Ina Garten shares her secret for a great dinner party: 6 people and a round table

TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley. Like so many of us, one of my favorite pastimes is watching a good cooking show and deluding myself into thinking that I can make every single dish I see on screen to perfection. Well, no one makes me feel more like a culinary queen than our guest today, Ina Garten. She first appeared on our screens in 2002 with her popular Food Network show "Barefoot Contessa." For years, the show was shot in her real-life kitchen, and it allowed us to follow along as Garten shopped for ingredients, giving her honest and sometimes hilarious commentary as she tested her recipes. The ultimate payoff followed, a sit-down meal with her real-life friends and husband, Jeffrey.

Well, in a new memoir, Ina Garten takes us to where it all started, her painful childhood growing up in Connecticut, and how she went from working in the White House to becoming a beloved culinary voice despite having no prior experience in the food industry. Ina Garten has authored 13 bestselling cookbooks and is returning to the Food Network with new episodes of "Be My Guest." She's won five Emmy Awards and three James Beard Awards. Her new memoir is titled "Be Ready When The Luck Happens."

Ina Garten, welcome to FRESH AIR.

INA GARTEN: Thank you so much, Tonya. It's so good to be here.

MOSLEY: To say the least, your life is fascinating. And I want to start with your show and then go backwards because "Barefoot Contessa" is such a beloved show. It's aired for 29 seasons. But your first stab at the show in 2001, about a year before the show we know debuted, you were writing for Martha Stewart Living at the time and Martha Stewart approached you to ask you if you wanted to host your own show. They wanted you to be Martha Stewart 2.0. What kinds of things were they trying to make you do?

GARTEN: Well, for example, I wanted - I mean, very simple things, but I think they were stylistically very important. They wanted me to have all the ingredients measured out in a way that Martha has always done. And I said, no, no, no, what I want to do is I want to do it the way you would do it in your own kitchen. I have a big glass jar filled with flour. I wanted to dip the cup into the flour and show people how to measure it properly.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

GARTEN: And they were like, that's not the way we do it. And I was like, well, that's the way I do it. I think they were so used to producing Martha that they wanted to try and get me to be the same person. And I kept saying to them, no, you have Martha. You need me to be me. You need me to be authentic. And so we had this push-pull that just never got resolved.

MOSLEY: Well, the Food Network, as you tell us in the book, begged you to take another stab at it because you basically told those producers, I'm not doing this. It's over. You hung up this idea of television at a time when the Food Network, I mean, having a show on the Food Network - it was just exploding at that time as a network, so everyone was clamoring to be able to have a show on it if you were in the culinary world.

GARTEN: Well, it was a moment when the Food Network, there was a producer there named Eileen Opatut who decided that it shouldn't be restaurant chefs with toques making very fancy, you know, mousses with raspberry sauce and all kinds of things that you would never make at home. She decided that it should be home cooks. And so she came looking for several people, and it was Rachael Ray, Paula Deen and me. And she thought that I could do it.

She had seen what I had done with the Martha Stewart production company and liked it. And I said, what did you see that you liked? And she said, well, when you made - I had made some kind of a tea sandwich, and I took a bite out of it and I said, oh, this is really good. And she said, that was real. And the producer said, cut - you can't talk with something in your mouth. And I'm like, it's a cooking show (laughter). Lighten up. I mean, this should be fun. It shouldn't be, like, do this and go there and do that. So...

MOSLEY: Because real cooks actually taste their food as they're cooking.

GARTEN: Of course. And she liked that I thought, oh, this looks so good I have to take a bite out of it. So she came after me for probably another year. And I just kept saying no. And at some point, I thought maybe she thought I was negotiating. But I finally just said to her, no, I'm not negotiating. I just don't want to do this. And then somebody found a show that they thought they really liked, a cooking show that was doing really well in England. And it was Nigella Lawson's show.

And I said to Eileen, could you just get me a copy of this show so I could see what people are talking about? And she got it for me. She knew the producers, and she got it for me. And I thought, well, it's gorgeous but, I mean, it's Nigella. It's not me. And the producers are British, so I thought they wouldn't really get my sensibility. And she said, do me a favor - just have a conversation with them. And I did. And I thought, wow, they really get what I do. So, reluctantly, I agreed to do 13 shows. And I thought, OK, I'll do them. They won't be great, but at least it's limited and then they'll know I'm not good at this. And...

MOSLEY: Can I have you read, actually, from the book? - because I think this is a really fascinating part of the story, because this is then when you really sat into what you were bringing to this space that was different from Nigella and Martha Stewart and some of those other folks that you were talking about. Do you have the book in front of you?

GARTEN: I do.

MOSLEY: OK.

GARTEN: I found the challenge of bringing "Barefoot Contessa" to life terrifying but totally engaging. The show's primary focus was food and cooking, but we wanted to make it more than that. Cooking for me isn't an end. It's a means to an end. I cook for people I love. And when you cook, everyone shows up. How many times has somebody called you and said come for dinner and you said, no, I don't really want a home-cooked dinner and an evening around a table with friends? Never.

I wanted the show to be true to my life and about the world I'd created with great friends and good food in East Hampton. I would invite people who were genuinely a part of my life, Jeffrey and our friends. No endorsements, no product placements, just me cooking delicious dinners and sharing them with the people who meant something to me in the places I loved. I wanted viewers to feel that they were right there with me through the whole day, as though they were sitting on a stool on the other side of the counter in my kitchen watching me cook, or by my side when I went grocery shopping.

MOSLEY: Thank you for reading that, Ina. I really loved reading the behind-the-scenes of how the feel of your show came together, because everything does feel so natural on your show, as if we're genuinely watching you think about and prepare a meal for Jeffrey and your friends. Was there ever a point where you felt self-conscious about the cameras? - because I think, while it feels natural, you've got to do hair and makeup and think about stuff like what you're wearing. And I know when I'm in the kitchen, I'm not thinking about how I look and what I'm wearing, you know?

GARTEN: Well, I always kind of joke, talking and cooking doesn't come naturally.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

GARTEN: I mean, I'm not an easy cook. I find cooking really hard, so I concentrate a lot. But at the same time, I have to be talking to this inanimate object that's right in front of me. So, no, it's not easy. In the beginning when I did the first show, my producers Rachel and Olivia said, we're going to send the film of the show that we just filmed back to London, have it edited and bring it back and show you that it's actually really good. And I thought, oh, it's going to be terrible.

So they sent it out, and it came back. And I remember watching it, and I said to them, it's not as bad as I thought (laughter), but just think it's going to be so much better when I get good at this. And they said, not necessarily. They said that nervous energy is actually great on film because you really show up. And I have to tell you, here I am, like, 25 years later, and I still feel the same way.

MOSLEY: You still feel that when you go out in the kitchen in front of those cameras?

GARTEN: I do. And I just have to say to myself, that's good.

MOSLEY: Right. Well, because it's television, though, you all have to do multiple takes, too, right? I mean, does that come easy because it feels so natural, and you have to continue to have it feel natural, even though you're doing multiple takes of a particular scene.

GARTEN: Well, in the beginning, the deal was that we would do every single take three times. We would do - I have to remember this. We would do one wide shot, one detail on me and then one detail on what I was cooking. And I think we had one, maybe two, but certainly not more than that, cameras. It was so difficult to do the second take because I had to tell exactly the same story I was telling. I had to pick up the wooden spoon with exactly the same hand as I did in the first take at exactly the same moment in the story. Otherwise, they couldn't edit them together.

MOSLEY: Right.

GARTEN: And then I'd have to do a third take where I was cooking, and it was a detail shot of the food and the eggshell going into the sink, and you could hear it. The second and third takes were so difficult because it's impossible to remember what you just did. And so we did that for several years until I finally said, I just can't do TV anymore. And they said, you know what? You first take is actually better than the other two, and that's what we end up using. So let's just lose those.

MOSLEY: You said cooking comes hard for you. What do you mean by that?

GARTEN: Cooking's hard. I think that people that find cooking easier - I mean, I watch Bobby Flay cook, for example. He's just such a natural cook. But also, he's worked on a line in a restaurant for years. So he's making the same thing over and over and over again. He can do it without thinking about it. When I'm working on a recipe, I've probably never made it before, and maybe I'll make it five times or 20 times when I'm working on it for a cookbook. But it's not something I've done over and over and over again.

MOSLEY: What you get to experience with people and your work is the joy of being around food and company. It almost is like you have the best of humanity show up for you because of what you're giving them in the food.

GARTEN: That's interesting. I think that I love cooking for people I love, and the cooking is just the medium. The thing that I care about is the connection. And so when you cook for people you love, they feel taken care of, and you make great friends, and you create a community for yourself. And I think that's really what we all need and what we all kind of hunger for. And the other thing, a lot of people cook to impress, and it's so counterproductive to having relationships with people. I just find if I make a roast chicken with vegetables in the pan, people are just thrilled that it's really simple and it's delicious.

MOSLEY: Did you always know that or did you have to learn it?

GARTEN: Well, I think I learned it - the first party I ever had was a total disaster. And it was counter to everything that I believe now. And I invited 20 people, which is a terrible number because you can't really entertain 20 people that don't know each other.

MOSLEY: Right.

GARTEN: And I decided to make an omelet for every one of them. I barely know how to make an omelet now. I can't imagine that, when I was 21, I could make 20 omelets, but I did. And I was in the kitchen the entire time. And it was such a bad party.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

GARTEN: I almost never had another party again.

MOSLEY: Right. I mean, so what you learned in that was the simpler, the better, and also the guest configuration, so small intimate gatherings. Like, when is too much, too much, especially when people don't know each other?

GARTEN: I just like six people around a round table - and a small round table, not a big one. I think the size of the table can just wreck a dinner party. Very often, people have long, rectangular tables that are way too wide. And people are seated too far apart. I like when everybody's - kind of like their knees are almost touching, and it feels very intimate with a candle - with a darker room and a candle in the middle. It brings everybody's attention in. And everybody in a round table is equidistance from everybody else.

MOSLEY: OK, we're going to talk more about this. Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is Ina Garten, bestselling author and host of the Food Network's "Be My Guest" and "Barefoot Contessa," which is also streaming on Max. We're talking about her new memoir, "Be Ready When The Luck Happens." We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. Today I'm talking to award-winning author and Food Network host Ina Garten. She's written a new memoir, "Be Ready When The Luck Happens," about growing up in Connecticut and finding her passion for food, cooking and entertaining. Garten became a household name in the late '90s and early 2000s with her very first cookbook, "The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook," which became a bestseller. Since then, she's written more than a dozen cookbooks and has won five Emmy Awards and three James Beard Awards. She joined the Food Network in 2002 with her show "Barefoot Contessa."

OK, Ina, let's go back. Let's go way back to the '70s. You're a 20-something working in the White House. What was your job?

GARTEN: I worked in a group called Office of Management and Budget, and what we did was write the president's budget that was sent to Congress. And I worked in nuclear energy policy. So I wrote the budgets - or I oversaw the budgets of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the part of what's now the Department of Energy that oversaw nuclear material.

MOSLEY: What you were doing and what you do now - I mean, it feels like it's on, like, two different sides of, like, a spectrum.

GARTEN: There is a connection, actually, and certainly I'm much happier making chocolate cakes than I was nuclear material. But I've always been very interested in science. And the way I feel about what I do now is it's science, but you end up with something delicious, instead of...

MOSLEY: Yes.

GARTEN: ...Enriched uranium (laughter).

MOSLEY: Right. Right. Well, the story of how you went from that job to owning, then, a specialty food shop in the Hamptons and then going on to becoming this dominant force in the culinary world, it actually started with an ad that you saw in The New York Times. What did that ad say?

GARTEN: It was a tiny little ad in what was the business opportunity section in The New York Times, where they advertise, like, dry cleaners in the Bronx. And actually, my collaborator, Deborah Davis, went back in the archives and surprised me by finding the ad, which was stunning. Why would anybody answer that ad is beyond my comprehension. And it turned out it was the first day that the owner had decided to advertise. And I just happened to see it. It's the craziest act of luck I can possibly imagine.

MOSLEY: But, Ina, what was it about the ad that made you believe you could own a shop?

GARTEN: It was - it said, specialty food store and cheese shoppe. And it was spelled S-H-O-P-P-E...

MOSLEY: Yes.

GARTEN: ...Which is even crazier. I think that I loved cooking. And I thought, well, maybe it'd be fun to own a specialty food store. So I thought, well, I was just going to investigate it. I didn't know it was anything that would end up being my life.

MOSLEY: How old were you again?

GARTEN: I was just - I just turned 30.

MOSLEY: And you and Jeffrey - how long had you been together at that time?

GARTEN: Ten years. We got married when I was 20.

MOSLEY: Yeah. He's thinking what at the time, when you brought this home and said, hey?

GARTEN: Well, I actually didn't. I came home, and I said to him, I really just - this just isn't me. You know, I'm not interested in budgets. I'm not interested in nuclear energy. And I really need to find something creative that feels like me. And he said such a great thing. He said, you know, why don't you just think about what would be fun? Just - if it's fun, you'll be really good at it. Just don't worry about making money. Just think of something that would be really fun to do.

And I said, funny you should mention that. I saw this ad for a business for sale that was a specialty food store in a place I'd never been, the Hamptons. It was in Westhampton. And he said, let's go look at it, which was stunning. I'm sure - looking back now, I'm sure he would say he was just humoring me. But the two of us got into the car that weekend and drove from Washington, D.C., to West Hampton Beach, N.Y.

MOSLEY: Which is about, like - what? - five hours.

GARTEN: Oh, God, more than that. It's got to be six or seven hours. And we pulled into this little town, and, I mean, to say that there was nothing happening in this town in April - it's a summer resort. There's nobody in town. It was - I mean, my image is that there was tumbleweed going down the middle of the street. And there was this tiny, little store. It was 400 square feet. And I walked in, and they were baking chocolate chip cookies. And I just remember thinking, wow, this is where I want to be.

GARTEN: I actually remember we were staying in a hotel nearby that was one of those places that looked like it was so cold and austere that it looked like...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

GARTEN: ...There were no sharp objects in the room like it was an insane asylum. And I remember thinking...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

GARTEN: ...We're about to do something totally insane. This hotel is perfect for us. And I just - I thought, I just want to be here. I just don't know why, but I just need to be here. And so we met with the owner. And I made her a low offer. She was asking for $25,000, which was more money than we had in the world. And I just, on a whim, offered her 20,000, thinking, well...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

GARTEN: ...We'll go home. We'll negotiate. I'll have time to think about this. And we drove back to Washington. And Monday morning, I was in my office, and I - the phone rang. And she - it was Diana, the owner. And she said, thank you very much. I accept your offer. And I remember thinking, oh, s***, right. Like, I just bought a food store (laughter). I remember going to my boss and going, you're not going to believe what I just did (laughter).

MOSLEY: Right. I got a new career. I mean, you didn't have any experience running a store, of course.

GARTEN: I'd never had an employee. I had never worked in the food business. I had never even waitressed in a restaurant. I literally had no experience. I'd never run a business.

MOSLEY: Well, the store - it was - already had a name, Barefoot Contessa, named by the previous owner, Diana Strata. Her family had nicknamed her that because she's Italian. Did you ever consider changing the name?

GARTEN: I actually was certain I would change the name. But the deal I made with Diana, since I obviously had no experience, is that she would stay with me for a month so that she could teach me when the brie was ripe, how to do the payroll, how to slice smoked salmon. I mean, I literally knew nothing. I could make...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

GARTEN: ...Twelve brownies, but I had no idea how to make a hundred. And I thought to myself, I'm just going to keep everything exactly the way it is for the summer. And then in the winter, when it was closed, I can work on the recipes and decide what the name should be because I felt it should be - the name should tell you what it is, where it is, who it is, something personal. And the name really related to Diana, not me. But then as the summer went - progressed, I realized it actually had a resonance that was really nice because it was about being elegant and earthy at the same time. And I think that really was what the store was about.

MOSLEY: And also you.

GARTEN: Maybe not yet, but I was hoping to be.

MOSLEY: Yes. Well...

GARTEN: But I think my style was that I like things that are elegant and simple. And I think that's what Barefoot Contessa really connoted.

MOSLEY: My guest today is Ina Garten, and we're talking about her new memoir, "Be Ready When The Luck Happens." We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tonya Mosley, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley, and I'm talking today to Ina Garten about her new memoir "Be Ready When The Luck Happens." Garten is best known for her award-winning show "Barefoot Contessa," which debuted on the Food Network in 2002. Beyond her cooking prowess, Garten is known for her enduring marriage to Jeffrey Garten, whom she met at age 16 and married in 1968. In her new book, she gives us a candid look into her life, including her challenging childhood and the pivotal moments that shaped her career.

OK, Ina, I want to talk with you a little bit about your childhood and growing up in Stamford, Conn., with your parents and your brother Ken. You say that they were into appearances. Can you describe a little of what that meant for you as a child?

GARTEN: I think my parent - remember, this was the 50s. It's not the era of helicopter parents who are encouraging their children to do extraordinary things. This is an era where you did what the parents told you to do. And my parents were particularly harsh about it. I think - my brother and I recently were talking, and we both came to the same conclusion that I think my mother was somewhere on the spectrum, that she didn't know how to have a relationship. And so she dealt with it by pushing us away and making sure that she didn't actually have to spend time with us.

So I spent most of my time in my bedroom, and my brother spent time in his. And then my father was a really, really harsh authoritarian figure. If you didn't do exactly what he wanted you to do, it was met with pretty serious anger, and sometimes - I don't want to say violence, but, you know, hitting. And it was a very difficult way to grow up.

MOSLEY: You felt like your parents didn't have many expectations of you.

GARTEN: My parents had no expectations of me. In fact, I think the only thing I remember is just total disappointment because I wouldn't do what they wanted me to do. They never gave me an opportunity to do what I wanted to do. And, you know, I talk about this in the book not so much because it was such a terrible childhood. It certainly wasn't a happy one, but there were so many worse childhoods.

But I wanted people to know that the story of your childhood doesn't necessarily need to be the story of your life, that you can with total determination, which is what I did - I remember when I was 15, I remember thinking to myself, if I'm dating someone who so much as raises his voice to me, let alone his hand, I was out of there, that I needed to do this differently. And I think a lot of people make that determination but then forget and follow through and end up having the same kind of family they grew up in. And I decided I was absolutely doing it differently, and I really did.

MOSLEY: You made that declaration to yourself at 15, and it wasn't long after that you met Jeffrey.

GARTEN: I know. Isn't that amazing? I mean, literally, we've known each other for 60 years, and we've literally never had a fight. I just can't even - I mean, there's - if there's something you disagree about, you just talk about it and figure it out.

MOSLEY: You all really could write a book about marriage. But one of the revelations that has come from the book is that there was a moment, about a decade into your relationship, when you thought about divorce.

GARTEN: Well, I think that's a little harsh. I think I certainly thought about hitting the brakes. I mean, remember, this is the '70s, and we both assumed that he would be the husband and I would be the wife and that he would take care of the finances, and I would have dinner on the table. I mean, we had prescribed roles. But it was a time when women were becoming aware that just because we were women didn't mean that there were things that we had to do. I mean, I really credit Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan for making us think about it. And it may be that you want to have dinner on the table, but it doesn't mean that because you're the woman, you're the only one who should have dinner on the table.

So I was becoming aware of this. And Jeffrey, who had no reason at all to change his mind, wasn't. And so I found some frustration with being in a prescribed role as the wife, when what I really wanted was more of a partnership. And I just couldn't get him to see it because, of course, why should he? It's, you know - life was great for him. He'd go to work and come home and have a great dinner.

MOSLEY: Right. Right.

GARTEN: And just - I couldn't quite get through. And so I thought, OK, I'm going to hit the pause button. And when I think back now, I think how scary that was 'cause I could have lost him. And I loved him the whole time. But I just felt - I felt I loved him, but I couldn't live with him. So now I had a business. I wanted to spend time with a business. I didn't want to be distracted. So all of those things were happening at the same time. And one weekend in Westhampton that first summer, we took a long walk on the beach, and I said, I feel like I need to be on my own for a while. And just, as Jeffrey would, he said the right thing. He said, if you feel you need to be on your own, then you need to be on your own. And he went back to Washington and didn't come back. And it was a tough time.

MOSLEY: That separation, though, was important. It was brief, but it was important because it led you all back to each other.

GARTEN: It led us back to a different kind of relationship. I think I really got his attention, and also, it changed him, but I have to say it changed me as well. And he was going...

MOSLEY: And he was away.

GARTEN: He was at the State Department at the time, and he was going on a trip around the world, and he said, when I come back in - I think it was November or December, why don't we meet in Palm Springs? And we'll see where we are. And so we met in Palm Springs, and we talked and we talked, and we figured out the things that were bothering us and things that - for example, Jeffrey felt, since he was the husband and responsible for me, that he couldn't travel so much. And I said, sure, you can, 'cause I'll always be there. We'll be the anchor in each other's lives. And it will give us more freedom, not less. And so we really changed how we work together. And what we came out of with is a partnership, a true partnership.

GARTEN: And I remember thinking to myself, oh, my God, I'm falling in love with somebody who just happens to be my husband.

MOSLEY: One of the choices that you made was to not have children, and that was very much a concerted choice. Can you say more about that choice?

GARTEN: Well, when Jeffrey and I got married, I don't think I really had that in my head. But the more I kind of grew and thought about making deliberate decisions, the more I realized I didn't have a happy childhood. I have no idea what that even would look like - and actually, to the extent that I didn't even understand why people had children, because there was nothing happy from my - we didn't spend time together, we didn't talk to each other, we didn't do things together, we didn't play games. The things that we did together, we had to do. We had no choice. So I just didn't have any happy memories from being a child, so the thought of having children and recreating that was just unthinkable, frankly.

MOSLEY: Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is Ina Garten, bestselling author and host of "Be My Guest" and "Barefoot Contessa" on the Food Network, now streaming on Max. We're talking about her new memoir titled "Be Ready When The Luck Happens." We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF ALLEN TOUSSAINT'S "EGYPTIAN FANTASY")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR, and today we're talking to award-winning author and Food Network host Ina Garten. She's written a new memoir, "Be Ready When The Luck Happens," about growing up in Connecticut and finding her passion for food and cooking. Garten became a household name in the 2000s when her show "Barefoot Contessa" debuted on the Food Network. And she's written 13 cookbooks and has won five Emmy Awards and three James Beard Awards.

So much of your world is home and hearth and, like, warmth and comfort. And the food is comfort food. What kind of foods were you eating when you were growing up? What was your mom's cooking like?

GARTEN: No sane person would call it comfort food (laughter). It was nutritious (laughter), that's what I would say. My mother was very extreme in the way she cooked. It was never for the pleasure of it. It was broiled chicken, broiled fish, canned peas. I don't think anybody ever thought about whether it was delicious or not. She did what she needed to do to get dinner on the table. And maybe for your birthday you could have something special, but that was about it. Nobody ever asked what you wanted for dinner. And the extreme part was that you were never allowed to have carbohydrates, and you were never allowed to have anything with fats in it. So it was really just protein and vegetables, and not even fresh vegetables. It was, like, canned vegetables. I remember, like, Harvard beets - oh, just the worst (laughter).

MOSLEY: When did you discover salt, fat, all of that, like, carbs, your famous brownies that you were making for friends? Was it when you went off to college?

GARTEN: No, not at all in college. I do remember when Jeffrey and I rented our first house. He was in the military, and we were living in North Carolina, and we rented a really pretty garden apartment. And I remember walking into that apartment and looking around and thinking, oh, my God, I can do anything I want. I can cook anything I want. I can decorate this house any way I want. I was free, and that's when I started. And I had bought myself Craig Claiborne's "New York Times Cookbook," which was a big deal at the time. And I just started cooking my way through that book.

MOSLEY: I want to ask you something about Jeffrey's role on "Barefoot Contessa," because he's - you mentioned it. He's an investment banker. He has been an investment banker, the undersecretary of commerce in the Clinton administration. He taught business and foreign policy classes at Columbia and NYU and Yale. And he's also an author just like you. Has it ever bothered either of you that there is this perception that he's your sidekick?

GARTEN: Well, he's hardly my sidekick. There's a funny story. There was somebody - one of the students at Yale was writing an article about him for the Yale newsletter.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

GARTEN: I don't know what it was called. Yeah, the Yale magazine. And the guy came into Jeffrey's office and sat down and said, so are you really the doofus that you see on "Barefoot Contessa?"

(LAUGHTER)

GARTEN: And all I could think is here's a guy who worked for the secretary of state, wrote speeches in his 20s for Secretary Kissinger and Vance, then became an investment banker and went to foreign governments and restructured the economies of foreign countries that were having financial problems, and then became undersecretary of commerce in the Clinton administration and then the dean of the business school at Yale. So, I mean, he's extraordinary. He's really smart, he's funny, he's sweet. And he leads with his heart. He's an extraordinary guy. And you're right. You don't see that on the show.

MOSLEY: How does it feel to be, like, an icon in so many different realms? Young women look to you and are always coming to you. I think you found out Taylor Swift is one of your biggest fans. You're also a gay icon.

GARTEN: (Laughter) And I hers.

MOSLEY: Yeah. You're also a gay icon. I mean, how does it feel to know that, like, just being yourself, people love and accept you?

GARTEN: That's pretty extraordinary, I have to say. I don't know that I'm an icon for anybody, but I think one of the things I love about what I do is that everybody cooks. Everybody's interested in food. And I have people tell me that I watch your show or cook with my grandmother, my daughter, my uncle. I mean, they all - it appeals to generations and people from different walks of life. And I always love the story - I was walking up Madison Avenue one day and a woman in a big fur coat, and she said, oh, darling, I just love your cookbooks. And a block later, a truck driver pulled over and said, hey, babe, love your show.

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

GARTEN: And I thought, that's food. Everybody's interested in food. And they absorb what I've put out in the world in the way that they want to absorb it, whether it's watch a show, listen to an interview or read a cookbook. But it's wonderful that it appeals to so many different people. And it's things that they do together, which I love. And I'm not giving people something specific. I'm giving them the tools so that they can do it for themselves. And when people make a coconut cake and they put it on the table and people say to them, you made this yourself, it makes us feel good.

MOSLEY: This has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for this book and this conversation.

GARTEN: Tonya, thank you so much. It was such a pleasure to talk to you.

MOSLEY: That was cookbook author and Food Network star Ina Garten. Coming up, rock critic Ken Tucker reviews Bob Dylan's massive 27-disc set of his 1974 live recordings. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WIGWAM")

BOB DYLAN: (Vocalizing).

TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Bob Dylan and The Band toured together in January and February of 1974 in a series of 40 concerts in 21 cities, resulting in a live double album called "Before The Flood," released later that same year. Well, now Bob Dylan is releasing a massive 27-CD set called "The 1974 Live Recordings." It captures some of the most raucous rock 'n' roll Dylan has ever made. Rock critic Ken Tucker listened to all 431 songs in this collection and has this review.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MOST LIKELY YOU GO YOUR WAY (AND I'LL GO MINE)")

BOB DYLAN: (Singing) You say you love me and you're thinking of me, but you know you could be wrong. You say you told me that you want to hold me, but you know you're not that strong. I just can't do what I've done before. I just can't beg you anymore. I'm going to let you pass. Yes, and I'll go last. And then time will tell who has fell and who's been left behind. Oh, you go your way, and I go mine.

KEN TUCKER, BYLINE: That locomotive power and rhythm, the headlong, careening pace, the way the vocals are shouted into a gale-force wind created by the guitars, the drums and the yelling of the audience. That's the way Bob Dylan and The Band commenced many dates on their 1974 tour - with a steamrolling version of "Most Likely You'll Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)" (ph). The version I played to start this review is from the January 30 show at Madison Square Garden. Here's how they grappled with "Tough Mama," a rollicking bar-room brawl of a song from Dylan's then-current album "Planet Waves" in a Philadelphia afternoon show.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TOUGH MAMA")

DYLAN: (Singing) Tough mama, meat shaking on your bones. I'm going to go down to the river and get some stones. Papa's in the big house, keeping her running through (ph). Sister's in the big house. Her working days are through. Tough mama, can I blow a little smoke on you?

TUCKER: When Bob Dylan first toured with The Band, then called The Hawks, in 1966, it was soon after he'd gone electric and his folky fan base came out to boo him. Guitarist Robbie Robertson wrote about how depressing it was to go from town to town and face such hostile disapproval night after night. One way to hear the beginning of the 1974 tour, therefore, is as Bob's revenge. He and Robbie and drummer Levon Helm, bassist Rick Danko, keyboardists Garth Hudson and Richard Manuel greet the now-adoring fans with shocking aggressiveness, their instruments blazing, every night a high-noon showdown.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HERO BLUES")

DYLAN: (Singing) The girl I've got - swear she's screaming. Yeah, the girl I've got - swear she's screaming. She wants me to be a hero so she can tell all of her friends.

TUCKER: That's the song that kicked off the entire tour in Chicago, a deep-cut obscurity called "Hero Blues" which was never played again. The standard set list for this tour included such Dylan touchstones as "Like A Rolling Stone," "Lay Lady Lay" and "Forever Young," but there's not a trace of nostalgia in these performances. You have to understand big star acts just did not play their hits live in this manner 50 years ago. The idea had always been to reproduce, to the best of one's ability, the sound of the studio recordings and then toss in some well-rehearsed spontaneity to make the crowd feel it was getting a unique experience. But Dylan and The Band gave new meaning to the term bang for your buck. They detonated, exploded these songs. You might have known what tune you were about to get from the opening chords, but you sure as heck couldn't imagine the frenzy of what was to follow.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIKE A ROLLING STONE")

DYLAN: (Singing) Once upon a time, you dressed so fine, threw the bums a dime in your prime; didn't you? People call, say, beware, doll. You're bound to fall. You thought they was all kidding you. You used to laugh about everybody that was hanging out. Now you don't talk so loud. Now you don't seem so proud about having to be scrounging around to make your next meal. How does it feel? Oh, how does it feel to be without a home with no direction home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone?

TUCKER: There was a fair amount of revisionist thinking about this tour and the years following it, with some commentators saying the music was too loud, rushed and messy, that Dylan was willfully mangling his own songs. Dylan himself contributed to this revisionism by giving interviews putting down the tour. He told Cameron Crowe, it was all sort of mindless. The only thing people talked about was energy this, energy that. The highest compliments were things like, wow - lot of energy, man.

On stage, Dylan sounds, at various times, impatient, cranky, contemptuous - not of the audience but of his own performance. There are moments when he lures the band into matching his own foul mood. Listen to the way Garth Hudson mimics on his keyboard the prissy phrasing Dylan uses to begin a pretty terrible version of "Ballad Of A Thin Man."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BALLAD OF A THIN MAN")

DYLAN: (Singing) You walked into the room, your pencil in your hand, see somebody naked. You say, who is that man? You try so hard, but you don't understand what you're going to say when you get home. You know something's happening here, but you don't know what it is; do you, Mr. Jones?

TUCKER: That was from a Philadelphia afternoon show. Now listen to the far better, more animated, more committed version of the same song he performed the next night in the same city.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DYLAN: (Singing) You walk into the room with your pencil in your hand, see somebody naked. You say, who is that man? You try so hard, but you don't understand what you want to say when you get home because something is happening. But you don't know what it is; do you, Mr. Jones?

TUCKER: Bob Dylan and Garth Hudson are now the only ones alive from the six men on stage here. I had a great time listening to these 27 discs over a number of days, and I never felt I was dwelling in the past. Dylan and The Band's sometimes exhilarated, sometimes exhausted, always-craving-a-change music suits the era we're living in. It's 50 years old, but it's also right on time.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JUST LIKE A WOMAN")

DYLAN: (Singing) Nobody feels any pain tonight as I stand inside the rain. Everybody knows baby's got new clothes. But lately, I see her ribbons and her bows have fallen from her curls. She takes just like a woman. She wakes just like a woman. And she aches just like a woman, but she breaks just like a little girl.

MOSLEY: Ken Tucker reviewed Bob Dylan's "The 1974 Live Recordings." Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, Ta-Nehisi Coates talks about his trip to Senegal, where he reflected on his ancestors' enslavement, and his trip to Israel and the West Bank, where he got a firsthand look at the ongoing conflict. He's best known for his book "Between The World And Me" and his Atlantic magazine cover story, "The Case For Reparations." His new book is called "The Message." I hope you can join us.

Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, Joel Wolfram and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producers are Molly Seavy-Nesper and Sabrina Siewert. With Terry Gross, I'm Tonya Mosley.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JUST LIKE A WOMAN")

DYLAN: (Singing) It was raining from the first, and I was dying of thirst. So I came in here. And your longtime curse hurts, but what's worse is this pain in here.

Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.