Ina Garten Says You Can Either Get on Her Train or Get Out of the Way

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Jira by Atlassian, where your team and your coding agents work from the same context. Try it free at jira.dev. That's J-I-R-A dot D-E-V.

**Ina Garten** (0:10)
I remember thinking how crazy it was to disagree with the top cookbook editor in the country, and I remember saying to myself, well, either I'm wrong, and he'll never have to see me again, or I'm right, and he'll think I'm a genius.

**Lulu Garcia Navarro** (0:26)
I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro, and today I'm interviewing Ina Garten. Garten's best known for her cookbooks and her show Barefoot Contessa, which premiered on the Food Network almost 24 years ago.

**Ina Garten** (0:42)
I'm always looking for new ways to cook chicken, but nothing says summer more than cooking chicken on a grill.

**Lulu Garcia Navarro** (0:47)
That show taught people how to cook, a quarter of a cup of olive oil, a cup of onion, how to entertain.

**Ina Garten** (0:53)
So I'm going to have cocktails and hors d'oeuvres on the porch, I'm going to have dinner in the dining room table, it's going to be casual.

**Lulu Garcia Navarro** (0:58)
And how to be unfussy about it.

**Ina Garten** (1:01)
You can use ingredients from the store, like a pound cake or vanilla ice cream, that are just as good as homemade.

**Lulu Garcia Navarro** (1:07)
Garten's laid-back style and plucky personality made her both a household name and a cult figure.

**Ina Garten** (1:14)
Delicious.

**Lulu Garcia Navarro** (1:16)
Lovingly parodied and memed on social media.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:21)
Tonight, I'm making a wonderful dinner, and it starts with brownie pudding.

**Lulu Garcia Navarro** (1:25)
And now, at 78, she's doing something new. Launching a video podcast called Happy Hour with Ina, and her 14th cookbook, Simply Ina, is coming out this fall. Here's my conversation with Ina Garten.
I am thrilled to have you here. I have watched you for such a long time. I have cooked your recipes, and so it is a great pleasure to welcome you to the interview, Ina.

**SPEAKER_5** (1:53)
Thank you, Lulu.

**Ina Garten** (1:54)
I love what you do, too. So I'm so thrilled to be here. Really honored.

**Lulu Garcia Navarro** (1:59)
Okay, so I've been doing the math on your life.
You're now 78 years old, and you are just about to start this whole new chapter. You are launching a podcast.

**Ina Garten** (2:11)
I am.

**Lulu Garcia Navarro** (2:12)
And you started your celebrated Food Network TV show when you were in your mid-50s, and you wrote your first cookbook when you were in your early 50s.
And I find this very inspirational as a woman also in my 50s. What have you learned about taking on challenges in later life?

**Ina Garten** (2:30)
I think that when I look back and I think about the things that I've done, like writing cookbooks, and I love working scared. Really? Because it keeps me up at night. So I love, you know, I love this expression, getting out over your skis. Well, you have no choice. You've invested your money. You've, you know, sort of made a stake in what you've decided to do, whether it's books or TV.
And very often I've said no to things for years until I figured out, how can I do this differently? Like, I don't like doing it the way everybody else does it. I like doing, taking something like books and saying, most cookbooks are in, when I started in 1999, most cookbooks had like 250 recipes. I mean, who needs 250 recipes? I need 75 really good recipes that I can make over and over again.
And so when I decided to write cookbooks, I thought, okay, I'm going to write this book. I'm not even sure my publisher was convinced that it was going to work, but it worked out okay.

**Lulu Garcia Navarro** (3:34)
Yeah, I think one of the things that happens when people get older in particular, is that you get more afraid.
You get more afraid? That's interesting.

**Ina Garten** (3:42)
I thought you were going to say get more confident.

**Lulu Garcia Navarro** (3:44)
No, I don't. Isn't that interesting? I actually don't think people get more.

**Ina Garten** (3:48)
You have more to lose?

**Lulu Garcia Navarro** (3:48)
Well, you have more to lose, you get more set in your ways.

**SPEAKER_5** (3:52)
I'm just the opposite actually. Yeah, I know.

**Lulu Garcia Navarro** (3:54)
And I think that's such a great lesson, but I think it's unusual.

**Ina Garten** (4:00)
I think I have a very low threshold of boredom. If I know how to do something, I don't want to do it again.
I love using what I've learned and figuring out the next step. It's really clear for me. I ask myself one question. Is it going to be fun? And if it's fun, then I really want to do it. I just have to figure out how to make sure it's fun. I mean, it's working with people that I love working with. It's working with creative people. I mean, in the cookbook, I have food stylists doing the photographs and photographer.