For the Holidays, Ina Garten (Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus)

For your Thanksgiving inspiration: a favorite episode from Wiser Than Me https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wiser-than-me-with-julia-louis-dreyfus/id1678559416, where Julia sits down with legendary cook and author Ina Garten. Over the course of her 76 years, Ina has lived a few lives: she worked on nuclear policy at the White House, ran the beloved food store Barefoot Contessa, and went on to write best-selling cookbooks and host her own hit TV shows. But what’s always defined her isn’t just the food—it’s the way she brings people together around it. In this conversation, Ina reflects on how aging has reshaped her taste, the art of simplicity, and what she’s learned about handling those quietly difficult, passive-aggressive types we all know too well. To hear more episode of Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, follow wherever you get your podcasts or head to: https://lemonada.lnk.to/wiserthanmefd See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:11Sam Fragoso?

  Hey, it's Sam. Today, I wanted to present a very special episode from our friends at Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Each week, Julia talks with extraordinary women who bring humor, honesty, and the kind of wisdom that only comes with age. She's had guests like Jane Fonda, Isabel Allende, and Catherine O'Hara, and in honor of Thanksgiving, we wanted to share her wonderful conversation with Ina Garten. They talk about Ina's remarkable journey from running the Barefoot Contessa to eventually becoming a bestselling author and TV host. She also shares why she values simplicity in cooking, how her tastes have

• 0:52Sam Fragoso?

  evolved over time, and how she handles passive-aggressive behavior. After you listen, check out Wiser Than Me wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoy this talk with Ina, and I suspect you will, you can check out more episodes of Wiser Than Me wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back here on this show Sunday morning with writer-director Noah Baumbach.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  Once in our travels, when I was a little girl of about eight, I think, when my daddy, Tom, was a surgeon on the Hope Hospital ship, we were living in Tunisia. And I remember very vividly that I was so upset with my mom because she said I had to finish my dinner before I had dessert, which made no sense at all. And there was another couple there who were working with my dad. And the woman in the couple said, "Well, how about I take you out for lunch, just you and me, and then you can have dessert first?" And so, that was very appealing, as you can imagine. And I did. We went to lunch, and I ordered a

• 2:13Speaker 01

  huge hot fudge sundae. I mean, just huge. And I just gobbled that fucker up. And then, when it was time to actually order lunch, well, I couldn't really order lunch because I was too full. But I assure you of one thing, I did not learn a lesson that day. I've always been a true and deep lover of sweets and desserts. In fact, one of my earliest memories is of these peanut butter cookies that my grandma DeeDee made for me, you know, the kind that have the fork imprint on them. I still have her handwritten index card with the cookie recipe. Well, actually, I think I have it. I don't know where it is. My mom may have it. I don't know.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  But I love dessert so much. I don't know exactly why, other than it's so sweet and yummy, but God, why not? It's always been like that for me. And so, you know, when our kids were little, providing for them, obviously, this is some instinctual maternal thing, you just get this incredible joy out of your kids finishing a meal that you made for them, right? The most basic kind of nurturing. And I'm also very captive to ritual, as I think we all are to a certain extent. So I put great store into birthdays and making sure that both of our kids always had memorable birthdays. And so when our first son, Henry, was little, you know, just a little toddler, I was so

• 3:43Speaker 01

  looking forward to baking him a birthday cake. And so I asked him what kind of cake he wanted. And I mean, honestly, he was little. He was barely even talking. What does he know about cakes? But he was a fanciful kid. So when I said, what kind of cake do you want, Hen? And he said, orange. And this was clearly the color orange. I don't think that he had any idea that a cake could even have an orange flavor. This was just about the look of it, you know? Think about it, just a giant orange cake. So I set about looking for an orange cake that I could make for him. And I did. I found a bundt cake made with real oranges that I then jerry-rigged into a three-layer

• 4:28Speaker 01

  cake. And then I concocted this cream cheese frosting to go with it. And I shouldn't say this because, you know, it's not very, you know, farm. To table of me, but I dyed the frosting orange, not a bright orange, more sort of of a peachy salmon color, so that it was aesthetically pleasing, you know, and I covered it in Mandarin oranges on top. It was gorgeous. And it was a huge hit with Henry. And I've been making that cake on his birthday ever since. And then my younger son, Charlie, he requested a key lime pie. So I made him this key lime pie. I ordered the key lime

• 5:08Speaker 01

  juice from just one place. These guys called the Manhattan Key Lime Juice Company, and you can look it up, because that's all they sell for real, key lime juice, nothing else, which is just so fabulously old school. I just love it. So I've been making that key lime pie for my Charlie for almost 25 years, and the orange cake for Henry going on 30 years. Now I use fresh oranges from our own tree, so it's even better. For me, this is just the quintessence of a gesture of love. It's such a simple thing, you know, measuring, mixing, baking, but it does take focus and concentration and exactness. And even then, it doesn't always go the way you want. You know, there's some luck and karma mixed into

• 5:52Speaker 01

  it, too. But, boy, it's just, it's so meaningful to me to make something sweet and poignantly delicious for the people that I love. And I plan on doing this for the rest of my life, this little thing. Or it's actually kind of a big thing, because it gives me such joy and pride. It's become a sacrament, really, now, to me. So I guess cooking can take on a significance way beyond just being delicious and nutritious. And that's why I am so delighted today to get to talk to Ina Garten.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  Hi, I'm Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and this is Wiser Than Me, the podcast where I get schooled by women who are wiser than me.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Anybody hungry? You're gonna be, because our guest today has been dishing out fabulous recipes and a shit ton of charm for decades. She is the Barefoot Contessa, the queen of comfort cooking. Her signature bob and blue shirt are as iconic as her roasted chicken. But it's not just about the food. Her down-to-earth approach has not only transformed the culinary landscape, but has also left a real mark on how real people perceive and embrace the art of home cooking. I mean, we eat roasted carrots at our house because of her. In an era full of star chefs, she claims not to be a chef, but a cook.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  She stands out not just for her recipes, but for her genuine connection with her audience, which has made her a cultural figure known for her warmth and authenticity, and somehow that makes her food even more scrumptious. One iconic store, two hit TV shows, 13 bestselling cookbooks, and a 55-year-long marriage later, our guest feels universally cherished, especially by her husband Jeffrey, but also by me. And for me, she really pretty much is up there with fresh salty butter on warm bread. I think it's because she makes every meal feel like a cozy get-together with an old friend.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Now, full disclosure, I'm really just hoping to get invited to a dinner party at our house. And I'll bring the dessert, I will. I'm so pleased to welcome the James Beard Award winner and the Hampton's most notorious resident, a woman who is so much wiser than me, Ina Garten. Ina!

• 8:44Speaker 02

  I'm so happy to be here.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  I love you, I love you, I love you. Let's just say that from the start.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  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.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  It is.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  It's about simplicity and delicious.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Completely, 100%. You brought carrots back into my life in a very powerful way. So let me ask you something. Are you comfortable if we share your real age?

• 9:11Speaker 02

  I am.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  And what is your real age?

• 9:14Speaker 02

  My real age is 76.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  And how old do you feel, Ina?

• 9:19Speaker 02

  Um, hmm. You know, I kind of like being 76. I get to do whatever I want to do.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, no BS.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  No, I mean, I wouldn't mind a 25-year-old body.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  But the rest of it, I'll take the 76.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  I hear that. I love that. You're completely embracing it. I feel the same way about getting older. I, I, I mean, there are aspects of being younger, physical aspects that would be nice. But there is something very freeing about getting older, right?

• 9:48Speaker 02

  Well, I feel like when we're younger, we wonder what we'll become of us. And when we're older, we know what's going to become of us. And it's turned out really great.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I completely hear that. And it's, it's nice to feel, it's like boots that you've been wearing a long time. They're super comfortable and you're, you feel confident in them.

• 10:08Speaker 02

  I think when you're younger, you feel like you have to do everything. Just because you, 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?

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Well, that's right. And I remember in doing research to talk with you and you were saying that Jeffrey, when you were making the decision to leave government, the White House, and you weren't sure what to do. And he said, well, just find something that's fun for you.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Well, 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, with a cattle prod.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Uh huh. I had a physics teacher when I was in high school, Mr. Coin, Marty Coin. And he was a wonderful teacher. He would write on the bottom of every paper that you would turn in. He would say, have fun at all costs.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  Isn't that great?

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, and obviously that can be misunderstood, but I knew what he meant. And I've certainly applied that in my own life. It's an incredible lens through which to make decisions.

• 11:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  So tell me, take me through a typical eating day for you. Like, you know, well, I mean, what did you eat today? What have you had to eat?

• 11:26Speaker 02

  Well, it's pretty orderly, actually.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I want to hear.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  I pretty much have toast and coffee for breakfast. And the toast has to have good French butter on it with shaved sea salt.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  It's called beurre de beurrat, 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 10:30, I have to have a cup of tea with a little honey in it. And it's not 10:29, and it's not 10:31. At 10:30, my brain goes, bing, I have to have some tea.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  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.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  What did you have today?

• 12:10Speaker 02

  I had Italian wedding soup.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Yummy.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  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. The last thing I want to do is make dinner.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I hear that.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  And I don't, 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.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:31Speaker 02

  That's work, and this is dinner.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  And I don't want to eat something and go, I wish it had more rosemary in it. It's just not fun.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, not fun. There we go with the fun again.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  I want to show you a picture for our listeners. I'm showing a picture of what I made for me and my husband this morning for breakfast. Let me see if you can see it. Oh, wait, shit. Oh, God, I don't know how to get that thing away. Oh, God, I'm trying to work my iPhone. Okay, wait. Can you see that? That's a smashed-

• 13:00Speaker 02

  That looks good, poached eggs on toast. Oh, smashed eggs on toast.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  It's a smashed eggs with the grainy mustard.

• 13:05Speaker 02

  Isn't that great?

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  Oh, how fabulous. Was that to get you in the mood for today?

• 13:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, and also I was just looking, I was reviewing a bunch of your cookbooks, which of course I own, and I was just sort of-

• 13:15Speaker 02

  Oh, thank you.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Wanted to get, oh, yeah, are you kidding me? I mean, I could not live without them.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  Oh, Julia.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  I could not live without them.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  How has your relationship changed to food as you've gotten older? You know, I mean, are there tastes that you have now that you didn't then? Or things, I mean, back in the day or things you didn't like when you were younger that you love now?

• 13:38Speaker 02

  I think my style hasn't changed at all. I think my, it might be my sophistication about things has changed. And I've learned about a few things. So, you know, 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. But I think I still like roast chicken and roast carrots.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  I know, you can't beat it, man.

• 14:07Speaker 02

  It's just, it's, um, 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.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  And that's true about me, too, actually. I like simple food in a restaurant, too. But it's, people don't want fancy, you know, veal with morels at home.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:26Speaker 02

  And so I think that hasn't changed. What has changed a little bit is my insistence on flavor. That if I go back to a recipe I wrote 20 years ago, it needs a little extra something. And I think it's always something like some acid, like lemon juice or red wine vinegar.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Vinegar, yeah.

• 14:45Speaker 02

  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.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  Better at identifying that, right?

• 14:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Because I think our taste buds change, you know? I mean, I think that they physically change. Don't ask me how or why that happens.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  Oh, maybe. But I didn't like cilantro when I started and I still don't like cilantro now. So that'll never change.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, now, listen, you and I are going to have a huge argument about that because I love cilantro.

• 15:18Speaker 02

  You love it?

• 15:18Speaker 01

  I put on everything.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  Do you really?

• 15:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do. I made chicken salad the other day and I just throw tons of cilantro in it. Why don't you like cilantro, by the way?

• 15:28Speaker 02

  I think it's physiological. I think what you taste is not what I taste. I really...

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Oh, it may be. Oh, yeah.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  It's really physiological. It tastes like soap to me. And if you put one, one leaf of cilantro on anything, that's all I taste.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Oh my God, that's incredible.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  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. It's just so bad.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Okay, so I know what not to get you for Christmas, a bunch of cilantro. Sometimes I like to think, believe it or not, this sort of calms me down in my mind. I think about what in my kitchen is a must have, you know, like just basic things. I have, for example, I have a hand electric mixer that my mom gave me, and it says General Electric on it. It's from like the, yeah, like the early 70s, I think. And that's a must have for me. Or a rubber spatula, you know, with a little tiny curve in it, you know, with the concave center. Are there things like that, that you just, tools in the kitchen that you just have a

• 16:44Speaker 01

  love affair with?

• 16:45Speaker 02

  I do have a spatula from when I got married, from before I got married, actually. Yeah. It was from Caldoors.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Caldoors, I remember Caldoors.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  If anybody remembers Caldoors.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  I do. They had everything at Caldoors, right? Everything was there. And is it a spatula that still really works well?

• 17:03Speaker 02

  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.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  I have one of those too, but it's not from when I was, before I was married, but I've had it for probably 25 years, and I just, I love it.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  This is 55 years. And it's still good.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  I thought you were referring to your marriage. You said, this is 55 years. It's still good.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  Even better than a spatula.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. So, moving out of the kitchen for a moment, you're a gardener. You have a beautiful garden at your house in the Hamptons.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  I'm in Santa Barbara, California, and I planted garlic, which I've never planted before.

• 17:52Speaker 02

  I haven't either. And the garlic scapes that grow on the top, you can grill them. They're really great.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Oh, no way. Really?

• 17:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I did not know, you break apart your clove of garlic and you take each individual clove and you plant it.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  Plant it, yeah.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  And it's already poked through the earth. And I just planted it like nine days ago, which is kind of amazing, you know?

• 18:14Speaker 02

  Isn't that great? Yeah.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  Does gardening teach you patience? I don't tend to be patient, but I like seeing something evolve in a garden.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Yes, it teaches me, certainly does teach me patience, but also it's a thrill because you don't know.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  There's so much, you know, if you go away for a week and then you come back to look at your garden, things will have changed. And so it's kind, it always feels like a miracle to me.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  It does. And also, the structure of the plant is different from the flower itself.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  When the flower dies, the plant itself is beautiful. And then the seed pods are different from the flower. So it just keeps evolving.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  It's just great.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's a reminder of life.

• 19:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  And the miracle of life, you know?

• 19:03Speaker 02

  And the circle.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  And the circle, yeah. It's just gorgeous. Until the bunnies come and eat my roses.

• 19:11Speaker 02

  They eat your roses?

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, those little motherfuckers.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  But they're so adorable.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  They're so precious, but I do, I do kind of turn into like Farmer McGregor or Elmer Fudd.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  I have learned to hate them.

• 19:30Speaker 02

  And can you garden all year round because you're in Santa Barbara?

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:34Speaker 02

  Oh, that's great.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  But believe it or not, yes, but we do have seasons. So, so certain things look great right now and certain things are dormant.

• 19:44Speaker 02

  And you have rosemary hedges, which we couldn't even begin to have here, right?

• 19:49Speaker 01

  I know, and every time my mother visits, she cuts all, I mean, I have rosemary all over the place. It's like ground cover and she just goes around cutting it. I feel, she's like she's a crazy woman and she puts it into a bag to take home to herself and to all her girlfriends.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  Like they don't have rosemary in New York.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  I know, but it feels special, right? Coming from this garden. We have to take a break now. My conversation with Ina Garten continues in just a bit.

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• 23:30Speaker 01

  So you worked at the White House?

• 23:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  And you worked on nuclear policy, correct?

• 23:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. And what struck me, first of all, that's extraordinary that this is your story in and of itself. But I was thinking about science and the overlap of science and cooking.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm totally aware of it.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Right?

• 23:55Speaker 02

  It's not an accident, exactly.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  It's not an accident.

• 24:00Speaker 02

  I think that if you enjoy science, cooking is really another kind of science.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:05Speaker 02

  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 it is. In cooking, you end up with a chocolate cake. So I'll take the chocolate cake any day.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  100%. Yeah.

• 24:22Speaker 02

  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, make it again. And it's a very scientific process for me.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  And you're taking notes along the way, obviously, right?

• 24:45Speaker 02

  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. I 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. 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.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  Do recipes come to you in your, I mean, like, do you conjure them in your head? Are you like improvising a recipe and then you write it down and you try it? How does that work, Ina?

• 25:31Speaker 02

  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.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  If I'm making like an Italian soup, ribalita. I just read a lot about ribalita. And then I'll put all the books away and I'll start cooking.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  So it's kind of what my idea of what ribalita should be and how I can make it taste better.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  So you're an improviser as well?

• 26:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  To a certain extent?

• 26:07Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  My husband's brother, Jim, is a scientist, a very respected scientist at UC Irvine. And I remember he was At our house once, and I was cooking, I was, I love to bake. And I was baking and somebody was in the kitchen with me and they were measuring out the flour, but they were measuring it out, but not.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  Leveling it off.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  Leveling it off. Which I said, no, no, no, no, you must level it off. And I was showing how to do it, actually for all the ingredients, particularly for baking. And I remember looking at my brother-in-law Jimmy, and he had such, what can I say? Respect and adoration in his face because he was a scientist. He was appreciating the attention to.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  The detail.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  The detail, yeah, the detail.

• 26:53Speaker 02

  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?

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:06Speaker 02

  You want it to be exactly right.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 27:08Speaker 02

  Especially as a baker.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, especially the baker, right, especially. Talk about entertaining, I mean, did your family entertain growing up?

• 27:18Speaker 02

  My dad loved to have parties.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Oh, he did?

• 27:21Speaker 02

  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, 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. 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.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Aya.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  So I just, I just started teaching myself how to cook.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  It was then?

• 28:01Speaker 02

  It was then, literally as soon as I got married.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  Did you like food before then? Were you a food lover or did that really come?

• 28:08Speaker 02

  Not really.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  No.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  And I was never allowed to cook when I was a kid.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Really?

• 28:13Speaker 02

  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, I mean, I think when I was a kid, I didn't even know I would do anything. 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 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 even occurred to me.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  Wow, that's incredible.

• 28:49Speaker 02

  Isn't that amazing?

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Yes, it's amazing. And you were 20, right?

• 28:53Speaker 02

  I was 20, yeah. I was 20. So that was really the beginning of trying to figure out what I wanted to do.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:01Speaker 02

  And I totally credited him with that.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. And when you started to entertain at a young age, did you feel the same anxiety that your mom had? Or you did and you overcame it? Or you didn't have it?

• 29:15Speaker 02

  I gave some pretty bad parties in the beginning.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  No way, I don't believe it.

• 29:19Speaker 02

  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.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Oh, that's such a bad idea.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  And I don't, you know, now I know how to make an omelet. It's not easy. I don't know what the hell I made when I was 20. I was in the kitchen the whole time. And I think it took me like a year to get over that and give parties. I think my mother had anxiety about the people.

• 29:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:56Speaker 02

  As well as the food. I mean, today, I have to say, I'm not a comfortable cook. I don't, 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.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Even after all this time.

• 30:13Speaker 02

  Are you the same way?

• 30:14Speaker 01

  I'm afraid so. I really, every time, if I'm having people over and I'm cooking about an hour before, I'm trying to come up with a way to cancel it.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  That's really great. I hadn't gone that far, but that's, no, I totally understand.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  I want out of this. It's like, the table's pretty. That was fun. It was fun to set the table. Dessert I made earlier. I love to make dessert. That's okay. But the meal, oh, fucking forget it.

• 30:44Speaker 02

  It's just the worst.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  It's the worst.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  That's, one of the things that I am aware of when I'm writing a cookbook is how hard it is to give a dinner party.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's hard.

• 30:53Speaker 02

  It's so much work. It's so difficult. And it's so much anxiety for, 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, and hope you remember to take them out.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. There's a story in our family. My husband's grandmother, this was in the deep south and it was during the depression. And she was having people over and they were not, they were not well off. They were actually, you know, pretty strapped for cash back in the day and it was the depression. And she had people over and she was sitting at the table. Her name was Narcisse. And her daughter, Charlotte, brought in the roast and all of a sudden Charlotte tripped and the roast fell onto the ground. And Narcisse, Brad's grandmother, without missing a beat, she goes, that's all right, Charlotte, just pick that up and take it back and get the other one.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  There was no other one.

• 32:01Speaker 02

  It was this one washed off?

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:06Speaker 02

  That's really, that was a really good catch.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, she was, that was a really good improvised moment. Really good improvised moment. God. And you like cook, you prefer cooking alone though, right? That's what I heard you say. You prefer to be by yourself, cooking?

• 32:24Speaker 02

  I mean, considering that I do this professionally, I can't cook and talk at the same time.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:30Speaker 02

  I mean, I do it on TV and that's okay, but if I, 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, 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.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  Do you feel like you have to do that too?

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Yes. I mean, I do, I have a brother-in-law, Patrick, with whom I can cook because we can stand by each other and not talk. But honestly, I get bothered when people are around me talking or even offering to help. I'm like, I can't.

• 33:17Speaker 02

  Don't offer to help, just get out of my way. And it's really inhospitable to say, don't touch it.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  Get out of here. Go enjoy your cocktail. I'll be there in a minute.

• 33:27Speaker 02

  Anyway, it's fine. You know what? At the end of the day, the only thing that's really important is to have time with your friends.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Completely.

• 33:34Speaker 02

  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.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  It's gonna, it'll bomb.

• 33:48Speaker 02

  It's gonna ruin the evening.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's gonna ruin the evening. So we gotta get our shit together. That's what you're saying.

• 33:53Speaker 02

  So no, on top of being anxious about the meal, we have to look like we're not anxious, which makes you more anxious, right?

• 34:02Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  But that'll be our little secret.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  That's our secret. You never heard it from me. Never heard it.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Don't go anywhere. More wisdom from Ina Garten after this quick break.

• 34:28Sam Fragoso?

  MUBI is a global film company bringing great cinema to the world and to you. Everything at MUBI is handpicked with an emphasis on visionary filmmakers and movies worth discovering. One new movie is called Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, from writer-director Jane Seanbrun, who made the film I Saw the TV Glow. The film stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson. It follows a young director tasked with resurrecting Camp Miasma, a once-beloved slasher franchise that after years of sequels has fallen out of favor. Looking for inspiration, she visits the reclusive actress who starred in the original film. What begins at attempt to revive the franchise soon pulls the two women into a blood-soaked world of desire, fear, and delirium.

• 35:12Sam Fragoso?

  It's a world-expanding, genre-bending movie for one of the most distinctive filmmakers working today. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now streaming exclusively on MUBI. You can try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.com/talkeasy. That's MUBI, M-U-B-I dot com slash talkeasy for a whole month of great cinema for free.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  You're known for your look, your signature style with the button-up shirts and with your beautiful scarves.

• 35:44Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  How would you characterize that style?

• 35:47Speaker 02

  Comfortable.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's good.

• 35:51Speaker 02

  Everything goes in the washing machine.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  It does?

• 35:53Speaker 02

  I mean, I, yeah, I just, I love these shirts. I got a shirt from Talbets that I just loved, and I asked if they could make it for me in different fabrics. And they said, sure.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 36:06Speaker 02

  And so I have them in corduroy for the winter, and I have them in denim chambray for the summer. And I know I can put it on and feel comfortable and feel like it looks put together.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  It does.

• 36:17Speaker 02

  It does? Oh, good.

• 36:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does. Yes, I have to say, it's funny, because I went back and I started watching the first season of Barefoot Contessa.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  Oh, did you really?

• 36:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 36:27Speaker 02

  Oh, my god.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  And... What I so admire about you in your approach and also your look is that it's classic and it's worked. It's worked from the get-go and you stuck to it. You didn't try to futz with it, in my view, anyway. And that speaks to a lot of confidence, I think, in you. You have confidence in yourself.

• 36:51Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Do you agree with that?

• 36:53Speaker 02

  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.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  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. Like, I'm sure that they would like me to change my outfit all the time. I'm just not, that's not who I am.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  And where does that, where does that come from, Ina?

• 37:28Speaker 02

  I don't know. I really don't. Because when I was a kid, I was always criticized for everything. So I think it was just internal. I just, 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.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  It's not your problem.

• 37:48Speaker 02

  Turn off the TV.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. Right. Maybe it was like a really healthy defense.

• 37:55Speaker 02

  Maybe it was.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  You know?

• 37:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. We never know whether it's in the DNA or whether it's developed. But I love to listen to everybody's opinion.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:04Speaker 02

  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?

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I am. And I have my group of people that I go to for their take on things.

• 38:16Speaker 02

  Oh, I totally do, yeah.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  But when I'm sure about something, or I have an, as, I would say that my instincts are usually pretty right. And mistakes I've made in my life have been not following those instincts sometimes, you know?

• 38:36Speaker 02

  Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Well, I mean, whatever you're doing, keep doing it. Because you're totally beloved.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Oh, God, that's so nice of you to say. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And I think, well, having a healthy marriage helps, right?

• 38:53Speaker 02

  It does. You know, it's funny, I was, 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 in the, like a stake in the middle of my life, and it actually gives me more freedom because I know I, I will always come back to that stake, to that. It's solid, it's supportive, it's positive.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Brad and I have been married, oh, my God, 36 years now. And, you know, I couldn't, Jesus, I could never have done any of this without him in my life.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  Well, that's what I feel too, yeah.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. And has your marriage changed over the many decades you've been married?

• 39:39Speaker 02

  Well, I think it's different now. When we lived in Washington, it was much more traditional. I mean, it was the 70s.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:47Speaker 02

  And he, he worked in the State Department, he worked for Kissinger and, and Secretary of State Vance, and I worked in OMB. You know, it was always expected that I was going to cook dinner. It was, they were, they were kind of roles that we played.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:02Speaker 02

  And I've increasingly disliked those roles. And, and so I think my move to buy a specialty food store and have my own business was really breaking out of those roles.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  I see.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  So there was a little bit of a, 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.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:32Speaker 02

  And I think he's freer and I'm freer. So it's, it's now, it became more of a partnership rather than. Like traditional roles.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  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. 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.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  And?

• 41:13Speaker 02

  It worked out fine. Actually, after a year, I wrote to him and I said, I said, you know, I think you need to come home because it's not that I'm miserable, I'm just fine. And I think it's a bad idea. So we worked it out.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you got married pretty young, which was typical back then. But it was not typical. And really, I think it was a very bold move as a woman, and particularly as a working woman in the 70s, to make the decision to not have kids.

• 41:45Speaker 02

  No, it wasn't a struggle at all. I had no interest in having children.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  None.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  I just, I 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 what it could be.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:04Speaker 02

  But when I was 20, I didn't want to have anything to do with it.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  And Jeffrey felt the same way?

• 42:09Speaker 02

  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.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Nowadays, to opt not to have kids, it feels more sort of almost normal. But back then, I would think.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  But then it wasn't.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Then it wasn't. And there you are, being sure of yourself, so.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  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.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  But it's the same certainty that you were referring to earlier.

• 42:40Speaker 02

  I think maybe because when I was a kid, I didn't have any choices. Somebody else made all my choices.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  So, once I had the power, I really used it. Maybe, I mean, that's kind of what you said, which I hadn't thought about. It's probably very true.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  Good for you. I love that.

• 42:55Speaker 02

  You know, one of the things that's happened to me over the past years, a few years, I've been working on a memoir.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  I know.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  You do? And what was interesting to me is the threads through, I never look back, the threads that are so consistent. 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. It gave me a very different view of myself than I had, which was surprising.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  What was that? Characterize that.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  It gave me more confidence about who I am. I was very surprised, the consistency of things through my life. And I didn't, I actually didn't realize it until I started writing. And it made me feel good.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  I'm so looking forward to reading it.

• 43:42Speaker 02

  Oh, thank you. Thank you. I mean, there were things I did in my twenties, and I look back and I think, my God, I was like jumping off a cliff and I had no, no idea what was gonna happen. But I just kept doing it over and over again. And anyway, so that was surprising that I started doing it so early.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. So you've kind of been this person for a long time.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  Right?

• 44:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, it really is.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  But wait a minute. Do you ever, do you ever, like, do you get mad? Do you lose your temper? What pisses you off?

• 44:16Speaker 02

  What pisses me off? Passive aggressive people. Number one on my list.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  Really?

• 44:22Speaker 02

  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.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Excise all those people from your life. That's my, yeah, right?

• 44:38Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  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 as you said, excise people that are hurting you.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  Have you had to do that a lot?

• 45:05Speaker 02

  Not a lot, but I've had to do it. It was painful.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 45:08Speaker 02

  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.

• 45:20Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 45:20Speaker 02

  And so you have to move on.

• 45:22Speaker 01

  Yes, that's the benefit of getting older. Really.

• 45:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  It is. It's a huge benefit.

• 45:27Speaker 02

  You just have to say, this isn't working.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:29Speaker 02

  This is making me unhappy and I don't deserve to be unhappy. So.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  Get the fuck out of my house.

• 45:35Speaker 02

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. What draws you to other people?

• 45:43Speaker 02

  I think I like positive energy. I like people who are doing interesting things that are, that really show up.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 45:52Speaker 02

  They don't come and expect to be entertained.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  Do people do that with you? Do they try and tell you things that are funny to make you laugh?

• 46:00Speaker 01

  They assume I'm gonna be funny. And I'm not a big, it's not like I'm a big joke teller.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  And sometimes I'm very quiet because I'm, just because sometimes I am, I'm just watching.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  The, listening.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  You're observing.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Observing. And I think, and then sometimes people think I'm being funny when I'm not trying to be funny. Do you know what I mean?

• 46:22Speaker 02

  I do. Yeah.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:24Speaker 02

  Because they expect it.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  They expect it. So a certain gesture or whatever, it's, I didn't, I didn't mean that to be funny, but I'll take the laugh.

• 46:33Speaker 02

  Also because you play very humorous characters.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  And you play them so brilliantly, they forget that that is a character you're playing. It's not necessarily Julia.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Oh my God, yes. And they also, I think particularly with television, well, now everything is, I mean, who knows with with computer, I should say, I mean, everybody's watching it on all these other devices, but the, you know, you're in their home.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  I mean, you have that same experience with your show, no doubt.

• 46:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  You're in their home, so you they feel relaxed with your presence.

• 47:05Speaker 02

  And they feel like you're a friend.

• 47:07Speaker 01

  Correct, which can be lovely. There is a downside to it, though.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  I was one time I was when I was giving birth to my first son, and this is kind of a gross story, but we can cut it out if it's too repulsive.

• 47:25Speaker 01

  And I was I was giving birth and I and they, you know, when when you're in labor, they put that monitor around your tummy.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  And I was in the bathroom and I was naked and I had the thing around my tummy. I was and I was massive, by the way, and I gained like, you know, 50 pounds when I was pregnant. And I was standing there and my water broke. And all of a sudden, a nurse came into the room and I went, Oh, my water broke. I'm OK, reminding you, naked. And she goes, Elaine.

• 47:58Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 48:03Speaker 01

  It was it was so awful.

• 48:09Speaker 02

  Elaine.

• 48:11Speaker 01

  Elaine. Isn't that crazy?

• 48:13Speaker 02

  That's crazy.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  I know. How do you make friends as you get older? Is that an easy thing to do for you? What is the key to to meeting new people? I guess you probably do in your line of work. Do you?

• 48:28Speaker 02

  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

• 48:41Speaker 02

  And it's important to stay connected to people. So we actually make an effort to to meet new people. Just to make sure that we have a a group of friends that we really care about.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  Do you travel with friends?

• 48:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, we do. We we actually spend a lot of time in Paris, so people come to Paris with us, which is just heaven.

• 49:00Speaker 01

  Oh, nice.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  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.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  Exactly. That would be very good.

• 49:12Speaker 02

  Be really fun.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  Do you speak French?

• 49:14Speaker 02

  Badly. Enough so I can converse with the grocer and and the butcher.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I can get around.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  That's good.

• 49:22Speaker 02

  I wouldn't want to address the UN.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. I um I had a the opportunity to meet President Macron uh uh last year. It was at a thing at the White House.

• 49:35Speaker 02

  Did you?

• 49:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, because my grandfather was French and and flew for the Free French during the um the war.

• 49:42Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 49:43Speaker 01

  He was a part of the resistance. Yeah. And so I went over to Macron. I said something.

• 49:47Speaker 02

  Do you speak French?

• 49:48Speaker 01

  Well, like you, badly. I I enough so that the first sentence or two sounds like I know what I'm talking about. And the problem with that, of course, is that then they assume.

• 49:57Speaker 02

  You have to understand the answer.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Macron starts going.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  And I have no idea what that guy said to me. But I just kept shaking my head.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  So anyway, I.

• 50:17Speaker 02

  I know that feeling.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:19Speaker 02

  You don't want to start it because you don't know.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  Exactly. Totally, completely. Oh, my God.

• 50:26Speaker 02

  My French has gotten me a lot of trouble along the way, actually.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  Like?

• 50:29Speaker 02

  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. And, um, and I wanted to say to her, when my husband sees me, he's gonna say, kiss me quick before my wife gets here. So I said, dit moi, uh, mo, mo, Marie, uh, uh, di, um, esse moi vite, uh, un avant, comme ma femme Marieve. And she looked at me in horror, absolute horror, and I had no idea what I had said.

• 51:09Speaker 02

  So that night I went out with some friends who speak perfect French, and I, I told them what I said, and he started to laugh. And he said, embess, embess is a kiss, but bessé is something else entirely.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  No.

• 51:22Speaker 02

  And what you said was, my husband's gonna say fuck me quick before my wife gets here.

• 51:28Speaker 02

  I never went back to that hairdresser.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  So she thought you were a brassy dame, I like it. I mean, actually, it's sort of a bet, it's almost a better expression. Fuck me quick before my wife gets here.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  That's great, Ina, I love it, I'm gonna remember that.

• 51:45Speaker 02

  So, bad French can get you in trouble.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess so, right, that's really, that's really good.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  We have this thing at the end, I ask you a bunch of like, quick questions, and you can choose to answer them or not, whatever you feel like doing.

• 51:59Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 52:01Speaker 02

  I'm ready.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're ready. Something you go back and tell yourself at 21?

• 52:07Speaker 02

  Don't worry about jumping off a cliff, it'll be fine.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:10Speaker 02

  It's the only way you'll get anywhere.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  Keep jumping.

• 52:13Speaker 02

  Keep jumping.

• 52:14Speaker 01

  Keep jumping. Is there something you go back and say yes to?

• 52:18Speaker 02

  No, I think I've done everything I wanted to do.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  You said all the yeses that needed to be said?

• 52:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  This is good, Ina.

• 52:25Speaker 02

  Can't think of anything I said no to that I wish I'd said yes to, no.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  Is there something you want to tell me about aging? I mean, not that we're that far apart in age, but is there something you would, is there some little tidbit that you could tell me about aging?

• 52:41Speaker 02

  Go for a walk twice a week, it'd be good for you.

• 52:44Speaker 01

  Good, I like that.

• 52:46Speaker 02

  I think small changes over one period of time makes a difference.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  What do you mean, small changes?

• 52:51Speaker 02

  You don't have to, um, run a marathon.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 52:54Speaker 02

  I think if you just take a walk twice a week.

• 52:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:56Speaker 02

  You'll be better off.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. What are you looking forward to?

• 53:00Speaker 02

  Going to Paris.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  Actually, Jeffrey and I decided, what are we waiting for? And we booked two trips that we've never done before.

• 53:09Speaker 01

  Which ones?

• 53:10Speaker 02

  We're going to the Arctic. And we're going to go on, I've gone on a safari, but not gone out, out into the, you know, with the animals. So we booked a safari. So that's gonna be fun.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  That'll be amazing. That's a, that's a life changer. I've been, I've done that and it's a...

• 53:32Speaker 02

  What did you see?

• 53:34Speaker 01

  Kind of everything.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  Everything? Wow.

• 53:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I do remember though, at the times of having kids, we went when our kids were younger. I want to say they were like maybe eight and 13. And we went and our first night there and we're out in the, in the plains there and we were actually in tents and our leader guy was saying, okay, now a couple of rules around camp. There is no running. Nobody can run. And I thought to myself, oh, my God, what have we done?

• 54:04Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  I have two rambunctious boys. And I have to now, for the next two weeks, they've got to sit the hell down. I thought, they're prey. These kids are prey.

• 54:16Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 54:17Speaker 01

  The whole time I was in a panic.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  I mean, I had a good time, but it was still, I was like on the edge of my seat the whole time. Well, this has been such a treat to talk with you.

• 54:31Speaker 02

  And for me too. Thank you so much, Julia.

• 54:34Speaker 01

  I'm such an admirer of yours.

• 54:36Speaker 02

  And I of yours. Thank you.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  Wonderful.

• 54:39Speaker 02

  I hope to see you soon.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 54:40Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 54:41Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  Okay, time to get my mom on this Zoom call. I gotta tell her about this conversation.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  Hi Mama.

• 54:55Speaker 03

  Hi sweet.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  I just spoke with Ina Garten.

• 54:58Speaker 03

  What a huge treat and a treasure to have time with her.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  I know, I know.

• 55:05Speaker 03

  Why is she called the Barefoot Contessa?

• 55:07Speaker 01

  Because she worked in the White House and she was writing nuclear policy during the Carter administration. And her husband Jeffrey was also, I believe, in government. And anyway, at a certain point, she became uninterested in that work and she needed something to do. And Jeffrey said, "You need to find something to do that's fun." And so she found this store in the Hamptons, a food specialty store called the Barefoot Contessa, and it was for sale. And she bought it. She bought it.

• 55:40Speaker 03

  Oh my God. I thought, because it's such a great name.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  I know.

• 55:44Speaker 03

  And you'd always think, oh my God, this woman is, you know, she's a countess. But on the other hand, she doesn't, I mean, she's not at all like a royal, you know.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  No, not at all. Except she has, there is something about her that's quite, I think, rarefied in terms of her approach to food and making it accessible for everybody.

• 56:07Speaker 01

  That is unusual, what she's done. But something I found really interesting, Mommy, is that she got married when she was 20. She's been married for 55 years. And she made a decision when she got married that she was not going to have kids. And this was based on the fact that she had a very difficult childhood. She did not have a lot of joy as a child. She didn't have much agency and she couldn't really make decisions for herself. And so she made the choice not to have kids, which really strikes me as something to remark on because nowadays, to make that decision is one thing, but to make that decision in the late 60s, early 70s is extraordinary, right?

• 56:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  I mean, like for you, Mom, in the period of time when you were having kids, did it ever occur to you not to have kids?

• 57:01Speaker 03

  Never, never. It's almost like, did the sun come up? You had kids. I mean, it was just like that. I mean, it never occurred to me. But I remember one couple that we knew who didn't have children. And what they did, they got into rose gardening. And so they, they spent a tremendous amount of time on the rose garden and studying roses and all kinds of things. So they, they plowed themselves into the world in a certain way. And I always thought to myself, that's, that's their, their compensation. And actually, when you girls all left home, that's when I started really gardening with a passion. And I'm thinking that it's a, there's something maternal in, in the nurturing and the nature

• 57:45Speaker 03

  that is a compensation for having children to take care of. But for her, she found a way to, to be a mother through food and through nurturing the world. And it's, that's a great gift. Right, right, yeah.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's exciting to know where she's came from and how she's taken what was a hardship and turned it into an enormous strength. Hey, speaking of recipes, there's one food that Ina Garten hates, and it's cilantro.

• 58:15Speaker 03

  Some people hate cilantro. I mean, I would say like, like 12% of America hates cilantro. Explain that to me.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  You explain to me where you got that statistic from.

• 58:27Speaker 03

  Well, I made it up. But, but, but, you know, what I'm saying about it is that, that, you know, you have to check with people about cilantro because some people hate it.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right. And she says that if there's even a tiny leaf, it really, really bothers her. And I personally cannot get enough cilantro.

• 58:45Speaker 03

  Same, same for me. But people absolutely say, I can't eat it.

• 58:49Speaker 01

  When we have Ina and Jeffrey over, we won't be making things with cilantro.

• 58:54Speaker 03

  We will pretend it doesn't exist.

• 58:57Speaker 01

  Oh, well, wait a minute. Actually, we just looked this up, and there's actually a genetic reason that some people think cilantro tastes like soap. These particular people have a variation in a group of, we just looked this up, olfactory receptor genes that allows them to strongly perceive the soapy flavored aldehydes in cilantro leaves. So.

• 59:22Speaker 01

  Ina must have that gene. And it turns out, Mom, that it's present in about four to 14% of the US population. So your made up bullshit statistic was spot on.

• 59:37Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 59:37Speaker 03

  Where did I come up with 12%? That's hysterical.

• 59:40Speaker 01

  I don't know. You pulled that out of your ass and you were right.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 59:46Speaker 03

  Okay. Love you, honey.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  Love you, Mommy. I'll see you tomorrow.

• 59:51Speaker 03

  Okay. Oh, yeah, exactly. Travel safely.

• 59:55Speaker 01

  Goodbye. Love you.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  There's more Wiser Than Me with Lemonada Premium. Subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content from each episode of the show. Subscribe now in Apple Podcasts. Make sure you're following Wiser Than Me on social media. We're on Instagram and TikTok at Wiser Than Me and we're on Facebook at Wiser Than Me Podcast. Wiser Than Me is a production of Lemonada Media, created and hosted by me, Julia Louis-Dreyfus. This show is produced by Chrissy Peace, Jamila Zahr Williams, Alex McOwen, and Oja Lopez. Brad Hall is a consulting producer. Rachel Neal is VP of New Content and our SVP of Weekly Content and Production

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  is Steve Nelson. Executive producers are Paula Kaplan, Stephanie Whittleswax, Jessica Cordova Kramer, and me. The show is mixed by Johnny Vince Evans with engineering help from James Farber and our music was written by Henry Hall, who you can also find on Spotify or wherever you listen to your music. Special thanks to Will Schlegel and of course, my mother, Judith Bowles. Follow Wiser Than Me wherever you get your podcasts. And if there's a wise old lady in your life, listen up.

• 1:01:24Speaker 04

  I'm Dan Heath. On What It's Like to Be, I interview people about their jobs. Here's a married couple that drives a long haul truck together.

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  We backed up and they loaded fresh dead rats.

• 1:01:35Speaker 04

  I mean, how many rats would you guess were back there?

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  There were 32,000 pounds of them.

• 1:01:40Speaker 04

  32,000 pounds of frozen dead rats.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 1:01:46Speaker 04

  Find out what it's like to be a long haul trucker, a couples therapist, or an FBI agent, all on the podcast What It's Like to Be.

• 1:01:54Speaker 05

  History gets written, then rewritten, sometimes by scholars correcting the record, sometimes by committees deciding what a generation of kids will and won't learn. The version that makes it into the textbook isn't always the only story. It's the one that won out. That's the kind of thing Ground News was built for. It shows you how outlets across the spectrum tell the same story, side by side, so you can spot the shading for yourself. Ground News gives each outlet a factuality rating, so you know how much weight to give the source, and shows you who owns it, so you know what's behind it. The Nobel Peace Center called it "an excellent way to stay informed,

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