Ina Garten
speaker
688 appearances
6 recordings
4 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 27 Jan
Ina Garten’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Everybody had a wonderful time. His hair wasn't on fire. He wasn't cooking from Julia Child. He wasn't making some elaborate thing. And at that moment, I decided to change how I cook. And so the thing that I expected to be a disastrous dinner turned out to be a lesson I'll never forget.
And the simpler the meal is, the more fun everybody has. The irony is it's not about impressing your guests with a great dinner. It's about making a dinner that's perfectly delicious, that allows everybody to have a good time together.
So I was interviewing Frank Bruni, who I just adore, and I said to him, what's the key to a great restaurant? And he said, the most important detail is how you greet it at the door. And I thought, that's exactly true of parties. Because once you feel like you're welcome, you're always going to feel good.
Well, first I think about who I want to see, but I also think about who would like to see each other. So people who know each other that don't see each other or who would enjoy each other's company. Jeffrey and I pretty much choreograph each dinner party. You sit there and you talk about it. You think about it ahead of time. We totally think about it.
And we think about how the party is seated, which is really important. So inevitably in a group of six people around a round table is my ideal dinner party. And inevitably some people are extroverts and some people are introverts. So some people are more talkative than others. So if you think about six people around a dinner table...
I always put the most talkative people opposite each other and the least talkative people opposite each other in the other quadrant. So that if you put the talkative people next to each other, that's where the party's going to be. And then people can listen that want to listen and people can talk that want to talk.
And you'd be shocked how too big a table or two people on the same side of the table that are talking can just wreck a perfectly good dinner party.
So this is like a New York Times puzzle. There are a lot of layers to it. And the first one is I just remember these are my friends and I want them to be happy. So when I'm doing the menu, the first thing I do is find out, or if I know, figure out what everybody doesn't like or doesn't eat.
And I want to make one menu that everybody can eat because you never want to be having the roast veal dinner and this person over there alone by themselves is having pasta. I want everybody to share the same meal. So that's the first thing. Then I'll write down a menu of what I'd like to make.
And then I just start crossing things off and just go, well, do we really need four vegetables when two would be fine? Cross two off. Do I have to make that peach tart or can I get it from a bakery? Cross that off. Is it hard to make a first course while the meat is in the oven? Don't make a first course. Then I figure out how am I going to make this meal?
Are there four things that need to go in one oven? Or is there one thing that's room temperature, one thing that I can cook on top of the stove, and one thing in the oven, so that I'm not trying to juggle things while it's happening? And then the last thing I do is make a timeline. How is this meal going to happen? I feel like I'm at NASA Command Center. It is like that.
And I think people are shocked that when I have six people for dinner, I do this. Because otherwise, all day I'm like, oh my God, should I start the dinner? And then I look at my schedule and I say, 5 o'clock, I have to turn the oven on. It's literally that detailed. 5.15, put the meat in the oven. 5.45, take it out. It's really detailed. But then I know that before 5 o'clock, I'm fine.
I can relax. And it's hard. It's a complicated thing to get everything out on the table at the same time when it's perfectly cooked. And that's the only way I know how to do it is to make a schedule.
And why does it even matter? Well, first I would say paper and plastic are nice for a picnic on a boat, but I'm not sure that they belong on a table. I knew it. So that should settle that. I think the table should be lovely, but I really like a modern table that's simple.
I think there's nothing more horrifying than sitting down to a really fancy dinner table where there are like six glasses at each place setting. And you know you're going to be there forever because there are six courses, each with a different wine. Right. Or a different fork or a different knife. Oh, my God. It's just horrible. So modern simply means? As simple as possible.
As simple as possible, but it can still be beautiful. And I use the same things over and over again. I like really good napkins, good linen napkins. I have a wine glass, a water glass, a dinner plate, tableware, and that's the table setting. And then what I like to do is have garden flowers from the flower shop or from my garden.
If you do little vases filled with flowers in the same color palette as the napkin, then it all feels coordinated and you can move those vases around until they look great. I think things that are fancy are actually meant to impress rather than make people feel comfortable. And I feel that way about food, I feel that way about table settings.
If for the holidays you don't have enough chairs of one kind of chair, then who cares? It's fun. Just put chairs around the table. If you only have six white dishes in one pattern and you have six white dishes in another pattern, just mix them all up. And I think that makes something feel simple and elegant and fun, which is, at the end of the day, you just want your friends to be there.
We must have the same uncle, the disruptor.
Oh, the dominator. Yeah.
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