BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR News quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis, and here is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago, Peter Sagal.
(APPLAUSE)
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody. This week, in honor of a holiday that commemorates events of 241 years ago, we figured we'd revel in our achievements from a couple of months ago - mainly when we got some fun people to come on our show and talk to us.
KURTIS: First, an unlikely celebrity, Ina Garten, who bought a bakery shop as a second career and became one of the nation's most-beloved TV chefs, the Barefoot Contessa.
SAGAL: I asked her about all her early experiences that made her decide to run away and bake cupcakes instead.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
SAGAL: So let's go over the details of your origin story, as if you were a superhero. Was that all true? You used to work in the White House, or at least nearby, right?
INA GARTEN: I did - no, I worked in the White House. I worked in the Office of Management and Budget on nuclear energy policy.
SAGAL: So were you an enthusiastic cook back then?
GARTEN: I was learning how to cook then. I would work at OMB during the day, and I'd go home and cook at night.
SAGAL: I've heard that you bought the store called the Barefoot Contessa out in the Hamptons without ever having seen it. Is that right?
GARTEN: I actually had seen it. I saw it once. They were baking cookies. And I thought, this is where I need to be (laughter). And I made an offer on the store and went back to my office in Washington thinking, well, that'll never happen. And the owner called me the next day and said, thank you very much, I accept your offer. And I just went, oh, [expletive].
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Well, tell me about the store. What was the original store like?
GARTEN: It was 400 square feet. It was so small that you couldn't get the - the stove didn't fit into the kitchen. So it was actually in the store. If you wanted to put something in the oven, you had to go into the store. And it was great. I mean, I always wanted it to feel like a party. And it did. We had great music and we had samples of cookies out.
And everybody had a great time. They would come in just to see what was going on.
SAGAL: Right. Right. And how long did you own that store?
GARTEN: Well, I owned the first store for three years. Then I bought a bigger store. And then I moved to East Hampton to a much bigger store. So the store I owned at the end was 3,000 square feet.
SAGAL: Right, OK. And then you started doing your cookbooks once the store became really known.
GARTEN: No, actually, after I - I sold the store to employees and then I started doing cookbooks.
SAGAL: Oh, really?
GARTEN: Yeah.
SAGAL: You got out of the food business.
GARTEN: (Laughter) And into the - out of the frying pan and into the pot or whatever it is.
SAGAL: Yeah.
FAITH SALIE: Ina, I don't know how to cook. And this is, like, a big stain in my life.
GARTEN: Yeah?
SALIE: Tell me the...
JEFF GARLIN: It'd be a bigger stain if you did cook.
MO ROCCA: Yeah.
SALIE: Maybe - I mean, tell me the number one thing I need to know to help me start or give me...
GARTEN: You know, there's - I make roast chicken. And that is the simplest thing in the world to make. And I met some girls that worked at Glamour magazine, and they said, we call it engagement chicken because every time somebody in the office makes it for their boyfriend, they're engaged within 24 hours.
ROCCA: Wow.
(LAUGHTER)
GARLIN: Ina, your last name is Garten, right?
GARTEN: Yes.
GARLIN: OK, your husband's name is Jeff Garten?
GARTEN: Jeffrey, yes.
GARLIN: Jeffrey Garten, I'm Jeffrey Garlin, how are you?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Jeffrey, you're so delighted by that. It's adorable.
GARLIN: By the way...
(LAUGHTER)
GARLIN: ...My wife, Marla, bought me that cookbook, "Cooking For Jeffrey."
GARTEN: (Laughter) That's great.
GARLIN: But she cooks from it 'cause I can't do that. I only know how to put SpaghettiOs on pizza.
(LAUGHTER)
GARLIN: But by the way, your food is delicious.
GARTEN: Thank you.
GARLIN: Young people love it, old people love it - mostly Jews if they're old people.
SAGAL: Yeah.
GARLIN: But they love your cooking.
SAGAL: Speaking of someone who loves your cooking...
GARTEN: Uh-oh.
SAGAL: ...What is it like to be in Taylor Swift's posse?
GARTEN: In Taylor Swift's - well, I'm not exactly in her posse. But I've spent some - she came for a photo shoot and we made a pavlova together, which was wonderful.
SAGAL: I'm sorry, you made a what together?
GARTEN: Pavlova, which is meringue and whipped cream and berries.
ROCCA: Is it like Anna Pavlova?
SALIE: Yes...
GARTEN: Like Anna Pavlova...
SALIE: ...It's named after her.
GARTEN: Exactly. It looks like a tutu.
ROCCA: Oh, Trump thinks she's alive.
SAGAL: Yes. And I'm assuming just given the way that Taylor Swift looks, after you made it, she looked at it hungrily, then went back to her diet of carrot sticks and cardboard.
GARTEN: No, she just dove right in.
SAGAL: Did she really?
GARTEN: Yeah (laughter).
GARLIN: What was she wearing?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Is Taylor Swift a good cook? I don't know.
GARTEN: She's a very good cook, yeah.
SAGAL: Really?
GARTEN: She loves to cook.
SAGAL: Is there anything she can't do?
GARTEN: No, (laughter) not as far as I can see. She's pretty extraordinary.
ROCCA: Is this true that you went to high school with both Pulitzer Prize-winner James Lapine and a legendary baseball manager Bobby Valentine?
GARTEN: I did. How did you know that?
ROCCA: Because I know them both and they...
GARTEN: Do you really?
ROCCA: ...Worship you.
GARTEN: Oh, I adore both of them.
SAGAL: What high school was this?
GARTEN: Rippowam High School in Stamford, Conn.
SAGAL: Wow.
GARTEN: Yeah.
SALIE: How extraordinary that a 16-year-old girl chose someone named Jeffrey Garten over someone named Bobby Valentine.
SAGAL: Yeah.
SALIE: It could have gone a different way.
GARTEN: Bobby Valentine didn't choose me.
(LAUGHTER)
GARTEN: He was a hero in high school - total hero. When he called me up, I was like, oh, my God. I was like a high school girl with heart palpitations. And I was like - I think I was 65 when he called me.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Well, Ina Garten, we are delighted to talk to you. We've invited you here to play...
KURTIS: They're snazzy but a bit pinchy (ph) in the toe box.
SAGAL: You are, of course, the Barefoot Contessa, so naturally, we decided to ask you about shoes. Answer 2 out of 3 questions about footwear, you'll win our prize for one of our listeners, Carl Kasell's voice on their voicemail. Bill, who is Ina Garten playing for?
KURTIS: Carol Anthony of New Orleans, La.
SAGAL: All right, you ready to play, Ina?
GARTEN: I'm ready.
SAGAL: Here's your first question. There are, of course, a lot of specialty shoes. Which of these might you really be able to slip onto your own feet? A, ski-walkers, shoes that sprout skis when you want to get down a snowy hill quickly, B, phone-holder shoes, which can hold your smartphone in the toes so you can just look at your feet and enjoy some YouTube or C, no-place-like-home shoes, you click your heels together three times and a GPS unit guides you home.
GARTEN: One of those is true?
SAGAL: It's true, one of them is.
GARTEN: What was the first one?
SAGAL: Ski-walkers, shoes that sprout skis when you want to get down a snowy hill quickly.
GARTEN: (Laughter) How about three?
SAGAL: You're going to go for three? Is that your choice?
GARTEN: I have no idea (laughter).
SAGAL: Well, three is the no-place-like-home shoes. You click your heels together and it lights up and shows you how to go home.
GARTEN: No.
SAGAL: No? You have to choose one, I'm afraid.
GARTEN: A phone-holder shoe?
SAGAL: Phone-holder shoes. That's the middle choice. You just put your phone on it, you can walk round, look down at your shoe. There's your phone.
GARTEN: (Laughter) They're all so improbable, I'm going to choose that one.
SAGAL: You're going to choose that one. No, it was actually the no-place-like-home shoes.
GARTEN: I was right the first time.
GARLIN: Oh.
ROCCA: Oh, it was the third one?
SAGAL: It was, yes.
ROCCA: Damn.
SALIE: Really?
SAGAL: These are shoes. They're not commercially available yet. But, yes, the idea is you click three times and it lights up LEDs and it points you the way home.
SALIE: Are they red, sparkly shoes?
SAGAL: I hope so. All right, next question. You still have two more chances. Shoes can get you in trouble as when which of these incidents happened? A, a fleeing drug dealer was caught by police in a nighttime foot chase 'cause he was wearing those light-up shoes that light up...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: B, 13 models ended up in a basement where the combined stress of their high heels punched through the runway floor or C, a woman's slingback mules got her thrown out of church because of salacious revealing of the toes.
GARTEN: The drug dealer.
SAGAL: You're right. It's the drug dealer.
KURTIS: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: It happened in the early '90s when those shoes were popular.
KURTIS: Good job.
SAGAL: All right, last question. If you get this, you win it all. Here we go. One day in 2014, basketball player Manu Ginobili's Nike sneakers did something nobody had ever seen before. What? A, they adhered to the ball, resulting in a scrum of people trying to pull the ball off Ginobili's foot, B, they exploded or C, they shot lasers every time Ginobili scored.
GARTEN: I think lasers.
SAGAL: You think lasers, that he had shoes that shot lasers?
GARTEN: No?
SALIE: What year was this?
SAGAL: This was just 2014.
GARTEN: They exploded?
SAGAL: They explode - you're going to choose that one?
GARTEN: Yeah.
SAGAL: That's what happened.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
GARTEN: They just exploded?
SAGAL: They just spontaneously burst into...
(APPLAUSE)
GARLIN: They did.
SAGAL: ...Pieces, yeah.
GARLIN: They were Nike Airs...
SAGAL: Yeah.
GARLIN: ...And they exploded air. It's true.
GARTEN: Like telephones, they're not allowed on airplanes now, right?
SAGAL: That's right.
ROCCA: Right, right.
SAGAL: Bill, how did Ina Garten do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Well, here, if you get 2 out of 3, you're a winner. And she did just that. Congratulations, Ina.
SAGAL: Congratulations.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Ina Garten is the Barefoot Contessa. Her latest cookbook is "Cooking For Jeffrey." Ina Garten, thank you so much for joining us.
GARTEN: So much fun.
SAGAL: Thank you, Ina. Take care.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.