I get to work here. And itjust makes me like show up more. You feel happy being in this space. I can see that. And im actually quite. When i cook, im quite manic about cleaning up as i go along, unlike my husband, who leaves a sort of minor nuclear disaster. Thats me iam. How can you cook like that . A total disaster. And then ijust Throw Everything in the sink and its a big pile of dishes. And then wejust. We work our way through it. By the way, you have so many cookbooks. I have a few. Out of the corner of my eye. I collect cookbooks, but nothing like on the scale that you do. Im obsessive. Can we have a peek . Can we have a look . Come on. I love that. This is my collection of things that i use almost all the time. If im looking for. Like, what would a good french bavette, like a flank steak be . Ill just start looking in french cookbooks and just say, oh, thats interesting. Julia child would do this and Patricia Wells would do that, and just kind of collect information for myself and then ill put them all away and just start cooking. And you still refer to cookbooks . I do. Yeah, ido. Yeah. I mean, there are so many great cookbooks. Why not . Ok, lets go and sit. So, were going to have a drink. Yes. Thank you. Ive made some watermelon lemonade. Yum im working on it for my next book, so its a process. So am i a guinea pig . Youre a guinea pig . Exactly. This smell. This is from the garden . Its from the garden. Yeah. So what have we got . So weve got watermelon lemonade, a little strawberry in it. Mm hm. And poured over ice. How easy is that . Im thinking i can do this. Do you think i have enough mint here . Ithink. Ithink we. We could just grow a mint bush in there. 0h, cheers so happy to see you. Thank you so much for having us. Thats great. I can taste the strawberry. Im surprised that i can taste the strawberry, too. Not bad. And what im always looking for is layers of flavour. Not too many layers, but that you can taste them all the same way. The watermelon, the lemon and the strawberry. You get the watermelon first. And then the lemon. Which is what i want. And the hint of strawberry. A hint of strawberry. Right. And then a smell of mint. And the smell of mint. And it looks beautiful, too. How would it be with a shot of vodka in it . I happen to know and its delicious 0k, afterfilming, guys, when we are no longer on public television, we hit it. A little slosh might fall in there. Im wondering if its a little thick. I might like it a little thinner. Its. Its slightly slurpee ish. Im going to try something. So what would you do . Add a bit more lemonade . Add a little more water. No, definitely dont want more lemon. Let me get some water. Were Testing Recipes while we go here. You know what you could do . What . Would you ever put a tiny bit of soda water in it . Thats a good idea. Or not . Shall we do that . Look at that i helped. Ive got katty kay Testing Recipes for me. Thats something im going to take home, that i encouraged ina garten to change a recipe, and she listened. If its bad, im taking no responsibility, by the way. Thats a great idea. I like that. This is a very at home kitchen. Ifeel very at home in here. Slosh it around. Yeah. 0k. Actually, i like the colour better. Its a little lighter pink. Not a bad idea. Thats perfect. Mine is perfect now. Refreshing. And i like the bit of soda water. Its a little more refreshing. And thats how i develop recipes. Do i get a small credit . Yes, exactly thats nice. Mm not bad. More than not bad. Good right, lets go and sit. 0k. When you look at everything youve done and how your career as a. I dont even know how to describe you. And i hate that phrase celebrity chef, so im not going to use that. First, im not a chef. Im a home cook. Youre a home cook. But. So, what would you say your influence has been . If youve been. You are incredibly influential. Why . What is it . Well, thank you. I dont know that i am, but you know what i love . I love when i walk down the street and somebody leans in and says, you taught me how to cook. Thank you. And that to me isjust. Itjust gives my life meaning that i never expected to have. I wrote a cookbook, thinking i would. I was trying to figure out what i was going to do next after i had speciality a food store, but ijust didnt have anything to do. Ithought, well, ill write a cookbook while i figure it out. I had no idea thats what i was going to be doing. So its kind of like my life. Youvejust got tojump in the pond, splash around and do something, and you never know where its going to lead to. And that it led to a place where the wayjulia child taught me how to cook, ive been able to teach other people how to cook. Its just a great pleasure. Its extraordinary. And theres something about you, i think, and youve described it as particularly because all your instagram followers are younger, many of them are younger. Its a huge range, isnt it . A huge range of people. I mean, youve got older people, watching your shows from the food network from years ago. When i mention the people im interviewing for this show, its always the young people who said, oh, youre interviewing ina garten . Isnt that interesting . I dont think all of them even cook. I mean, people follow you who dont cook, but its something about you and your persona. I mean, that sounds terribly grandiose, but it is something about your persona that people love. I think its accessible. Its not like, first carve the pumpkin and then make the pumpkin soup for it. Its like, just make pumpkin soup and its delicious and people will. Its about taking care of each other. I think we need that. And young people dont have, like, mum in the kitchen any more orgrandma in the kitchen any more. So they dont know how to cook. And i think its just one of lifes great pleasures is to cook for people you love, and i think they kind of miss that. Did you think, all those years ago, when you were sitting in the white house. No so youre in. We have to go back here, because you were in the white house, working on Nuclear Energy policy, working in science, obviously, and clearly something was missing. I mean, something drove you to leave. You have this job, that most people would die for, a job in energy policy, Nuclear Energy policy. Well, i wouldnt die forajob in. They wouldnt want me in Nuclear Energy policy. Why they wanted me, i dont know. They clearly did and yet something was missing. I think a lot of things were happening at the same time in my 20s. I kind of wanted to grow up to bejeffrey, and he was in the state department, and worked for kissinger, wrote policy papers. I mean, he was. Im of a generation where women didnt necessarily go to work. Right. So the role models we had were the men that were around us. And so i wanted to bejeffrey. And when i was offered this job in the white house, ithought, ok, this is what i want to do. But then i hit 30 and ijust thought, this isnt me, this is jeffrey. And i love to cook. I love to renovate old houses. I love the creative stuff. And i was doing that as soon as i got home, but i wasnt doing it in my work, and i saw an ad for a business for sale and it was a Specialty Food store. And i came home and i said tojeffrey, thats what i want to do. And i think we all need one person to just believe in us. And he said, lets go look at it. So you threw it in and bought the Barefoot Contessa and you worked in that Insanely Hard . Insanely. I mean, the white house must have felt like a breeze by comparison. Insanely hard. But i loved it. Iwould. Id start at 5 00 in the morning. Id arrive when the bread bakers were arriving and then i would work in the store all day. Then i would do catering at night. Id do like five parties at night. Id come home at midnight, or two in the morning, and then id do it all over again the next day. And ijust loved the energy of it. I loved the creativity and i loved that it was mine. I loved that instead of 25 billion subjects like, you know, Nuclear Power plants, it was 25, but it was my 25. Did you. I know what its like, that whole washington scene, because i live in washington, and kind of know lots of people that work in the white house. It takes quite a lot of courage and Self Awareness to say this is not for me because its like a kind of. It sucks you in, that world, where your identity is defined by i work in the white house and i have a badge and i can get into the white house and im important. A clearance for Nuclear Energy. I have a clearance and im terribly important. And then to say, actually, im going to go and run a shop in the hamptons. And that takes quite a lot of self confidence. Well, lets just say my parents thought i was crazy, and they did Everything Possible to convince me not to do it. Butjeffrey was there going, do what you love, if you love it, youll be really good at it. You got married at the age of 20, which is young. Yeah. Even back then it was. Even then, it was young. But you also made a decision which is not very traditional, which was not to have children. Mm. And you made that decision young, too. Talk about that a little bit. You knew you wanted to get married, but you didnt want children. Did you know you couldnt do what you wanted to do if you had them . I think its much harder. Yeah. I dont think thats why i made the decision. Im actually writing a memoir now and im kind of looking back at my childhood. It was nothing i wanted to recreate. Right. And its so interesting to look. Im always looking forward, to look back and realise a lot of my decisions were based on my childhood. And so i think that was really the motivating factor. And jeffrey and i were just so happy together. You make very bold choices. Everybody wants to know, where am i going to end up . Forget where youre going to end up. You dont know where youre going to end up. All you know is that if you jump in a pond and you splash around, while youre there, youre going to look around and go, oh, thats really interesting over there. I think ill follow it there, and see where it brings you. Somebody described it to me once that if youre in a stream and you keep knocking against the riverbanks youre in the wrong stream. What you want to do is be in a stream where the stream carries you along. And so i think its im always trying to find where that stream is, where its going to carry me along. I dont know if you felt this. I felt it in my 20s that i was in a terrible rush. Yeah. And that i had to do. Oh, my god, you know, and actually, i remember the first time i got pregnant, bursting into tears, thinking, no ones ever going to take me seriously again. Im never going to work again. And thats it. My career is over. And i wish i could have said to my younger self, its ok, take your time. Youve got lots of time. You talked aboutjeffrey and how hes always believed in you, and i know you once said that your mother tried to keep you out of the kitchen. I love the idea that youve made a phenomenal success out of the one thing you were not meant to do and is there a connection there . Probably im 75 years old and im still saying, you cant tell me what to do. Do you still find it hard, cooking . Yes, i always find it hard. But you make it. So how do you do that . You make it look so easy. And notjust that, you make it look so easy, you make other people believe they can do it in a way that is easy. First, ive simplified a lot of things. I mean, i make it as simple as i can, but, you know, im so. I have such a High Standard for myself that when, you know, itsjust like when i have people coming for dinner, the corn is different every single time. You know, its. It starts here. Its sweeter, depending on the time of the year, whether its from the farmstand or the grocery store. And i have a flavour in my head that i want everything to taste like and a texture. Im looking for something specific and im miserable until i get there. So i think cookings hard because im hard on myself. Right. But, i mean, i keep doing it. And jeffrey, i said to him, why do i keep doing this . Because its so hard. And he said, i think if it was easy, you wouldnt be interested, youd be bored. Youd be restless. So that really kind of, you know. I mean, people think im just like throwing things together in the 15 minutes before people are arriving and jeffrey is like chatting away. Im like, dont talk to me and you still have that, that still slightjumping off a cliff feeling. I have something to show you, ina. We have to move, though. 0k. Is that 0k, cameras . Are you happy . 0k. Wait. Some photographs. I dont know. I like the box of coke. This is. This is me in a tent. I know . In france. I want the whole story, because every time ive read about this story, its. I mean, how heaven, a teenage camping trip with the man you love, no money. 0n 5 a day. 5 a day. Thats all we had. And we bought a tent. We bought a sleeping bag. We rented a car. It was a renault. And the stick shift was on the dashboard and it was red and it rained every single. Is that it . Thats it. Thats it in the background. It rained every single night forfour months that we were on this camping trip. So we would take out the backseat of the car and wed sleep in the car and i would cook in the car. Were you happy . Oh, my god i was just so happy. And at the end of the four months, we actually wanted to keep going. And i thought, oh, this is a good sign for a marriage that after four months in a tent that was like tall, were still having fun together. This just looks like happiness to me. This one, i know you know this one, but i love it. This is the beginning. That was the beginning. That was the first store that i bought. It was 400 square feet. And because i knew nothing, the deal i made with the woman who sold me the store, who was a wonderful teacher, is that she would stay with me for a month and teach me how to cook and slice smoked salmon and tell whether the brie was ripe. And i decided i was going to be very creative. And i did all of this new signage, which at the time was very � 60s. This was not how you bought it. No, it was very � 60s to have that that font and to have the name go straight up. Tell me about the name, the Barefoot Contessa, because originally you didnt like it. The woman who sold me the store was italian, and when she was a little girl, they used to call her the Barefoot Contessa, which is about. You know, it came from a movie. Its kind of a dark movie, but it has an idea of being elegant and earthy. And when i bought the store, i thought, i dont want to call it the Barefoot Contessa. It doesnt say food. It doesnt say where it is, it doesnt say who it is. But i didnt know anything about the business, so i thought, ill wait for a year and then ill change the name. And then it didnt matter because people would call me the contessa and the store. I think my style really is about being elegant and earthy. Ok. We have to talk aboutjeffrey. This was jeffrey in the military. He was he was aide to the general in charge of the green berets. He was a paratrooper. I mean, everybody seesjeffrey as this incredibly gentle, sweet guy, which he is, but hes also incredibly smart and really good, a wonderful guy. This is after you were first married and jeffrey was in the military and you were apart for a year. Well, he was in the military for four years. One of them, he was in thailand. Right. And so, yeah, i was finishing college. And he was. He was in thailand and they said dependents couldnt go to thailand where he was. And i kind of said, ok. And then at some point after i graduated from college, i thought, well, they cant tell me i cant go to bangkok. So i got myself a flight just by myself. I dont know. Youre a rule breaker. Im definitely a rule breaker. And i got myself a flight to bangkok and he came to bangkok and picked me up and we went to. Amazingly, there was a Dartmouth Club. He went to dartmouth, a Dartmouth Club dinner that night, and we met somebody who said, just come live with us. So i went and lived with him and i would go back and forth between where jeffrey was in the middle of thailand. And i spent, i think, three or four months there. This is also you and jeffrey and i chose this one because this is your time at. This is how you. This is what you got away from. Yeah, thats what i got away from. And, you know, when i worked at the white house, all i wanted to do is have a job where nobody told me what to do, and i could wear sneakers to work. You know, when you get dressed up every day and have to wear stockings and heels. We really did. And silk blouses and. Oh, my god, got really dressed up. Yeah. And ijust wanted to do something where i didnt have to get dressed up any more. Yeah. Idid it we were talking earlier about what people love about you. I think your marriage to jeffrey and your love story with jeffrey. Oh, thank you. Dont you think . I think theres something so. Oh, i got very lucky. I really did. I think hes incredibly generous. He has this huge heart. Hes smart, hes funny, and he really believes in me, which is. And i believe in him. What more could you want . Exactly. And hes so much fun. And you have fun together. We just have fun together. And i do think, you know, for generations of young people who are looking, i think they look at you two, and they. Thats what we all want. A friend of mine said that any good marriages, each person feels like they get the better deal than the other one. And i think we do feel that way. Thats so nice. Were off to the market. Hows that . You ready . Yeah. Lets go. Isnt this great . And they grow all their own. Do you come at this time of year and just want to buy everything . Yeah. And i think we are, arent we . These are the best, they have the best melons, but their corn is just extraordinary. The melons look like what i would see in france. Yeah. How do you choose a melon . Its very simple. What you dont want to do is press it because youll. Youll give it. Itll have brown spots. 0k. So what you want to do is just smell it. If it smells like a melon, its ripe. So that one smells pretty ripe . That ones perfect. Perfect. Yeah. So would you like some corn . I would love some. Lets see. Here. Hold the bag one sec. Everybody always pulls that back, the top. You shouldnt do that. Yeah. Cut the worms off. Hows that . Theyre the best. The doughnut peaches. Have you ever had them . 0h, well have to get some. Ill have to try one or two. Well definitely have to get some. Will you hold this . Yes. See these, too. You canjust. Theyjust smell like peaches. Yeah. So when you buy produce and its got a little brown spot on it . Yeah. Its because somebody pressed it. Thats because somebody� s pressed it. Yeah. So never press it. Never press. Just smell. Just