing it because you're totally beloved.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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For whatever you do.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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It does. You know, it's funny. I was just telling somebody recently, people think that being in a marriage is confining in some way, but I find it's just the opposite. It's like a big anchor, like a stake in the middle of my life. And it actually gives me more freedom because I know I will always come back to that stake, to that. It's solid. It's supportive. It's positive.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Well, I think it's different now. When we lived in Washington, it was much more traditional. I mean, it was the 70s. And he worked in the State Department. He worked for Kissinger. and Secretary of State Vance. And I worked in OMB. It was always expected that I was going to cook dinner. They were kind of roles that we played. And I've increasingly disliked those roles.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And so I think my move to buy a specialty food store and have my own business was really breaking out of those roles. So there was a little bit of a time where we had to figure that out. But he just, he's so intuitive and so respectful of me and so encouraging me to, to do what I want to do that it wasn't a terrible, you know, we worked it out. Right. And I think he's freer and I'm freer.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So it's, it's now, it became more of a partnership rather than like traditional roles. Yes. There was a time in our life where he was offered to live in Tokyo for a year. And I had just signed a lease for a store in East Hampton. And we were like, what are we going to do? And he said, you know what? Let's both do what we want to do because we can't choose.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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If we get to do what I want to do, you'll resent it. And if I don't get to do that and I have to stay in East Hampton, then I'll resent it. So let's just do it. Let's do it for a while and see if anybody's unhappy, we'll make a change. And? It worked out fine. Actually, after a year, I wrote to him and I said, you know, I think you need to come home because it's not that I'm miserable.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I'm just fine. And I think it's a bad idea.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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No, it wasn't a struggle at all. I had no interest in having children. None? I just had a terrible childhood, and it was nothing I wanted to recreate. I think now looking back, I might say I see my friends with their children, and I understand why.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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But when I was 20, I didn't want to have anything to do with it.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I think Jeffrey would have been a great parent. He would have really loved having children. But he wanted me to be happy and it was okay with him.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Yeah. I don't know where that came from. I really don't. But I just, I don't know where that certainty came from, but I was really sure of that. But it's the same certainty that you were referring to earlier. I think maybe because when I was a kid, I didn't have any choices. Somebody else made all my choices. Yeah, right. So once I had the power, I really used it.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Maybe, I mean, that's kind of what you said, which I hadn't thought about. It's probably very true. Good for you. I love that. You know, one of the things that's happened to me over the past year is... A few years, I've been working on a memoir. I know. You do? And what was interesting to me is the threads through, I never look back, the threads that are so consistent.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And one of the things is taking risks. And what you're saying is really true, is how sure I was along the way of what I wanted at each kind of intersection.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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It gave me a very different view of myself than I had, which was surprising. What was that? Characterize that. It gave me more confidence about who I am. I was very surprised at the consistency of things through my life. And I actually didn't realize it until I started writing. And it made me feel good.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Oh, thank you. Thank you. I mean, there are things I did in my 20s and I look back and I think, my God, I was like jumping off a cliff and I had no idea what was going to happen. Yeah. But I just kept doing it over and over again. And anyway, so that was surprising that I started doing it so early.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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It pisses me off. Passive aggressive people. Number one on my list. People who tell you something so that you don't have the opportunity to change it. People that lie to you, basically, so that you do what they want you to do. That really makes me mad.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Right. Exactly. Yes, exactly. I think it's one of the things that you get to do when you're older is that when you're young, you think your relationships are going to go on forever. And as you get older, you realize sometimes they don't. Sometimes you have to choose your, your own happiness and, And as you said, excise people that are hurting you. Have you had to do that a lot?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Not a lot, but I've had to do it. It was painful.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Because, you know, I just, I hate hurting people. But if it's a relationship that is damaging at some point, you know, you try and fix it. You try and fix it again. You try and fix it again. Sometimes you just can't. And so you have to move on.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Really. Yeah. It is. It's a huge benefit. You just have to say, this isn't working. Right. This is making me unhappy, and I don't deserve to be unhappy. Get the fuck out of my house.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Yeah. Yeah. What draws you to other people? I think I like positive energy. I like people who are doing interesting things that really show up.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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They don't come and expect to be entertained.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Do people do that with you? Do they try and tell you things that are funny to make you laugh?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Also because you play very humorous characters and you play them so brilliantly, they forget that it's a character you're playing. It's not necessarily Julia. Yeah.
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Do you? You know, I think one of the things as we get older, Jeffrey and I are very conscious of, we're going to lose friends. And they're going to move to Florida or Tuscany or wherever they move. And it's important to stay connected to people. So we actually make an effort to meet new people just to make sure that we have a group of friends that we really care about. Do you travel with friends?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Yeah, we do. We actually spend a lot of time in Paris. So people come to Paris with us, which is just heaven. Oh, nice. Yeah. So maybe one of these days you and I should go to Paris together. We'd have a good time. Go to the markets and get chicken and carrots and cook in my Paris kitchen. Exactly. That would be very good. It'd be really fun. Do you speak French? Badly.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Enough so I can converse with the grocer and the butcher. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can get around. That's good. I wouldn't want to interest the U.N. Right. Exactly.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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My French has gotten me a lot of trouble along the way, actually. Like? When we first had this apartment, I went to the hairdresser. And she said, in French, which I understood, would you like it straight or curly? And I thought, oh, what the hell? It's Paris. Let's make it curly. So she gave me this curly hairdo.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And I wanted to say to her, when my husband sees me, he's going to say, kiss me quick before my wife gets here. So I said, Dites-moi mon mari dit... And she looked at me in horror, absolute horror, and I had no idea what I had said. So that night I went out with some friends who speak perfect French, and I told them what I said, and he started to laugh. And he said, And what you said was, Yeah.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I never went back to that hairdresser.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Don't worry about jumping off a cliff. It'll be fine. Yeah. It's the only way you'll get anywhere. Keep jumping. Keep jumping. Keep jumping. Is there something you'd go back and say yes to?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Yeah, I think so. This is good, Ina. Can't think of anything I said no to that I wish I'd said yes to. No.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Go for a walk twice a week. It'll be good for you. Good. I like that. I think small changes over a long period of time makes a difference. What do you mean small changes? You don't have to run a marathon. I think if you just take a walk twice a week, you'll be better off. Yeah, right. What are you looking forward to? Going to Paris. Yeah. Actually, Jeffrey and I decided, what are we waiting for?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And we booked two trips that we've never done before. Which ones? We're going to the Arctic. And we're going to go on a safari, but not going out out into the, you know, with the animals. So we booked a safari. So that's going to be fun.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Thank you so much, Julia.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I love that the roast carrots are... You think of me when you think of roast chicken and roast carrots, because that's what I always say. It's about those two things. It is. It's about simplicity and delicious.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And what is your real age? My real age is 76. And how old do you feel, Ina? You know, I kind of like being 76. I get to do whatever I want to do. Yeah. Yeah. No BS. No. I mean, I wouldn't mind a 25-year-old body, but the rest of it, I'll take the 76.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Well, I feel like when we're younger, we wonder what will become of us. And when we're older, we know what's going to become of us. And it's turned out really great.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I think when you're younger, you feel like you have to do everything just because, you know, you're just you're just building things and you have to do everything that's that comes your way. And then when you get older, you start choosing and you choose because it's fun, not for any other reason. Right. Right.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Because he said it for me particularly because if it's fun, I want to do it. If it's not fun, you can't get me to do it with the cattle prod.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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What have you had to eat? Well, it's pretty orderly, actually.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I pretty much have toast and coffee for breakfast. And the toast has to have good French butter on it with shaved sea salt. Yes. It's called beurre de barattes. B-A-R-A-T-T-E with flaked sea salt. And it's just so delicious. And so that's what I have for breakfast. And then at exactly 1030, I have to have a cup of tea. With a little honey in it. And it's not 1029 and it's not 1031.
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At 1030, my brain goes, bing, I have to have some tea. Okay. And then for lunch, Jeffrey and I always have soup, which is so easy because I can make a lot of soup and leave it in the freezer. What'd you have today? I had Italian wedding soup. Yummy. And then for dinner, we either go out to dinner with friends or we order dinner from a restaurant. I've been testing recipes all day.
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The last thing I want to do is make dinner.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And I don't like to have for dinner what I tested during the day unless it's totally done and it's so good I want Jeffrey to have it. Right. That's work and this is dinner. Got it. And I don't want to eat something and go, I wish it had more rosemary in it. It's just not fun.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Was that to get you in the mood for today?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I think my style hasn't changed at all. I think it might be my sophistication about things has changed. And I've... learned about a few things. So I didn't know what truffle butter was. I didn't know what sriracha was. There are a few things in the 25 years I've been writing cookbooks that I've kind of acquired as part of the repertoire of things that I can use.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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But I think I still like roast chicken and roast carrots. I know, you can't beat it, man. One thing I learned when I had a specialty food store is that People eat differently at home than they do in a restaurant. They like really simple food. Right. And that's true about me too, actually. I like simple food in a restaurant too, but people don't want fancy veal with morels at home.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And so I think that hasn't changed. What has changed a little bit is my insistence on flavor.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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That if I go back to a recipe I wrote 20 years ago, it needs a little extra something. Yeah. And I think it's always something like some acid, like lemon juice or... Red wine vinegar. Vinegar, yeah. Or something salty like Parmesan cheese. Just that little thing at the end that needs to be added that kind of brings out the flavor. So I've gotten better at that.
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Oh, maybe. But I didn't like cilantro when I started and I still don't like cilantro now. So that'll never change.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I think it's physiological. I think what you taste is not what I taste. Oh, it may be.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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It's really physiological. It tastes like soap to me. And if you put one leaf of cilantro on anything, that's all I taste.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And I like how things are layered, you know, like a flavor bubbles up with chocolate and coffee and vanilla. They have to be layered the right way. And cilantro, once there's a leaf of cilantro, actually, if there's a cilantro at the next table, I can taste it.
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I do have a spatula from when I got married. Really? From before I got married, actually, yeah. It was from Caldor's. Caldor's, I remember Caldor's. If anybody remembers Caldor's. I do.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Everything. Yeah, everything. And is it a spatula that still really works well? It works perfectly well, and I can't replace it. I can't find the same spatula. They're either huge spatulas or tiny spatulas, and this is just the right size spatula. Okay.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
I had a very complicated childhood. What was your childhood like?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
But you still had your mother and your stepfather to ground you. Yes, I did. So in 1985, when you weren't renewed at SNL, what did you learn from that experience? It must have...
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
I always think some of the worst things that ever happened turn out to be the best.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
And the rest is history.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
How does it feel to make people laugh?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
That's a good description.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Just wonderful. Is it hard to play roles that are both dramatic and funny at the same time?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Yeah. That's how we live. I hate a movie that's just all door. One thing. Yeah. Hate it.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
One of my favorite quotes of all time is Oscar Wilde said, work is easy, fun is hard. I always run my business. If I'm having fun, everybody else will have fun too.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
And I think, am I right that you do the same thing? Oh, without question. People know what to do for work. They know how to do their jobs. But finding something that's fun to do, I think it's much harder, isn't it? Yeah, but if you find it, don't let go of it. Exactly. Keep it going. Keep it going. And you found it. I mean, it's just so magical. And it has so much energy and positivity.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
It's just fabulous.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
What was the toughest time in your career?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
It did. Isn't that interesting? Yes. And did they put you behind the potted plant so they couldn't see that you were pregnant?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
In 2012, you created the character of Selina in Veep, who is both egomaniacal and kind of crazy. Yeah. And kind of delusional in some way, right? Totally delusional.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
That's so smart.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
I'm Ina Garten. I love to invite interesting people to my house for good food, great conversation, and lots of fun. The incredible 11-time Emmy Award-winning actor, comedian, and producer Julia Louis-Dreyfus is coming to the barn. We're sharing a French omelet.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Starting with every time you walked into a room saying, did the president call? 100%. Just love that line.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
All caps. Isn't that great? Yeah. In your podcast, Wiser Than Me, you interview older women. What have you learned from them that was interesting?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
And that is very freeing. And it's like rocket fuel. It really gives you freedom to do exactly what you want to do. That's right. But don't you think that a lot of your guests were that way when they were young? Actually, not necessarily. Yeah. I mean, like Jane Fonda wouldn't say that she was like that. No.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Yeah. And I thought, oh, my God, she's so right. I love that episode because in the middle of it, you ended up with a bomb cyclone and you got disconnected. Oh, yeah. Disconnected. And you handled that so beautifully. It was total Julie Louis driver's.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
But it became like a character in the show and it was just brilliantly done.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
You made a wonderful documentary that I adored about your late father and his kind of wacky art collection, right?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
And he collected what he loved. And he collected what he loved. He didn't collect what other people would love. Yes. He collected what he loved. What he loved. Exactly. And I love what he did with it.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
And I have the big hat.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Talking life, love, and laughs.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
So I understand you like chocolate cake. Would you like me to show you how to ice a chocolate cake? If you don't show me, I'm going to kill you. definitely going to show you i give up coming up competitive cake making this is our first fight with incredible results i can't talk to you i gotta eat this
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Then we're fooling around with frosting.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Making an amazing chocolate cake. And I'd better watch out. It looks good. I'm here to take over. Be my guest. What? Julia's moved in. My guest is Julia Louis-Dreyfus. I mean, who doesn't love her? So I know she likes eggs and I know she likes bacon, so I'm gonna make her my French country omelet. And it starts with four slices of bacon that I've cooked until crisp.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
You like chocolate cake, right? Love it. Okay, I picked the right thing. So I'm going to show you how to make a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream. Okay. And we're going to get it all over ourselves, I'm sure. Now, wait a minute. How did this happen? Well, I'm going to show you how I did it. The cake is really easy.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
First, I sifted together one and three quarter cups of all purpose flour, two cups of sugar, three quarters of a cup of good cocoa powder, two teaspoons of baking soda, a teaspoon of baking powder, and a teaspoon of kosher salt. Then I put the dry ingredients into the bowl of my electric mixer. Next, the wet mix.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
I'm just gonna take them out and put them on a plate. And then what I'm gonna do, in the little bit of fat that's left, I'm gonna cook some potatoes. I mean, who wouldn't like that? Eggs, potatoes, bacon, yum. This actually comes from a recipe from a bistro in Paris that I love. Okay, lots of salt and pepper.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
I combined a half a cup of vegetable oil, a cup of buttermilk, and two extra large eggs, plus one teaspoon of pure vanilla extract, and mixed them together. Then with the mixer on low, I added the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, plus a cup of freshly brewed hot coffee, and mixed it all together.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Then I poured the batter into two 8-inch pans that had been buttered, floured, and lined with parchment. into the oven 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes. Then I took them out to cool in their pans for 30 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack. Okay, so that's the cake. Yeah. Now the frosting. Oh, boy, the best part. You're in charge. I am. How's that? Yeah.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Two sticks of butter, unsalted butter. Yeah. Oh, no, you're not going to put that in yet. Can I just drink it? No, you can do that. You can forget the icing. Okay, we're going to turn this on. Yeah, that's good. And then we're going to put in one egg yolk. Should I do it? You should just do it. And if you don't want to use an egg yolk... You don't have to use an egg yolk. But I just did.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
You told me too late. Exactly. One teaspoon of vanilla. Yes. One teaspoon. Good vanilla extract. Yes. And this is really strong coffee. It's a tablespoon of instant coffee grounds. Okay. And then slowly, this is one and a quarter cups of sifted confectioner's sugar.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
And just slowly, just put it in.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Hope I don't screw it up. You won't screw it up.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Am I going too fast? No, you're doing just fine. Okay. That's why it's sifted, so it won't clump. How important do you think sifting is for real? Actually, you know why I like sifting? It's because when you sift it, every cup is exactly like every other cup. Yeah. So it lightens it. Sometimes, you know, it can be really packed, and sometimes it can be light.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
So you get the same amount of confectioner's sugar every time.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Or flour, exactly. Actually, flour I don't sift. You know what I do? I put a cup in and I lighten it, and then I scoop it.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Just kind of fluff it up. You know, like fluffers? Excuse you?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Different kind of fluffer? She doesn't know what she's saying.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
She has no idea.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
You've been to the Hamptons before, right?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Actually, I know that story because I've heard people talking about it.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Okay, I'm gonna show you how.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Does this sink work or is it a prop sink? No, it's a real sink. You know what you need in this kitchen? I know. Paper towels. Have you heard of paper towels?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
It's a prop towel. Okay, next we're going to ice the cake. Yeah, let's do it. You ready for that? Yeah, come on. Let's do it. Let's go. And we're having a terrible time, as you can imagine. It's really one of the worst days of my life. So the first thing is you take the chocolate cake that we made before and put it on the cake stand.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
And I put it on a rotating stand so we can turn it around while we ice it. How's that? I love it. So the trick to keeping the plate clean is I use parchment paper or wax paper and just put it underneath the cake. And then you don't have to clean up the plate after you make a mess with the icing. Just put it underneath there. All the way around. Smart.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
And that's gonna cook for about eight to 10 minutes until the potatoes are crispy on the outside and tender. And while they cook, Let me tell you about my insanely talented and beloved guest. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the incredible actor, comedian, and producer, is one of the greatest performers in TV history, winning 11 Emmys.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
So now, you want to put some frosting on the middle? You want to make sure you have enough for the outside, too. That's perfect. Yeah, no kidding. We can always make more. We've got our whole lives ahead of us. Isn't it great having a turntable? Oh, my God. I love it so much. I think I need more frosting in here. I think you're doing okay, though.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
This is our first fight. That looks perfect. Okay. Excuse me, but I think you really know what you're doing. You know what? What? It looks good. I'm here to take over. Okay. Okay. And the second one I'm going to put on upside down.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Because you want the top to be really flat.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Looks more professional. It's good and sticky.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
I wanna watch you, because you're here to teach me. So, take the spatula and just do a thin layer. And the key is, you don't go back and forth. If you go back and forth over the cake, what happens is... You're gonna pull crumbs. Crumbs, just like this. Just smooth it in one direction. And then we'll smooth the whole thing when we're done. But just get the icing on first. I'm watching.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
You're watching? Okay. How do you decorate cakes? What do you like to do?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Yeah, exactly.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Right? That's exactly what I do.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
No, I don't know. I'm pretty simple about decoration.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
For a wedding cake, maybe, but not a regular cake. I don't know why. And they can't be scented flowers. So I'm going to take the spatula. I'm going to put the rest of it on top and just smooth it out. May I? You may. I insist, in fact. And then I'll show you how I'd like to pipe it. Look at this.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
That's it. See, there's enough, isn't there? We are so happy.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Okay, so how about turning on the hot tap water? Yes. I'm going to show you what I do. I'm going to warm up the spatula, and then we're going to smooth it all out. Okay, just a little bit. Just enough so that it's a little smoother.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Lord have mercy. It's a miracle.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
And then just run your spatula around the edge, and you have a nice square edge. How's that? You get to lick that.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
What? That's fantastic. Thank you. Okay, so you want to pipe it? I have some icing in a piping bag. Just for you. So this is the way I learned how to do piping. Just on the board. Okay. Just do it like that. And when you're comfortable with it, we'll do it on the cake.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Here, I'll show you what I do in order to do a shell. And you know what we can do too? We can do it just stars. Would that be easier? Want to do that?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Born in New York, she divided her time living with her stepfather and mom, a writer, and her French entrepreneur and philanthropist father. Julia studied theater at Northwestern, where she met her husband, fellow comedian Brad Hall. At just 21, she was discovered by SNL, the youngest member in history.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
That's easy. And the other one is like a shell. I'll show you what you do. You start here and you go up and down and then up and down.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
That's what that is. Up and down. Up and down. And then you stop. And then start again.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Stop. That's why it takes time. It takes time to figure it out. Up and down. Look at that. Stop. Perfect.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Yep. There's like a rhythm to it. Up and down. Up and down. Yeah, I'm getting there. Yeah, see? Yeah. It took me like 40 years to get that, so I'd say in like five minutes you did pretty well. I did pretty well. Okay. And am I doing it on the edge? Yeah, I'll start it. Yeah, I'll do it around the edge. You start here, and you go up and down, and then up and down.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Yeah, you're right. You've got it. Look at that. Fabulous. Fabulous. There's like a rhythm to it. I mean, how good does this look? Up and down. Oh, God. You got it. Are you going to go home and start a cake decorating business in your spare time? Oh, 100%. I've got all the paperwork drawn up.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Okay, so I'm going to show you what to do in order to take the paper out. Just run your knife along the bottom, just like this, and just pull it out.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
And now you have a clean plate. All right, here we go. Yeah. Big piece, little piece. Enormous. Enormous. Does that look like a classic?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
One for me, one for you.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Oh, my God. I love it. I love it. That may have just been canceled.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
If you loved this episode of Be My Guest, the podcast, with me, Ina Garten, please make sure to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. It would mean so much to me. Thanks. Cheers.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
There, she met Larry David, and three years later, she joined him and Jerry Seinfeld to play the beloved character Elaine in Seinfeld, where she won her first Emmy and went on to win a Golden Globe and five Screen Actors Awards. She won her second Emmy for her hit TV series, The New Adventures of Old Christine, while picking up a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
In 2012, the political satire Veep hit our screens, where she played Vice President Selina Mayer, a role she won six consecutive Emmys for. It's no wonder she has received the coveted Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Her range also extends to incredible dramatic roles in movies such as Enough Said, You Hurt My Feelings, and Tuesday. She lives in California with her husband, Brad, and two sons.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
I have met Juliet virtually on her hugely successful podcast, Wiser Than Me, and I can't wait to meet her in person. She just does it all, doesn't she? She's got comedic roles and dramatic roles and streaming and movies. She's the real deal. She's amazing. Okay, the potatoes are cooked. Nothing like the smell of bacon and potatoes. I'm just gonna put the potatoes on the plate.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
And now I'm gonna get the eggs ready. So I've got five eggs. I'm just gonna beat them. Three tablespoons of milk. Lots of salt and pepper. So I'm going to put a little butter on the pan, just let it melt. Okay, eggs go in, just like that. So next I'm going to put the potatoes and bacon in, but I want to mix them up. And then a little bit of chives always looks good.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Add a little onion flavor to it. I mean, that looks pretty good, doesn't it? Okay, I'm just going to put this in the oven, 350 degrees for eight minutes, just until the eggs are set, and I'll be ready when Julie gets here.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
How good does that look? It smells just as good. I understand Julia's as big a fan of salt as I am, so I think good French sea salt would be perfect on it. Two plates, and I'm all set for Julia.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
You're here! Of course I'm here. Where else would I be? I thought maybe you were punking me. I would never punk you.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Look at this. I'm so happy to see you.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
It's a little hostess gift. Oh, I love this. Hostess. Blood orange marmalade. Yes.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Thank you so much. Oh, of course. Oh, I love you. Enjoy. Thank you. I can't wait. Well, I've made you an omelet. Well, finally we did something. With bacon and potato, something nice and light for breakfast.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Oh, this is perfect. No, seriously. Is this a large enough piece? Can I have the big half?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
You like salt, right?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Yeah, I mean, just if you want to just pour the salt on the plate, and I'll eat the salt.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
I did give you the bigger piece.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Yeah. So what's it like instead of playing a character, actually being yourself on Wiser Than Me? Oh, it's a different ballgame. It's totally different, isn't it?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
But also I think it's interesting because you really connect with people.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
And you do. You really do. And when you're playing a character, you're not really connecting with an audience. You're playing a character. So I think connecting with people is what we love to do. And it's just really satisfying.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
It's Belgian granite.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
It's Belgian granite. Okay. I need a list. I'm taking this with me.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
You'll have a hard time getting that into the car. It's fine. You'll be able to replace it after I'm gone. You'll figure it out. If it's missing, I'll know where it is. Coming up, wisdom.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
You know what you need in this kitchen? I know. Paper towels.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
And chocolate cake.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
You know, people ask my friends, what's Ina really like? And my closest friend always said, well, she's exactly the way you think she is, but her language is worse. Nice. What would your friends say about you?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Exactly what you just said. I kind of thought so. Yeah, I think so.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Exactly, right?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Presenting: Julia on Be My Guest with Ina Garten
Do you think that you're always meant to be a comedian, or is it just like in your DNA?