Ina Garten’s Next Course? A Podcast | On With Kara Swisher

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Try DeepGrim Flux TTS free now until September 12th. Visit deepgram.com/keeptalking. Terms apply. Support for the show comes from Delta Airlines. Every athlete at the top of her game knows that greatness isn't just a destination. It's a grueling, life-long journey. It's built on early mornings, silent sacrifices, and an unwavering drive to outclimb the achievements of yesterday. That is the journey of a WNBA athlete, and Delta is there every step of the way. Delta is proud to host these competitors, providing charter flights for every WNBA team, to elevate their travel experience and champion equity on every leg of their trip. Keep climbing with Delta Airlines, the official airline of the WNBA. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher. We're off for the holiday today, but we have something special for you, my on with Cara Swisher interview with Ina Garten. After two decades on the Food Network and more than a dozen cookbooks, Ina is launching a new podcast with the Vox Media Podcast Network on September 16th, called Happy Hour with Ina Garten. We talk about her new show, Making the Leap from traditional platforms to independent media, and what you'll get to do on podcasts that you couldn't do on TV. Enjoy and get ready for the return of Scott Galloway this Friday. I can't even start doing a dinner party until the table is set. It's kind of like having the dress from the party. Once you have the dress, you know you're ready to go. But I mean, if you could see my kitchen after I've done a dinner party, it's like chaos. Hi everyone, from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is on with Cara Swisher and I'm Cara Swisher. Today I'm speaking to the barefoot contester herself, Ina Garten. She spent two decades hosting popular cooking shows on the Food Network, and she's written about a dozen cookbooks. Her fans love her for her simple delicious recipes that are also crowd pleasers. Ina's latest project is a new podcast with a Vox Media Podcast Network, which also produces this show. It's called Happy Hour with Ina Garten. It launches next month and each week she'll invite guests over to her New York City apartment to share a drink and intimate conversation. It's yet another pivot for Ina in a career that's been full of them. Even at 78 years old, she keeps reinventing herself. I think it's great that she's coming to podcasting and I think she'll be fantastic at it. She's an incredibly compelling personality. She has a huge fan base and I think it's really important for a lot of people to go independent and try new things. Also, that tomato sauce recipe she does, I have made hundreds of times. Trust me when I tell you you should do it. All right, let's get to my conversation with Ina Garten. Our expert question comes from Elazar Santag, Food Critic at the Washington Post. Don't go anywhere. Ina, thanks for coming on on. I'm so happy to be here. So happy to meet you. Congratulations on your new podcast and I know we were trying to make this interview happen in person and it didn't work out. But I'm curious, what cocktail would you make for me if I were coming over to be a guest on your show? I have a favorite new cocktail. First, I would ask what kind of cocktails you like, but my favorite cocktail is a bourbon sour that I found in the South of France at a hotel that has a little bit of chocolate little cur, and a little vanilla in it. You don't taste the chocolate in the vanilla, but it makes the bourbon taste incredible. Somebody described it as like drinking liquid velvet. Oh, wow. So that's what I would make for you. What kind of cocktails do you like? I don't actually, I know this is terrible, but I don't have a big drinker. My wife is. My wife would love that, loves a bourbon. I do the whole mocktail thing, even though they cost a fortune in restaurants. Is it crazy? $15. I'm kind of surprised. I don't have an issue. I just don't like alcohol. I've never had my whole life. But there's all these really incredibly creative things happening. And you know what? Nobody's drinking anymore, which is crazy. So I think when you go to a restaurant, there's many mocktails as there are cocktails. The absolute, I just had one at a restaurant called Aonshu in DC, it's a Korean restaurant. And it was a leechie, it was a version of a leechie, that's a good essentially. The thing about mocktails that's really important is it needs to have like an edge, it needs lime, it needs something acidic, otherwise it just tastes like a fruit juice drink. Yes. Which I also like. Of course. I also think so. Okay. So the podcast, the reason I'm asking this is the podcast is called Happy Hour with Ina Garten, and the focus is going to be on drinks, both cocktails and mocktails and longer conversations. And it's a different way of presenting yourself in food media. A lot of people associate you obviously with cooking. Talk about why you wanted to go in this direction for the podcast. When I've been doing my TV shows, I really started out thinking I wanted to do a conversation with somebody and to really connect with them and find out who they are and what's interesting to them. And we ended up doing a cooking show with the conversation, but I just found a very short conversation is hard because you end up actually doing an interview, not a conversation. So if you have six minutes to do an interview in order to get to know somebody, it's pretty hard to do in six minutes. I wanted a long form conversation. And so that's why I decided a podcast was really a better place to do that. And so that's what I've done. And so the conversation is about an hour and we edit it down to 45 minutes, but it's exactly the way it is. And is it harder with cooking? You decided not to because you know all podcasts are video now, as you know. Exactly. Well, podcasts are really shows. They're not really even podcasts anymore. They're like TV shows. And I've been cooking for 25 years on film and I just thought it's time to kind of shake it up. So the show is launching next month and it'll feature guests who say you felt you couldn't have on your TV show. So what kind of guests are we going to expect and how does it open up opportunities for different kind of guests for someone like you? I'm wondering if it opens different opportunities, but it's easier for guests because everybody shows up in New York at some point. So if they're coming to do a speaking engagement, I can ask them to just stop by and have a drink and have a conversation with me, it's just much easier to get guests. And I find it when I invite them to my apartment, it's much more intimate and much more casual and it's not so quick questions with quick answers, but like much more thoughtful. And I really love figuring out how the guests and I really see things in similar ways where we connect what we're interested in. One of my guests is Sophia Coppola, and she's really interested in table settings. And I'd love to talk to her about that. I mean, who knew that about Sophia Coppola? No, I did not. Right. I did not. I mean, I think I've had guests that are cooks and guests that are not cooks, but this doesn't require that. I mean, there will be some people who are chefs and interested in cooking, but there will be people who are not, you know, I mean, for example, and passion is going to come on and answer a very good cook, but I'd like to talk to her about other things. And I love her books and she's fun and she's actually a friend and we'll have a wonderful time. So it's a little bit like my dinner with Andre, except with drinks. The visuals for a podcast and a cooking show are obviously different, of course. And in a cooking show, you were very active. You're moving around prepping ingredients, giving instruction. And in this, you're seated with someone. Talk about the transition and how it felt for you. I wanted it to be beautiful like film. And so we worked very hard to get the kitchen table where I am, has gorgeous kind of rust orange walls. And it was a great way to set up a podcast that would look beautiful. And it was just kind of like everything I do. I want my books to look beautiful. I want them to be authentic, you know, like my style. And I wanted people to feel really comfortable. And so I think we really achieved it. And my first guest was Paul Carmichael. And when we left each other, we just said it was just extraordinary that we'd never met before. I felt like I'd known him forever. And the hour conversation really got us to connect about. We see things, we come from totally different places, but we see things very similarly. Like we like doing things that are fun. And when he set up his restaurant, Caballo, which is the number one restaurant in the New York Times, list of restaurants in New York, everything he did was in the furtherance of how can this be fun, including the music that's pumped into the bathrooms. So he thinks about things really clearly in each detail, and how can it be more fun. And I do too. I think that's a really important kind of factor when you're doing things, doing anything. But particularly when you're doing things publicly. - Now you've been in all the mediums and you just noted that podcasting is television now. And I would agree, it's a different kind of television, but how do you think about the entertainment value and audience building between the two mediums? - I just think if it's fun, people are really desperate to have fun. I mean, we all work so hard and the world is so stressful. And if you can do something that's fun that you can share with people, it's just so appealing. And I think that's what my cookbooks are. It's fun to read, but also I'm giving you the tools to do something fun for yourself, which is cook something and gather your friends around you. And I felt that way about the TV show that it was fun to watch and you might learn something about cooking that will be fun for you to do. And I think basically the podcast is that too. It's fun to listen to, but it's also really interesting that you might walk away with something interesting that you'll use. Like Alison Roman said to me, while we always pushing so hard to cook fast, why not instead of taking the highway, why not take the scenic road and really enjoy the process? I mean, I think about that whenever I cook now. So it's interesting, but it's also a fun conversation. - Yeah, fun is exactly the way I would describe you also. But there's a lot that's running and growing a business and going into a new area that isn't fun and it still has to get done. I know it's the sound strange, but what's the most unfun thing you have to keep your business going and how do you force yourself to do it well? - It's always fun, presumably. - You know, there are two aspects of every business and I really do like both of them. I like the business part of it, figuring out how to promote it and how to share it with people and the creative part which is just having the conversation. So what's the most unfun thing? - You don't have to not have fun. You may have fun doing everything. - I think, I mean, there are things that we do, you know, flying to Chicago and having, you know, sitting at a stage and having a conversation, there's always something fun in it. And I could live without the airports and I live without the travel. But I think if I'm on a stage with somebody doing an interesting interview and people are having fun in the audience, that's really fun. And we're desperate for it, aren't we? - Right, 100%. - Exactly. - That's a real shift happening right now. - What do you see as the shift? - Well, I'm watching voters. I always watch voters, I think they always express something. They're expressing something and some of it is just anger. But one of the things, I think people are sick and tired of being sick and tired. You know what I mean? It's like, I totally know what you mean. - Enough of this. This is so mean. - Every day you open the newspaper and there's total chaos. - Yeah, yeah. - And it's not, it's not good chaos. - No, it's bad chaos. - Sometimes chaos is good. Sometimes chaos is important to get you forward in anything, I like chaos in some ways. But it's just, it's like nobody wants to feel bad anymore. - And it's angry. It's angry and everybody's angry. People are angry on the left. People are angry on the right. And I think that we all just need to settle down and be kinder to each other, take care of each other. And surround ourselves with people that we love. And it really takes the anger away. And that's really what I'm trying to encourage. And I think when you cook for people, they all show up and they have a good time. And you create a community around yourself that makes you feel better. It's not about surrounding yourself with people that love you. It's about people that you feel love for. And that's what really grounds us. And so cooking and talking, it's the whole thing. - So what are you hoping to get out of it? You didn't get from TV or book writing. They are, I do all three things too. I can't stand book writing anymore. I have to do that, really. I'm in the middle of it. I'm like, oh, I got up. I can't stand staring at the screen. And TV's fine. TV's fine. They had formal TV. - Well, TV was great. It's been a great experience. And I'm not necessarily done with it. I just wanted to try a medium that was very clear about what I wanted to do, which is connect with people. - You've always had a sort of fan-based career. I know it sounds weird, but one of the things if I could say anything moving into podcasting is the level of fans are very different. Now, you already were sort of down that road. It's a really very different relationship you have because you're in people's ears. - How do you see that? - What's the difference to you? - I love it. - Oh, you love it. Oh, that's wonderful. - I love it because people, when people used to come up to me, they'd like a story I wrote or something I said on television or something like that. And when pivot fans or on fans come up to me, it's emotional. You make me feel better. I'm happier after listening to. It's often happier. I feel calmer, which is interesting because there's a lot of complex topics we talk about. And I'm not sure why, but it's wonderful. I have to say. - Well, I think you're in their ears, in their head. And I think the really good podcasts are connecting with people out there. It's not like you're just overhearing conversation, but it's really important to me that in every show that I did, every podcast that I do, that there's something that the audience can use. Is there information that's useful in your personal life? And I think they all end up with, you know, like how to infuse your life with more fun? - Absolutely. - It's, you know, just, I think it's a wonderful thing to think about and we can do it. One of very close friend of mine is Jennifer Wallace and she wrote a book called Mattering. And I love talking to her because the research shows that the people are the happiest are the ones that feel like their lives matter to others. And it's so actionable. You know, if you don't feel like your life matters, you can connect yourself with the charity. You can write a book that might matter to other people. You can very quickly figure out something that you can do that will matter to others. And I think a podcast does that. It's, if you're conscious of making sure that you're sharing, you're not just, this is what I did and that's the end of the story. This is what I did and this is how you can do the same thing and it was really, made me very happy. It's a very important message. We'll be back in a minute. (gentle music) Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project. One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales and somehow, none of them talk to each other. That's where Odu comes in and all in one business management software that brings every part of your business together from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing all in one powerful platform. No messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs and best of all, no spreadsheets. Try for free today at od.com/box. That's od.o.com/box. Are you a pet owner? 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And you are moving away from traditional media spaces of TV and publishing, going independent. I've talked a lot about how great the movie's been for me. I've been doing it for a dozen years and how I think more people should do it. But it also seems like people close to you have been pushing you to do this for years. So talk a little bit about this shift. You know, somebody asked me recently, actually I thought it was really interesting. This is, most people start a business and they grow it. And they grow it and they grow it and they grow it. And she said, what you do is you start a business, you shut it down, you start another business, you shut that one down, and you start a third business. I don't like being the head of a company that's doing things. I like doing things. And so I think that was a really interesting view of what I do. I just, I find I have like a 20-year attention span. And I like to do something until I know how to do it, I've done it, and it's time to challenge myself again. And then I'll take it to the next level, or in a different direction, but still in the same genre of food and connecting with people. And that's basically what I've done for the past 40 years, in a slightly different way that may be accessible to people in a different way. Was there a moment I always have these moments? That happens to me when I stopped doing my conference after 20 years, which was really six. When it was very successful, I was like, "Oh, we're done." I don't know why, I just woke up one morning and thought, "Oh, that's it." - Because you know how to do it? - Yeah, exactly, yeah, it's not a challenge. - No, and it wasn't, then it wasn't fun, as you say. But one of the things I remember when I was a younger, it's harder to do when you're younger. It's a little easier to do when you were sort of practiced. But I was walking out of an interview in New York, and I was in your Grand Central Station, beautiful day, one of those beautiful New York days. And I was working somewhere, and I walked out of the building, and I thought, "Okay, I'm quitting." Like, it just popped into my head. Like, I'm gonna do something else, I'm moving, and I moved, I changed jobs, I shifted. How did this happen for you? - Well, I've done it many times, starting with Washington. I mean, I worked in nuclear energy policy in the White House, and everybody thought, "Wow, what a fabulous job." And I thought, "Oh, I have to get out of here." I didn't like working in an organization, and I particularly didn't like working in an organization where it required a man to promote me. - Yeah. - And I thought, "That's never gonna happen." And that was 1970, the mid-1970s. I think it's changed a little bit, but I'm not sure it's changed that much. And so I decided I had to find a parallel universe where the only thing that would stop me is my own creativity. And that's when I bought "Bare for Contessa." I think I'm very happy when I have a problem I can't solve, and I think, "How is this ever gonna happen?" But it's something that I think would be fun to do, and I just figure out how to solve the problem, how to get there, how to put a team together, and then we're often running, and at the end of it, I think, "I did it." That's just what I wanted to do. That's just what I wanted to look like, and feel like, and then I'll do that for 20 years. And then at some point go, "Okay, it's time to have a new challenge." - What's the signal? - A board. - And board. - What was your signal when you left the podcast? - I don't know. I feel like it's like something just pops into your head, and you don't know why. It's just, I just was like, "I wanna do that," and I had just sold my company to Jim Bangkok. - Who we love, who we love. And it was a lot of money that we sold it for, and I called him and I said, "I'm not running the website anymore." And he's like, "What?" And I said, "I wanna start a podcast." And he was like, "Okay, that's exactly how it happened." Like he was so easy to do that with, which is why you wanna surround yourself with people that say, "Okay, a lot." But I just was like, "This is what I need to do." And I'm not sure if it's out of the blue. What were you bored with in your last thing? - I know how to do it. I just once I knew how to do it, there are no problems to solve. And television is a great medium, but thanks for moving. Thanks for changing and it doesn't mean I'm never gonna go back to TV. I'm just saying at this moment, I thought podcasting is interesting. It was kind of expanding. I didn't know whether there was a ceiling on it, but I think the other thing too is, I was talking to somebody for about two years about doing podcast. And as was TV, I kept saying no. I needed to figure out what I wanted it to be that's different from what's out there. That I didn't wanna do just another podcast. I wanted it to be a podcast that was unique, that had a different point of view, that looked different, that felt different. And once I kind of sorted out what that was, then I was ready to try it. And I still don't know, 'cause when it launches, we'll find out. - It changes, which is the best part. And it's easier to change the most made. You can't change TV quite as easily. One of the things that appealed to you was messiness. A certain kind of messiness, something you embrace in life. But you also have very high standards. You tell people never to serve anything that hadn't been made before hosting a party. You also told the New Yorker the idea of inviting someone out to dinner at a place you've been meaning to try. It was appalling, which made me laugh. - Well, messiness is relative. But I do, like as I said, chaos. When do you lean into the mess? And when do you hold back? - I think what I meant about messiness is that when I do a TV show, we film for a day and a half to end up with 22 minutes of film. When we do a podcast, we film for about an hour and we edit it down to like 45 minutes. It's the meat of it. It's not over edited. It's not over shopped. It's not over thought. It feels much more organic than a television show. And that's kind of what I meant, but messiness. Not messy, like there's a mess behind me or there's a pile of dishes somewhere. That's not going to happen anywhere. - There is never a pile of dishes in your kitchen. I'm guessing. Are you ever messy at anything, like a secret drawer? - Oh my God. I'm the messiest cook you could possibly imagine. 'Cause I like to cook and throw everything in the sink and then later clean up. But my kitchen has to be immaculate when I start. - Oh, why? - But once, literally I can't even start doing a dinner party until the table is set. Jeffrey actually jokes that I can take out dinner from a specialty food store and use every dish in the kitchen heating it up. - Yep, that sounds like my son is a cook. He works at Boulevard in San Francisco. - Oh, does he really? - Yes, he's the, he's now the salad guy. - Yeah. - It's just his first job out of college. But he started off as a prep chef. I was a prep cook, no, I can't use the word chef. He tells me. And now he's the Gartier-Morgier, the salad guy. - Gart-Morgier, he does the cold station. - What does that mean? What, I don't even know what it means. Gart-Morgier, Morgier is to eat. And I actually don't know technically, but he does all the salads. - Salads, that's what he's doing here. - Which is great. - Yeah, he's very excited. - Good for him. - But he's terrified of the hotline. That's all I know. These are the things he tells me. He's like, "Not the hotline." I'm like, "Okay, not the hotline." I don't know what you're saying. So talking about reinvention of career, you also haven't dramatically reinvented your identity. Everyone knows who you are, right? And at the same time, you've changed. And so talk about the North stars and how you think about things. - What a great question. I mean, as we get older, we get more clear about who we are and what we want to do. And I don't know what it is. When I started writing books, I was with the top cookbook publisher in the country with the top cookbook editor. And I just instinctively knew what I wanted to do. And it was very different from what other people were doing at the time. They were writing cookbooks that had 250 recipes and no photographs. And I wanted to write the cookbook that I wanted, which was a cookbook with 75 recipes and gorgeous photographs and simple ingredients that you can get at the grocery store. And I think even my publisher didn't get what I wanted to do. But I was just, this is what I'm gonna do. And if I'm wrong, I'm really sorry. But you'll never have to see me again anyway. And if I'm right, it's gonna work. And I don't know where it comes from, actually, Cara. I think it's just an internal knowledge of, this is what I wanna do and I have to do it my way. And fortunately, it seems to have worked so far, but we'll see if it works in podcasting. I think that making sure, when I think about my brand, I always think the first thing is fun. If it's fun, people will be really attracted to it from the store. When you walked into the store, there was a screen door that closed behind you and it felt like summer. There was great music. There was great smells. We always had bread baking in the store. We would have a big bakery as you walked in with samples of things to eat. So all of your senses were engaged. And I love that when people walked in, they felt good. And they would say, I just came in to see what was going on and then they'd walk out with three bags of groceries. And I would think, yeah, did my job today. And I feel that way about the television. If it's fun, people will really be attracted to it. So that's kind of where we're always looking. And I think to do a podcast with people, That's. both interesting and fun is a wonderful thing to be able to do. Yeah, I just see it as a series on CNN on longevity. It was called "Carrice Wish or Wants to Live Forever" and one of the things that got dropped out of it was what I wanted to put on my headstone when I died, which was, and it was very critical that the punctuation be correct. It was fun exclamation point, fun exclamation point, fun exclamation point, death period. It was fun, fun, fun death. That's just a word that's going by. I love that, Cara, I just love that. Think about it. If you're in a cemetery and someone walks by, they'll laugh their ass off. And also, what's the point of you not having fun? Right, also, but fun is also, you know you're going to die and therefore it has gravity too. The fun has gravity. That makes sense. But death has to have a period. It's going to be cool, oh there may be a semicolon, I'm not religious, so I don't know. Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new groupie setting mist from Mavily New York. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue, just plum, dewy hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Hi, I'm Bella Freud. Each week on fashion neurosis, I invite guests from the world of fashion, art, film, music, sport and literature to lie on my couch and explore the connection between identity and fashion. This week on fashion neurosis, I welcome Anthony Vacarello. Lethics was kind of fetish for me, it's true that yeah, I'm starting to twelfth turn at Salon when I understand that you can twist things that seem classic. It took me a while to understand the code of Salon, and that Salon was mostly playing with this code with a good taste and bad taste, and that Latinx collection was like a deliverance to me to be able to explore things that I was not able to do it before. Find fashion neurosis on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, it's Sue Bird. You know the drill, another week, another new episode of Bird's Eye View. This week I'm thrilled to be joined by Australia's most notable women's basketball player and my former Seattle Storm teammate, Lauren Jackson. She talks about the pros and cons of going pro at 16, the Opel's legendary Phoebe World Cup run in 2006, and how her role on a team differs between international tournaments and the WMBA. Plus in Sue's view, I answer your questions about the Yukon documentary that came out. Make sure to check out Bird's Eye View on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. I want to talk a little bit about social media and how it's changing food media though. We haven't talked much about food, but you're not on TikTok, but you have active on Instagram and Facebook. You became kind of a meme in the early days of the pandemic with this image of you drinking a giant Cosmo that just did a podcast with Hillary Clinton and she's the meme queen. I mean, there's so many memes of Hillary Clinton, they're all fantastic. In a recent episode, I did on career advice. I talked about how you really have to be all kinds of social media, but you also have to be authentic to it. So talk to me a little bit about how you think about social media and the incentive to constantly making new things and engaging with your audience. Well, one thing is I do social media myself. It's not something I've farmed out to other people. The time during the pandemic actually was a perfect example of how I think about it because I was, you know, all of a sudden in our houses didn't know what was going to happen, didn't know where we even could spend the days or how are we going to connect with people. And my publicist, Kate Tyler from my publisher, said, you know, you should probably tell people what to do with what they've bought in their pantry because we've bought pasta and beans and ramen and canned goods and a lot of people didn't know what to do with it. And I said to her, I don't know what to do with it. I mean, I can think about what to do with it. And I thought about it for a day and I thought, you know what, I think it's a really great thing to do. So I posted a picture of my pantry and I said, if anybody has things in their pantry, they don't know how to cook or don't know what to do with, let me know. And all of a sudden, I mean, first of all, everybody was like thrilled that I had ramen in my pantry. What they didn't know is I'd never made it before, so I had to figure out what to do with it. So I made ramen chicken noodle soup. And all of a sudden I found myself at home with a connection with other people, which was so much fun for me. And I actually didn't know the answers to the questions they were asking. So every day I would write a recipe for something that was from ingredients in my own pantry. And so I found that social media used that way, was a way to connect with people who are home in their own homes, lonely, trying to figure out what to do, trying to navigate how to cook with things that they didn't know usually use. And it really sustained me for a year. It was fantastic for both me and I think for the people that were following me. That to me is the best use of social media. Right. Is cooking for an online audience different from cooking for a TV audience or a cookbook reader? Do you see differences? Cooking online? No, not really. For an online audience when you're doing that. I mean, remember, I was sitting there with my own phone, you know, set up trying to cook something with, I didn't have a, you know, food stylist, prop stylist, I mean, all the things that you have for TV, somebody checking the audio, I was just doing it on my own. And I actually started doing TV shows in my house in East Hampton. So it set up a phone and then I go, oh, I have to do my hair, I have to do my makeup. I have to do the food styling, I have to get them, you know, get everything ready. And then by noon, I was ready to actually do the show. I'd be cooking and then after it was done, I realized I'd taken a pot and put it right in front of the camera. So the next day I had to do it all over again. I came to really appreciate my film crew. So it's hard, it was hard, but you know, it was just, it was a challenge and I did it. It has some versimilitude that is your real life, right? It was. It was. Exactly. And it was a little messy. So every episode we get a question from an outside expert. Here's yours. Oh, good. Hi, I'm Elisabeth Sontag, Food Critic at the Washington Post. And I am dying to know how you feel about the current landscape of cooking personalities and food influencers. You were obviously the blueprint for so many of these people. You ate one of the early food shops. You showed so many of us had to talk about hosting and our own cooking philosophies. Now there are so many people in this space. How do you feel about the way that the landscape has changed about the kind of access people have to this platform? Do you feel like it's had a flattening effect? Do you think it's done something good for the food world? Are there elements of it that you find frustrating or confusing or just downright bad? I would love to know. Thank you so much. Thank you. How about all of the above? That was our amazing. I love that. I think there are people that love cooking and that are sharing their skills, which is great. I think there are a lot of people who are influencers who are just skirting the surface. And they're doing things that look nice, but for what point? I mean, if you're doing a fancy table setting, which I hate this word, table scape, if you're doing a table scape and they're big tall candles and there are things in the middle that are interrupting how people connect with each other, you're just doing it for show. And I think that's a bad idea. I love table settings where candles are low and the flowers are low. However you're doing it, I went to somebody's house the other day and he had a piece of sculpture in the middle of the table. It wasn't even flowers. It was gorgeous, but it was low and everybody could connect. That's what I look for. And I think a lot of people who are doing like the influencer kind of idea don't really understand what entertaining is about. It's just about the show and it's very surface to me and I don't like that. What do you like when you see things? When people are happy doing things or interesting ideas? I mean, there's one guy who just criticizes and very funny. He's a chef. Other people doing their recipes, some of which are horrifying, you know, I haven't seen that. They're great. You know, it's just, it's so easy to take pot shots at people. It's so much harder to do the work and share something that you love doing that you think somebody else would love doing as well. And there are too many people out there. It's kind of like you're driving in the car and somebody's They screw me out the window, but they don't have to actually deal with the fact that you're hurt and you're a person and you have feelings. If you criticize somebody to their face, you have to deal with how their face looks afterwards. But if you're just driving by in the car and you yell out the window and you keep going, then you don't have to deal with that and that's just not right. Yeah, that's a very tarotless, swift person. Now she was people who make fun of people who are doing things are the worst. I have to say, I find people on my post, you know, when I'm doing Instagram, I find them incredibly positive and supportive. And every once in a while, somebody has something really nasty to say. And I just love that all of my followers just go, they just pile on. It's like, if you want to talk about that way, go somewhere else. Yeah. Do you wait, like, you know, there's the Beyonce beehive? Do you have an inus form? What would you call your fans? I don't know. I haven't thought about it. It has to have something to do with your tomato sauce. That's really which I made approximately 412 times, at least the finest tomato sauce in the land. I know you know this. I know you do, but it is your greatest contribution. I don't, but thank you. It is your greatest contribution to society. Butter. Oh, more butter. Butter. More butter. Salas and tomatoes. Is there any food influences you like? I mean, do you watch regularly? Any food shows, influencers online, on Instagram. I mean, every once in a while, I'll watch somebody making something I think is interesting. But what you don't know is whether it's any good. Wow. And I have to say, I've made a lot of recipes from Instagram that have been just really terrible. I mean, there was one guy who was saying, this is the foolproof way. To make a standing rib roast. I mean, it's a huge piece of meat, and it's really expensive. And I thought, how could that possibly be? But I was going to test it. I went out and got a standing rib roast, and I cooked it according to his instructions. And it was so overcooked, it was inevitable. So I just, I think that what's important is that you know who you're listening to, whose work you're following, and that you trust their sense of flavor and texture and their instructions are accurate. And the people have actually done the work to make sure that you can use the recipe successfully. There aren't that many people. Yeah, I agree. I do Instagram recipes with my daughter, who's seven. We always try them. And I would say six out of seven suck, like we listed the watermelon ice. You put the watermelon in the fridge, and then you make ice cream out of it. Yeah. And, but not delicious. Not delicious, exactly. And the bread has worked. The bread has worked. And the butter, making butter in a jar with a marble. That has worked beautifully. That is delicious. Oh good. Delicious. But most of it is just heinous. But we have a good time, so that's really the point. That's more important. Absolutely. Do you, what do you turn to looking for inspiration or making something new? Who inspires you? You know, it can be anywhere. You know, I can go to a restaurant and see something on a menu and think, oh, that's really interesting. Try it and maybe come home and do my own twist on it. I can read cookbooks. There's an author whose work I just adorned. She's worked with me for a long time, Sarah Leah Chase from Nantucket. She had a specialty food store. My late friend on a pomp had a specialty food store called Loves and Fishes. I think people that have had specialty food stores have the same sensibility I do. Things have to be absolutely delicious otherwise nobody's going to come back for it. They have to look gorgeous and look like what they are. But also they're very often things that you can make in advance because the store is making it, putting in a refrigerator case or on a table, you're buying it, taking it home and heating it up. And that makes entertaining really easy using those recipes at home. So I find them inspiring. And you know what else I like is Ruth Rogers books, River Cafe. Amazing. She's a fabulous cook. Yeah. She is. She just recently texted me. She had out of the blue. Out of the blue. Isn't that nice? I know it was. What did she want? Something I had done. She liked the podcast. It was interesting. How lovely. It happens all the time. Sometimes especially when there are well-known people like that, I don't believe it. And I did that to several different people. That's something I would do too. Some celebrity, I'm not going to say who wrote me with an AOL account and I didn't think it was them. And they got in touch with me another way and I was like, well, why are you using AOL? I don't understand. This is happening. Anyway, you primed yourself on testing your recipes up to 25 times before you share them. It's just what you're talking about. You're someone who got in the food business down, any kind of restaurant or culinary school of credentials that historically kept people out of this line of work. What do you think makes someone an authority on food now and how do you decide who to trust? Do I like their sense of flavor and texture in a recipe? And are the recipes easy? A lot of people, you know, when I started out writing cookbooks, I thought, what makes me think I can write a cookbook? I had especially a food store, but I, you know, it wasn't a chef. I was the, you know, I ran the store. But I realized, as I started working, that I was actually kind of the perfect person because I'm a home cook that's had much more experience than most people with home cooking. And so I think I trust people who use home ingredients and home equipment, things that you can actually do at home, as opposed to a recipe. I mean, I saw a recipe once that was for a cocktail that called for, I think, one ounce of orange vodka, an ounce of lemon vodka, an ounce of, I can't remember, some other kind of vodka. And I thought, that is so crazy. Now you have three bottles of vodka, flavored vodka. How about just regular vodka with a little orange, a little lemon, a little lime in it? So I think if I see a recipe with demigloss in it, you know, you don't have somebody over there making demigloss for you, you have to make the demigloss. So I just, I like home cook recipes. Yeah, one of the things, when I interviewed Steve Jobs once, he said, it's complex to do simple things. That's a classic. It's not easy to do something simple. Right. Yeah, it's a, it's a complex thing. And that's where he always is going for the simple. Speaking of not simple, the new thing is now AI recipes, but AI can't taste or smell or feel anything, let alone test recipes dozens of times, like you do. And what it does generate is a lot of slop and actual slop, not just digital slop. Do you think AI can write a decent recipe because a lot of people, they'll put in the ingredients and I guess they're pulling from recipes, but how do you think about that? And that AI's entry into the recipe game. I've never made an AI recipe, but I did once just to test it, ask, please write a recipe for roast chicken in the style of Ina Garten, just to see what would happen. And it, I didn't make the recipe, it was actually pretty good. Okay. I mean, it was, it was absolutely a roast chicken in the style of Ina Garten with the kinds of words that I use. But would it be better that a recipe that I tested over and over and over again? Of course not. So who knows? I mean, maybe someday it'll write a better recipe than I do, but for right now, I'm, I believe in people. Yeah. You're the OG. So you're known, obviously, if you're impeccable and highly personal taste, and that's become a currency in age where social media in A really flattens a lot of things. I think that's the problem. It gets very anodine. What's your recommendation for people who are looking to develop their own style and taste and where do people start? What a great question. How to develop your own style and taste. I think you look back at things that you liked when you were younger before you had these sheds. I should do this and I should do that. What did you use to do when you were 10? And what did you like when you were then and then developed from there? You have to really listen to your inner voice and pay attention to that and not try and be just like that, you know, that girl on TikTok or that recipe that somebody posted. Just follow your joy and find the things that make you happy and then try and share it. If it makes you happy, it will probably make other people happy as well. And it doesn't start, you know, I'm looking at now doing a cookbook that's the best of barefoot, but I'm 30 years later from my first book. And I go back to the original recipes and you know what, they're good, but I can make them better now because I've learned so much in 30 years of that making something that's delicious and simple that has great flavor and great texture. And it's kind of fun to update them. So I'm the other day, I made a frittata from family style and I added a little panchetta and I added a little more liquid to it and it was better and it was really fun to do. Is it Ina's version of Ina, are you going to update them all of them? Exactly. I've learned things in 30 years and I want to share them. Do I have to do anything to my tomato sauce please say no because it's fantastic. - No, it's a fucking lovely perfect. There's nothing to be done. My very last question, what are you having for lunch? - What am I having for lunch soup? I love soup. So I have, I don't know, I have a couple of pasta soup at home. I like, right now I would like charred a corn chowder because the corn is so delicious. And I love salmerejo, which is like a pureed gazpacho with a little bread in it to thicken it, which is just fabulous. - Good summer soup. - Excellent. I think I may have to go, not make some. I'll go buy some at a specialty retailer. Anyway, Aina, thank you so much for your time. I'm so excited for your podcast. I'm excited to have you at Vox Media. You'll love it. - Thank you. I'm just so happy to meet you and to talk to you. And it's been just great fun. (upbeat music) Today's show is produced by Nishat Kerwa, Michelle Aloy, Katherine Milsopp, Madeleine LePlanet, Dubie, Megan Bernie, and Caitlin Lynch. Special thanks to Katherine Barner and Lissa Soap. Our engineers are Fernando Aruda and Riquan and our theme music is by Tracademics. If you're already following the show, you are surrounded by people you love and who love you. If not, get that sculpture out of the middle of your table setting. Go wherever you listen to the podcast search for on with Cara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to on with Cara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media podcast network and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more. - Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project. One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales and somehow. None of them talk to each other. That's where Odo comes in. And all in one business management software that brings every part of your business together from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, all in one powerful platform. Try for free today at odu.com/vox. That's odl.o.com/vox. - Imagine setting your makeup. Then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new grippy setting mist from Maybelline, New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours with flexible all day comfy grip. 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