Ina Garten Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe. I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center, in the heart of New York City. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe Magazine. Each week, I talk to the most interesting culinary folks around. Today's guest is Ina Garten, the TV personality and best-selling cookbook author. Ina is also the star of the Discovery+ TV show and podcast, Be My Guest With Ina Garten, in which she gets to be the interviewer for a change, and talk to guests such as Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt. On today's show, Ina chats with me about her newest cookbook, Go-To Dinners, and what inspired the recipes. We cover a lot of other topics as well, from her childhood dinners, to TikTok, Twitter, butter boards, and whether we'll ever see an Ina Garten restaurant or not. Of course, we chat about Ina's beloved husband, Jeffrey [Garten]. I wouldn't dream of disappointing all you Jeffrey fans out there. Stay tuned.
Today's episode is sponsored by Williams-Sonoma. Whatever you need for holiday gift giving or entertaining, Williams-Sonoma has you covered. I know so many of you love doing cheese and charcuterie boards during the holidays. Yes, we need to add the aforementioned butter boards to that list, too. Take yours to the next level with Williams-Sonoma's beautiful selection of wood and marble boards and cheese knives. I could have used some cheese knives when I did my last cheese board. If tablescapes are your thing, check out Williams-Sonoma's gorgeous collection of plates serving platters, glassware, and cutlery. Whether your style is bold and colorful or decidedly minimalist, there are so many great options.
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Some housekeeping. The new issue of Cherry Bombe is now available, featuring cover star Erin French of The Lost Kitchen in Maine. Cherry Bombe is a beautiful print magazine with recipes you'll want to make over and over, plus great interviews, features, and essays, all printed on lush paper with gorgeous color photos. You can find a copy at top shops around the country, including Mast Market here in Manhattan, SCOUT in Marion, Iowa, Stella's Fine Market in Beacon, New York, Ten Mile Table in Wassaic, New York, and Onggi in Portland, Maine. If you happen to live up in Halifax, hi to the Halifax listeners. You can find us at Atlantic News. Now let's check in with Ina Garten. Ina, welcome back to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Ina Garten:
Hi, Kerry. So great to see you.
Kerry Diamond:
Always great to see you. How are you today?
Ina Garten:
I'm good. I'm great.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell me where we find you.
Ina Garten:
In my closet, in my apartment in New York.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about this gorgeous book, Go-To Dinners. I lost track. Is it 13 or 14?
Ina Garten:
It's 13.
Kerry Diamond:
13.
Ina Garten:
Sometimes I lose track, too.
Kerry Diamond:
It's your baker's dozen.
Ina Garten:
Well, it's interesting because in the back of my mind, something was worrying me that 13's an unlucky number, but it didn't seem to pan out that way.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah.
Ina Garten:
It's a baker's dozen. I like that better.
Kerry Diamond:
It's a lucky number for people in the food world. It's definitely a lucky number for you because every two years, I'm like, "How is she going to do it? How is Ina going to do something fresh and different?" You always manage to do it. Why did you decide to focus on dinners for this book?
Ina Garten:
Well, I think I started working on it during the pandemic, in the beginning of the pandemic, actually. I found that I was working on recipes for a book. I mean, I'm always working on developing recipes. I was doing recipes for Instagram to explain to people what to do with those white beans and ramen noodles that they bought in their pantry and didn't know what to do with them. Then, at some point, I thought, "Oh, my God. I have to make lunch and dinner for Jeffrey and me." It was such a crazy cookathon. At some point around between March and May, I just got in bed and pulled the covers under my chin, and I thought, "I have to do this differently because I just can't keep cooking this much." I was exhausted, as we all were, because on top of everything else, we were really stressed.
So I thought, "We don't really need a big dinner." We found that we were really happier if we had one thing, like eggs in purgatory, which is a tomato sauce with poached eggs on top, and a big shard of crusty bread. That was great for dinner. So I thought, "Well, maybe I'll do a chapter in this book that's like breakfast for dinner." Dinner doesn't always have to be dinner, a classic meat, vegetable, starch kind of thing. I started exploring it. We found that having a big bowl of ramen chicken noodle soup or overnight mac and cheese and a big salad was so easy. It was just delicious and satisfying. We never looked back after that.
Then I started thinking, "Well, if it's fun for us and satisfying, why wouldn't it be fun for friends when I invite them over?" So I started doing that. I remember making waffles for some friends, waffles and bacon. I don't know what else I made with it. They just went crazy. I mean, they went back not for seconds. They went back for thirds. So I thought, "This is fun." It's just time to shake it up a little bit.
Kerry Diamond:
The sense of lightness and liberation really comes through in the book.
Ina Garten:
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Sometimes it's just a board. It's like a ploughman's lunch, which is big shards of cheddar cheese and hard-boiled eggs and celery sticks, just the things that you'd get at a British pub. It's just great. You can even buy hard-boiled eggs in the grocery store now, so you don't even have to turn on the stove.
Kerry Diamond:
You talk about dinner, this sense of fun during dinnertime. But in the very beginning of the book, you talk about your childhood. Dinner was not a fun time for you. Why was that an unhappy meal growing up in your household?
Ina Garten:
My parents were authoritarian. You did what they wanted you to do. It was like, "Shut up and eat your dinner," no matter what it was. They were always pushing us to achieve, which makes me want to shut down. I like to decide what I'm going to do and then go do it. I'll do it really well, but it has to be my decision. It can't be somebody else's. So I really rebelled against that. My rebellion was to withdraw. When we were at the dinner table, you ate what my mother made. If you didn't like it, they were angry with you, which was really bad.
My mother had no sense of joy about cooking. She just got dinner on the table. It was a pretty lonely, unhappy place. When I first got married, I just remember looking around, going, "I can do anything I want. Anything. I can cook whatever I want. I can do whatever I want. I can go wherever." It was just a sense of liberation. Also, living with somebody who just thought whatever I did was wonderful was such a transformation for me, and such a liberation. It's just what you were saying. I just reveled in it. I still do.
Kerry Diamond:
I read that your mother was a dietician. Was that correct?
Ina Garten:
She was, yeah, by training. I mean, she didn't work as a dietician when I was growing up, but when she got out of college, that's what she did professionally. I think she was an austere person to start with. Her idea of fondness, to just deny yourself something. There were whole categories of food that were just not allowed. Most of them were starches, carbs. There was no bread. There was no potatoes. There was nothing. No pasta. There was nothing warm and cozy. It was all like broiled chicken and canned peas, which, I mean, nobody wants.
Kerry Diamond:
Yikes.
Ina Garten:
I'm sorry. At least, I don't.
Kerry Diamond:
Your dad was a surgeon. Was he home for dinner every night?
Ina Garten:
He was home for dinner every night. Yeah. For better or for worse. Because he used to quiz us during dinner. So I had a knot in my stomach.
Kerry Diamond:
What would he quiz you about?
Ina Garten:
Oh, geography, math, whatever it was. It wasn't a real conversation. It was the kids have to do what the parents want. It was a '50s time. It's what people did then. But they weren't warm and fuzzy.
Kerry Diamond:
It's amazing. Your mealtimes are the absolute opposite. Everything you do is-
Ina Garten:
Exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
... warm and fuzzy now. Are you still working on your memoir?
Ina Garten:
I am. Yeah. I am.
Kerry Diamond:
How's it going?
Ina Garten:
It's going great. I mean, I hope it's interesting for people. It's interesting for me going back, because I'm always looking forward. I never look back. For example, I have a box of letters that Jeffrey wrote to me when I was in high school and college. I've still kept it, but I've never looked at it. Looking through it, it's just like, "Oh, my God. That's amazing." One letter, he said, "Someday I'm going to take you to Paris." We had no recollection of that. That's been really interesting, kind of connecting the dots. I mean, when I lived in Washington and I worked in the White House, I was renovating all the houses. I was teaching myself how to cook. I went to business school at George Washington, I mean, all at the same time, and I think, "How did I do that?" But it just seemed so natural at the time. So in that sense, it's been really empowering to just go back and see that there were seeds of that in the beginning, that I've continued and followed through, that it was there. I just hadn't developed it.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. I have tears in my eyes just thinking about a letter that young Jeffrey wrote to young Ina saying, "One day I'm going to take you to Paris."
Ina Garten:
Isn't that lovely? Actually, it was even more poignant than that because he said, "In the beginning, we probably won't have enough money, so maybe we'll go camping," which is exactly what we did. Then, "Maybe if we have a little more money, we can stay in a hotel, which we did." And the last part is, "Someday, maybe we'll be able to rent an apartment." It was like the Yellow Brick Road. He just laid out the path to exactly what we did. The way we did it was really quite ... And he had no recollection of it. So that part is very interesting. An examined life is more interesting. That's been fun.
Kerry Diamond:
I can only speak for myself, but I'm guessing a lot of us Ina fans would buy an entire book of just the Ina and Jeffrey letters. So if you don't want to write that memoir, you can just compile all the letters.
Ina Garten:
I'll tell you. Everybody has this thing about Jeffrey, which I find so charming. We were going through London at passport control, just entering London. The passport guy, this very British guy, he's reading the passport. He looks up and goes, "Oh, it's you." We're like, "What? Are we going to get arrested?" He said, "My wife always says to me, 'Why can't you be more like Jeffrey?'" This was in London. I just love that.
Kerry Diamond:
That's so funny. I was shocked to read you weren't a fan of leftovers.
Ina Garten:
The thing about leftovers to me is maybe I had a lot of leftovers as a child. I don't know. But I always feel like it's never as good as the first day. I just find it boring because I've already had it, and it never has the same flavor the second day. So I just didn't like it. In this book, I thought, "Here we are, stuck in our houses. Don't know if we can get more groceries. Can't leave. Can't order out from a specialty food store." I thought, "I really have to deal with leftovers because you make a roast chicken. There are leftovers." I realized, if I took the leftovers and actually did something completely different with them, then it wouldn't feel like leftovers. My goal was to make them actually better in the second round.
There's a wonderful recipe for roasted kielbasa with vegetables that was inspired by Sam Sifton at The New York Times. You roast kielbasa with ... I did fennel and onions and peppers. It's just such a simple dinner, and so delicious. But you end up with a lot of kielbasa at the end. So I thought, "Well, I love split pea soup with some kind of sausage in it, so I'll just sauté the kielbasa, make a big pot of split pea soup, and put the kielbasa in that." Then there was still some leftover, so I sautéed it and, with toothpicks, serve it for hors d'oeuvres with a pot of mustard. It's just great. Here's one dish that ended up in three different ways, that it was just great in each one, and it was different.
Kerry Diamond:
My favorite thing is always just put an egg on it. Poached egg. Fried egg.
Ina Garten:
Yeah. Exactly. That's wonderful.
Kerry Diamond:
You also lean into the board trend very much in this book. You talked about the ploughman's lunch earlier.
Ina Garten:
It's what farmers would take out to the field. I've been doing board stuff for a long time. Even at Barefoot Contessa, I did huge country dessert platters that people would pick up. I would do all kinds, like a salmon niçoise platter. I was doing that in the '80s. So I just took it. I just continued it.
Kerry Diamond:
The board's pre-TikTok.
Ina Garten:
Pre-TikTok. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
You're not on TikTok, are you?
Ina Garten:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
Any plans?
Ina Garten:
I always say, "You can't say no to something until you try it." We're investigating it right now, but not yet.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Ina Garten:
What we're not on is Twitter, I have to say. I resigned from Twitter about two weeks ago, and I'm just delighted.
Kerry Diamond:
Same. Same. I'm so disappointed, though. It was such a great way to talk to people. Okay. Back to boards. Tell us about some of the boards in this cookbook.
Ina Garten:
One of the things we have is a dessert board. It came from an experience I had in the South of France. We were at a restaurant that's on the beach. I mean, not near the beach. Actually on the beach. It was just wonderful, in Cannes. At some point, three waiters came out with this enormous rectangular board. On it were pieces of cake, cookies, fruit, shards of chocolate, all just right down the middle of the board. They just plunked down at this huge table where people were having a party. It looked so spectacular. It was so much fun because you could have a cookie and some fruit, or you could have a piece of a fruit tart, and you could help yourself. I thought, "There's nothing on that platter that you can't buy store-bought. You can go to a bakery, a grocery store, a chocolate shop, and just get everything on that board. That was the genesis of that dessert board, which is fun. I mean, if you put it down in the middle of the table, people just go crazy.
Kerry Diamond:
They do. Everybody loves a board. What are your thoughts on the butter board?
Ina Garten:
I'm not a big fan of the butter board. I don't know why. Butter on wood, it just feels like it's on the floor. I just can't get past it. But I haven't tried it, so I shouldn't knock it.
Kerry Diamond:
That's so funny. I am pro-butter board, but the butter board has been more divisive than I thought something like that could be.
Ina Garten:
Oh, seriously?
Kerry Diamond:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ina Garten:
What do people say about it?
Kerry Diamond:
I think you either love or hate the butter board. There are very few people who are just neutral about the butter board. Ina, you talked about the breakfast for dinner chapter, which I think is my favorite chapter.
Ina Garten:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
Could you tell us a little bit more about that chapter and another favorite recipe from it?
Ina Garten:
Well, I always love my scone. It's scones with jam and butter. They're just heaven. I'm trying to think. What are the other-
Kerry Diamond:
You do a cream scone, right?
Ina Garten:
Yeah. Cream scone is actually ... The cream is put on it. Actually, I had a conversation with Emily Blunt on my show, Be My Guest. We were talking about whether you put the cream on first and then the jam on second, or whether you put the jam on first and the cream on second, which surprisingly really makes a difference because it's what you taste first. She was saying ... I can't remember now. I think the Queen puts the jam on first and then the cream on second. But her father does it the other way around.
I think the first thing that I did as breakfast for dinner, and it's the simplest thing once you get the hang of it, is a gruyère omelet. I mean, you get all of the ingredients already, and it's ready in five minutes. It's just great with a big shard of bread or something. It's a really satisfying dinner. That's how I started saying, "Well, wait a minute. It's really breakfast or lunch. Why can't that be dinner? Why is it you always have certain prescribed things?"
Kerry Diamond:
No, I think an omelet with a salad is the best meal, breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
Ina Garten:
It is, isn't it?
Kerry Diamond:
Mm-hmm.
Ina Garten:
Isn't it great?
Kerry Diamond:
You mentioned in Go-To Dinners that you're a morning person, so that also explains breakfast for dinner. You said that you never understood how chefs could work so late into the night. I was wondering. Does this mean we'll never have an Ina Garten restaurant?
Ina Garten:
Definitely. Not for that reason, but we will definitely not have an Ina Garten restaurant. I think that's the hardest work on the planet. It's just grueling. Everybody crammed into a small space. I remember the book that was written about Mario Batali's restaurant, Bill Buford's book, about when he said, "I just couldn't figure out where to go in the kitchen." He said, "Not that I didn't know which station to go. I didn't know where my body was going to fit." That just has always stayed with me. It's just extraordinary. If you have to change your tongs from your right hand to your left hand, you're already in the weeds. That kind of pressure, I understand why people get an adrenaline rush from it, but I couldn't do that anymore. No, I love what I do.
Kerry Diamond:
There are a lot of unexpected restaurant openings this year from Martha Stewart. Priyanka Chopra even opened one. Molly Yeh opened one. But no.
Ina Garten:
Yeah, no. I had a specialty food store for 20 years. I've had enough of the retail experience.
Kerry Diamond:
You got your fill.
Ina Garten:
It's hard. I did catering for 15 years, so I know what that's like.
Kerry Diamond:
You mentioned Be My Guest, your TV show, which I love so much. TV show and podcast. It combines cooking and interviewing. I was wondering. How are you enjoying the interviewing part?
Ina Garten:
It's been amazing. The show is on Discovery+ and Food Network. I have found the interviews stunningly interesting. Each person has a story that shows you that they could never have been where they are if they hadn't pushed through some extraordinary, really overwhelming difficulty. I think that's been a revelation. It's not that these people are successful because they were smarter or more talented. Granted, they are, but there are a lot of talented people. But when they hit a wall, they figure it out and get around it. Sometimes their lives would not have been what they are if they hadn't hit that wall.
Kerry Diamond:
What was the wall for you?
Ina Garten:
When I bought my first store in 1978, it was called Barefoot Contessa. It was about 400 square feet, which is about the size of the closet I'm in right now. I signed the deal and took over the lease the woman who sold it to me had, and I didn't understand what an assignment was about. She assigned the lease to me, which she didn't have the right to do. Neither she nor I really fully understood what we were doing, and thank God, because if I'd known, I wouldn't have done it and the rest would've been different.
After two years, the landlord found out that he had a tenant that he'd never met before. As a landlord, I understand what his shock was. We couldn't come to terms with extending the lease. I had spent all of my earthly goods on this business and I didn't have a lease. So I thought, "Oh, my God. It's over. What am I going to do?" I just pulled myself together. Just by chance, there was a building across the street that was not 400 square feet. It was 4,000 square feet. It was an old grocery store in Westhampton Beach. Jeffrey and I put together a deal where we took over that building. I was so in over my head, I can't even tell you. Any normal person would've just gotten out. But I figured it out, I pushed past it, and the rest is history.
I remember standing in that building with the bank president who had lent me some money. Now I needed more because the building was completely falling apart. I thought, "If he doesn't lend me the money, we're finished. We're just finished." He said to me at some point, "What did you used to do before you had a specialty food store?" I said, "Well, I used to work on nuclear energy policy in the White House." I said to him, "What did you use to do before you were bank president?" He said, "I used to teach second grade." We had a good laugh. He said, "The loan's approved." I mean, that's the way business was done then. It was just so fortunate that I had an empathetic bank president.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow. I didn't know about that story before the bigger space.
Ina Garten:
Yeah. That was really a scary moment. In fact, I got into bed in a friend's house for two days because the bank president was on vacation. I had no idea whether this was going to happen. She gave me tea and toast for two days until that meeting.
Kerry Diamond:
That was your wall. Do you have a list of dream guests for the show?
Ina Garten:
Well, the ones I've had so far are so dreamy, I don't even know where to go. I've just finished filming with four more guests. Stanley Tucci, who, of course, is everybody's dream guest. Laura Linney, who is just absolutely amazing. Norah Jones, the singer, is just ... I mean, she's ... I mean, there was one fact I came across that there were six billion downloads of her album. Six billion. There are only seven billion people in the world. It's just extraordinary. And Misty Copeland who just breaks my heart, she's so wonderful. I mean, it's pretty hard to get better than that.
Kerry Diamond:
How do you choose your guests, Ina?
Ina Garten:
I choose people I think would be interesting to spend the day with. It's really that simple. It's not like I'm looking for a certain type of person. Mostly, they have some interest in food, which is really fun. But Nathan Lane was a guest, and he didn't have any experience cooking. As we were starting, I was going to show him how to make mussels because I know he likes mussels. My director said, "Why don't you switch with him? Why don't you teach him how to make mussels?" And I did. He was just so wonderful. In the end, he learned how to make mussels with saffron cream from Go-To Dinners, which is just great. He took it home.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, he did?
Ina Garten:
He did.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that.
Ina Garten:
We gave it to him for dinner.
Kerry Diamond:
I listened to that. It's also a podcast, which folks might not realize.
Ina Garten:
It is a podcast.
Kerry Diamond:
I listened to the Nathan one. It was so good. I love him, and I learned a lot about him that I had never known.
Ina Garten:
Wasn't that interesting? I mean, talk about barriers that you have to get past. It's just extraordinary. Grew up in a Catholic school. His mother was Catholic, and he's Nathan Lane. He's just extraordinary.
Kerry Diamond:
And that Nathan's not even his name. I learned that.
Ina Garten:
He adopted the name Nathan Lane and then ended up being in Guys and Dolls as Nathan Detroit, which is who he named himself after.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that. And Stanley. You finally met Stanley in person.
Ina Garten:
Yes, I did meet Stanley, and amazingly, at nine o'clock in the morning, he made me my first martini. Then I had to film with him all day.
Kerry Diamond:
No one believes that was your first martini. You know that, right?
Ina Garten:
I don't know why. I just thought, "I feel like a martini is too strong for me. I would just fall over. I'd have one sip." But the way he makes them, he's specific about the alcohol. He's specific about how you stir it so that you dilute it just right. It was absolutely delicious.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you going to have another martini-
Ina Garten:
Yeah. As long as Stanley makes it.
Kerry Diamond:
... or one was enough? As long as Stanley makes it. That's funny. All right. What are you and Jeffrey doing for the holidays?
Ina Garten:
Well, actually, the past 20 years, since we've had an apartment in Paris, we go to Paris. My favorite thing to do in Paris is actually go shopping for Christmas dinner. We always invite somebody for dinner. I love to go to the butcher and the produce store and the street market in front of our apartment. We go to Berthillon, that wonderful ice cream store on ... I think it's on Île de la Cité, and get prune and Armagnac ice cream for an apple tart that we've gotten from Poilâne. The first year we were there, I made a list of places that I needed to go shopping, and Jeffrey said to me, "Save that list, because that's why you're in Paris, because you want to go to those places." He was so right. It's the whole experience there. It's not just about having the dinner party. It's about shopping and then being with friends in this magical place. We usually do it 2:00 in the afternoon, and if it's nice day, we go walk to Luxembourg Gardens. It's just heaven. Absolutely heaven. It's like being on another planet.
Kerry Diamond:
What do you make for your main?
Ina Garten:
The pork in Paris is just unique. It's extraordinary. So I have traditional Christmas dinner, which is roast pork with a purée of potato, apple, and fennel, and sautéed Brussels sprouts, shaved Brussels sprouts. They're sautéed. Then I get some wonderful cheese. The Vacherin is in season then. We have a salad and a little Vacherin, and then an apple tart and prune and Armagnac ice cream for dessert. I mean, it's just heaven. It's just amazing. Can I talk about the pork-
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, yeah.
Ina Garten:
... which is interesting? The first time I went to get pork, I said to the butcher, who was tying it up and getting it ready for me, I thought, "Well, I'll practice my French," so I said to him, "How do you cook it?" What he told me sounded so outrageous. I just thought I must have misunderstood his French, or I obviously didn't understand him. He said, "Put it in a cold oven at a certain temperature, turn the oven on and cook it for ..." I can't remember what it was, like an hour and a half, and then take it out and let it rest. I thought, "Put it in a cold oven?" It was so odd.
I actually took the pork roasts that he gave me, cut it in half. I have two ovens. I did half of it his way and half of it my way. His way was so extraordinary. I couldn't believe it. I came back to the United States to try and do it here, and it didn't work here. Their pork is just somehow different. But it was such an interesting French moment. I said to him, "Can you write it down?" Because I thought I must have misunderstood. He wrote it down and said to me in French, "If you lose the paper, you can call me at home on Christmas Day." Isn't that sweet?
Kerry Diamond:
I love that. You start it in the cold oven. Did he brown it? Did he say, "Brown it first"-
Ina Garten:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
... or anything like that?
Ina Garten:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
No?
Ina Garten:
You know what it was? The heat comes up slowly around protein, and it cooks it. It's like a slow roasting rather than hitting it with high heat. So no, it came out perfect. It was browned. It was perfect. You cook it at a lower temperature for a longer time, but you put it in a cold oven, which is, interestingly, hard to remember because you come into the kitchen and start cooking. You turn the oven on. Then I always go, "Oh, no. No, no. Don't turn the oven on."
Kerry Diamond:
Right. That would make me so nervous starting something with a cold oven.
Ina Garten:
I actually didn't trust it. I tested that piece first and went back and got another one for Christmas day.
Kerry Diamond:
What cocktails are you making this Christmas?
Ina Garten:
Well, usually, when I'm doing a big meal I make something fairly simple. A cranberry martini is always good, which is delicious, which I did, actually, for The New York Times for Thanksgiving.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's right. You did that fun Thanksgiving project with them.
Ina Garten:
They said to me, "Can you do a ‘store-bought is fine’ Thanksgiving?" I thought, "Well, who can do that? I can't do that." Then I hung up the phone. I thought, "Well, maybe I can." I started thinking about using Pepperidge Farm Stuffing Mix for bread pudding, rather than making my own bread. I started playing around with it, and it was like, "This is fun." So I ended up doing it. It was fun. They were great. My goal was that the finished product didn't taste anything like the store-bought product. It was, I think, mushroom and Gruyère bread pudding. It was just fabulous. It was really delicious.
Kerry Diamond:
No, it was so fun.
Ina Garten:
People tried it. They loved it.
Kerry Diamond:
I loved seeing that. I didn't cook this Thanksgiving, I just did the cheese plate.
Ina Garten:
That's good.
Kerry Diamond:
Exactly. That's the Christmas dinner. You know what I wanted to ask you, just since everybody loves Jeffrey so much? How does Jeffrey know what to get you gift-wise?
Ina Garten:
Jeffrey's really smart. He always likes to take me shopping because I'm not easy. I think maybe on our third anniversary, he bought me something that stayed in the box. That wasn't a good idea. My birthday and our anniversary is around the holidays, so he wakes up one morning and says, "Let's go to Place Vendôme." I know what that means. It's just really lovely, but buys me something that I love.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's fun. That's perfect.
Ina Garten:
He's a smart husband.
Kerry Diamond:
So you don't have to drop hints or give him a list or anything like that.
Ina Garten:
Oh, yeah. No.
Kerry Diamond:
What do you get him?
Ina Garten:
He hates presents. I just show him a good time. I make him dinner. On his birthday, we just do fun stuff. Hates presents. Makes it easy.
Kerry Diamond:
You really do have the perfect husband, Ina.
Ina Garten:
I do. But we buy each other stuff all year. It's not like the one time.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's take a quick break. For all you bakers out there, Radio Cherry Bombe has a special six-part miniseries airing on Saturdays called She's My Cherry Pie, hosted by baker and author Jessie Sheehan. Jessie does a deep dive with a different star baker each week about their signature baked goods. Episodes are now live with Lisa Ludwinski of Sister Pie, Cheryl Day of Back in the Day Bakery, and other great bakers. You'll come away with lots of tips and tricks and inspiration. Listen via Radio Cherry Bombe, wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you to California Prunes for supporting She's My Cherry Pie, and happy baking.
Now back to Ina and a few more questions about her new book, Go-To Dinners. What's become the most popular recipe? Something always bubbles up as the most popular.
Ina Garten:
It's very interesting. I want to say overnight mac and cheese. When I posted it on Instagram, when I was doing Instagram, and then I put it in the book, you cook the pasta. You put it in a mixture with milk and cheese and everything else, and you let it sit overnight in the refrigerator. Then just put it into a dish and put it in the oven. You don't have to make a béchamel. It's really easy, and it's so good. I think that's probably high on the list.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's fun. What's your absolute favorite in the book?
Ina Garten:
In the book? What's my favorite? That's a tough one.
Kerry Diamond:
Or maybe the most personal.
Ina Garten:
Well, I always love to do a roast chicken with whatever seasonal vegetables. So, I mean, certainly, the roast chicken with spring vegetables is wonderful. But one thing I love is the smoked salmon in a croissant with mascarpone. It was inspired by something I had at La Mercerie in New York, which I adore. It's just so surprising. If somebody comes over for brunch or something, it's really fun to serve that. It's totally store-bought. I mean, I like to reheat the croissant, but that's not really cooking, and slice them half and do a mascarpone filling with smoked salmon and a lot of arugula, which is interesting because it's peppery. It's just delicious. That's one of my favorites.
Kerry Diamond:
I love arugula so much. Then you also have that great recipe for the chicken in a pot with orzo. You and Nigella [Lawson] had talked about that-
Ina Garten:
Exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
... when you did the talk at the Kings Theatre earlier this year. You two were so funny. You actually had forgotten whose recipe was whose.
Ina Garten:
It was really true. It was so funny because I had been working on that for years. I'd always wanted to do chicken in a pot. It's a really old-fashioned, old country kind of recipe, but it always came out tasting like chicken soup. I thought, "Well, why do I want to make something that just tastes like chicken soup?" So I kept working on it. Then Nigella came out with her book, Cook, Eat, Repeat, and she had chicken in a pot with it, and she put orzo in it. I thought, "That's what I was missing. Something with substance." I had been thinking maybe I would put something like matzo balls in it, something with substance. But the orzo was such a great idea.
Then I thought she had put saffron in it, but it turns out it was me that put the saffron in. It's chicken in a pot with all kinds of vegetables, with saffron and orzo. Interestingly, what you do is you cook the whole thing together, and then, at the end, you put the orzo in, turn the stove off, and just let it sit. It cooks in the stock from the chicken. You end up with soup, orzo, and chicken. It's just a fabulous dinner. That's something I've made a lot, actually.
Kerry Diamond:
I flagged that recipe to make. That sounds so good for the winter. I have this beautiful saffron from Diaspora that I want to use for it.
Ina Garten:
How great.
Kerry Diamond:
That's so nice.
Ina Garten:
Isn't saffron magical? I just adore it.
Kerry Diamond:
It's so beautiful. The smell. Everything about it. It's a beautiful ingredient.
Ina Garten:
So many people don't know that it's the stamens of crocuses, a particular crocus. You can't get the powder. You have to get the real thing because just a little bit of it really does flavor something so much. It's expensive because there are people that just pick off the stamens of crocuses. What a job.
Kerry Diamond:
I think the expense scares some people, but you really just use the tiniest bit of it.
Ina Garten:
A tiny bit. Yeah. Exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. A little does go a long way. Well, Ina, thank you so much for your time, and congratulations on this beautiful book. I love my Ina library. I have all your books lined up in my bookcase.
Ina Garten:
Oh, do you?
Kerry Diamond:
I love the rainbow of colors. I love how every book is the same size. It just brings me a lot of joy when I look at my Ina section.
Ina Garten:
Thank you, Kerry. So great to talk to you. Have a wonderful Holiday. Big kiss.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Thank you so much to Ina Garten for joining me. If you'd like to pick up a copy of her latest book, Go-To Dinners, you can find it at your favorite local bookstore. Thank you to today's sponsor, Williams-Sonoma. You can also find Ina's cookbook there, as well as lots of other great items for cooking, baking, and entertaining. If you enjoyed today's pod, check out past radio Cherry Bombe episodes with Ina. Radio Cherry Bombe is a production of Cherry Bombe Magazine. Our theme song is by the band, Tralala. Thanks to Joseph Hazan, studio engineer for Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center, and to our assistant producer, Jenna Sadhu. Thanks to you for listening. You are the Bombe.