In the Kitchen With Ina

DINNER, REDEFINED Garten's definition of a “meal” evolved during the pandemic, when she was busy testing recipes for her 13th book, posting daily recipes on Instagram to keep her followers inspired and cooking three meals a day for herself and her husband, Jeffrey. “I think we all have a little bit of cooking fatigue, including me,” she says. “At some point, I thought, I love breakfast for dinner, so I’m just going to make a Gruyere omelet.” She gravitated toward simpler one-pot, one-pan fare, and even now that she’s back to entertaining friends, she favors more casual spreads.

TEST KITCHEN She tests recipes exhaustively to ensure every ingredient—and every step—produces excellent results. “Cooking is hard for me,” says Garten, who never worked in a restaurant kitchen or got formal culinary training. “So I understand how hard it is for other people at home to cook. I just want people to feel like they can do it.”

LEARNING TO LOVE EXTRAS “I hate leftovers,” says Garten, who admits she never used to eat them. “But because of the pandemic, that was a luxury I didn’t have.” In the new book, she offers lots of suggestions to spin extras into all-new meals, like using leftover risotto to make crispy risotto cakes or adding leftover ham to mac and cheese.

STORE-BOUGHT IS FINE (REALLY!) “If something is complicated to make and you can buy something that’s perfectly delicious, I would never spend the time making it,” says Garten. That’s why you won’t see a recipe from her for a French baguette or vanilla ice cream (she’s a fan of Häagen-Dazs). For example, she’ll melt store-bought ice cream to use as a sauce for dessert.

FRIENDSHIP FIRST “The truth is, cooking for me isn’t about the cooking,” says Garten. “It’s about inviting people over and having dinner with them and having that shared experience. It’s not about the food.” —Alison Ashton