Be My Guest with Ina Garten

Ina: I’m Ina Garten, I love to invite interesting people to my house for good food, great conversation and lots of fun. Erin French is an amazing cook.

Ina VO: Owner of the favoured Lost Kitchen restaurant in Freedom, Maine. And someone I’ve been dying to meet. So, it’ going to be wonderful to have her at the barn.

Erin: Early day muffins with Ina.

Ina VO: In return she’s sharing the secrets of her dad’s meatloaf, her ultimate comfort food.

Erin: Totally clean station, jeez.

Ina: And I’m giving her a tour of East Hampton.

Ina: And that’s the building where my store used to be.

Erin: Right here?

Ina: Yeah, that’s it.

Erin: Oh my Gosh.

Ina: I love that building. 

Erin: How awesome it is.

Ina: How fabulous is that?

Ina: Erin, can I be your sous chef?

Erin: You’re hired. 

Ina: Easiest job I ever got.

Ina: Okay, that’s the batter scooped. Next, I’m gonna put a banana chip in each muffin. That way everyone will know it’s bananas. And while I do that let me tell you about my fabulous guest.

Ina VO: Erin French’s life has been an amazing roller coaster ride. As a child in Maine, she helped out in her dad’s diner. After opening and then losing her first restaurant she cooked dinners out of an airstream trailer and then opened The Lost Kitchen in her hometown of Freedom, Maine. Population 719. In order to get a reservation, you need to send a postcard and they’re chosen by lottery. Her cookbook is one of my all-time favourites. And I love the documentary series that had the Lost Kitchen on Magnolia Network. It’s about running the restaurant with a team of amazing women and her mom is the sommelier.

Erin: I’m raising my glass as a toast. This is for all of you. To the way you felt Freedom tonight. Cheers!

Ina: VO: Erin’s best-selling memoir, Finding Freedom, which came out in 2021 is one of the most dramatic stories of disaster and recovery I’ve ever read. I can’t wait to cook with her and find out how she turned her life around and made all of her dreams come true. I just can’t wait for her to get here.

Ina: Erin, oh my gosh.

Erin: I know.

Ina: I’ve waited for this moment.

Erin: I’m having a pinch me. Wow. 

Ina: How fabulous I’m so happy you’re here.

Erin: Thank-you for having me. My gosh.

Ina: I’ll make coffee and luchens   for us. How’s that? Is that good?

Erin: Amazing, my gosh. Ina!

Ina: Isn’t this great?

Erin: For the love of barns. Oh my gosh, this is just putting my little mill to shame. 

Ina: No, I don’t think so. I’m a little emotional.

Erin: Oh my gosh. Look at all the muffins and this place.

Ina: The two of us are gonna be like dream come true.

Erin: For me too.

Ina:  Coffee?

Erin: Yes please

Ina: Coffee. I can’t wait to talk to you about everything. There’s so much to talk about. So, excited.

Erin: Those muffins smell amazing.

Ina: They’re banana crunch muffins.  Will you have one?

Erin: Yes please. Please, please, please

Ina: I’ll get you one.

Erin: Pease do. Do we dig right in? They’re still warm. They’re still warm.

Ina: Of course, they’re still warm. I always eat the tip.

Erin: That’s my favourite part.

Ina: That’s your favourite part. You know why? Because that has texture. It has more texture than the bottom, right? 

Erin: Mmm. 

Ina: Not bad, right?

Erin: Can’t believe I’m eating muffins with Ina, warm muffins. It’s like a dream come true.

Ina: Thank-you. You know I love your, I love your work because I think we see food the same way.

Erin: Mmm.

Ina: you’re, like, really good satisfying home cooking. And also, neither of us are chefs.

Erin: Uh huh.

Ina: We taught ourselves.

Rin: Girls who like to cook. 

Ina: We’re just girls who like to cook. I love that. Okay, you wanna take some coffee.

Erin: Uh huh.

Ina: We’ll go to the table and talk maybe we’ll have more muffins.

Erin: Great. 

Ina: Hopefully I’ll have you all to myself. So much fun.

Erin: The best, I can’t believe it either. The best treat. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

Ina: So, the first time I had heard of you, Heidi, who used to work for me decided she was gonna leave after about 7 years. I was devasted. And, er, she moved to Brooklyn and the next thing I know she’s working for a restaurant in Maine. I’m like, there are no restaurants in Brooklyn? She goes, this is a really special restaurant, and I was like, there are special restaurants in Brooklyn. She was like, no this is really special. They’re all women, they all work together, they have farms nearby, they cook whatever’s fresh. And I was like, okay, whatever. That’s how I found out about you and the next thing I saw was the Discovery series which just knocked me out.

Erin VO: I’m Erin French. After years trying to get away from my small hometown of Freedom, Maine I not only came back to live I opened a restaurant.

Erin: There’s a lot of people outside. Everybody ready? 

Erin VO: My kitchen family and I have no formal training. No idea what was going to happen. But we trusted that everything we needed was right here and soon people were coming from all over the world to visit us.

Ina: So, let’s start with Maine. You grew up in Maine and your father owned a diner.

Erin: Yeah.

Ina: What was that like?

Erin: Well, I was about 5 years old when my parents first bought the diner so, it was like a kindergarten moment of thinking you could have all the hot fresh donuts you wanted. You know, pancakes any way, and there was a deli bar…

Ina: And how old were you when you went to work at the diner?

Erin: Um, well, I’d really gotten into a place where if I wanted to be around my dad. I really had to be in the kitchen because he was working 16, 18-hour days and so he pulled me onto the line when I was about 12 years old.

Ina: Wow.

Erin: Clean up the eggshells. He’d say, like, come and clean up the line. He’d made a giant mess and I just had to come in and, like, clean up the pancake batter and tidy things up and that’s where I found my way.

Ina: You actually, like me, had a very difficult relationship with your father. That was your way of getting to be near him.

Erin: He was very critical, and I think that I started to find my way into food because I wanted to please him. And sometimes if you’re creating something it’s like, wow, if I had made this, you know, if I’m working beside him on the line as a young girl and I make that lobster roll just right he would give me that sorta quiet praise. And I found this joy in pleasing him. 

Ina: So, you’re in this town of Freedom, Maine, which is, I don’t know what it was at the time but population 700 something. 19-20.

Erin: It hasn’t changed. It hasn’t changed.

Ina: And you decided that your goal long-term was to get out. You wanted to get out. What was your ticket out?

Erin: I wanted to get out. I wanted to get away from my dad. Ina, I wanted to go to the city. I wanted to become a doctor. I’m gonna get into college. I’m gonna work hard. And I was gonna do something to make my parents proud and I thought that that was the way. But that was not the way things turned out.

Ina: (Laughing) This is quite a ride, it’s just extraordinary. And it’s an amazing success story but with lots of bounces along the way. So, you went to North, North Eastern University. You were there for, like, two years?

Erin: Uh huh.

Ina: And then what happened?

Erin: I ended up pregnant unexpectedly and that became the sort of moment of, well, what are you gonna do about this? You’ve just, you know, girls from the middle of nowhere don’t get multiple chances. You’re lucky if you got one and I felt like I gotten my one good chance. I got out. 

Ina: You went to a really good school in Boston. You’d gotten out. You were a pre-med.

Erin: Uh huh.

Ina: And all of a sudden, it’s like the rug’s pulled out from under you.

Erin: Things came crashing back and I went crashing home.

Ina: You are back at home where you started. So, it’s like all over again, right?

Erin: Right.

Ina: And now it’s even harder because you’ve got a baby on the way.

Erin: Right. And everything’s changed so what do you do? You’re living with your parents, all your dreams have come crashing and the only thing I felt that I was maybe good at and knew how to do was cooking. And so I went back to my dad’s diner and started cooking and expecting this baby to be on the way at any moment and sort of, resigned myself that this is where, where you, this is where you’re stuck. And this is where you put yourself in this place. And you’re just gonna have to make the best of it.

Ina: So then at some point you decided to branch out from your father’s diner. And you went to work at a, you were a waiter at a French bistro.

Erin: Yeah.

Ina: Which was a whole new kind of food. I mean, how was that food different from the diner:

Erin: Night and day. I mean, I’d never seen tart Tatin before in my life.

Ina: That’s my absolute favourite.

Erin: I mean, all of these things

Ina laughs.

Erin: It was eye-opening because I only really understood diner food and then to see that there was this whole new world of delicious flavours and a different way. It was elevated and I still understood food and it was still simple. It was still steak.

Ina: French fries.

Erin: In an elevated way and that’s what, sort of, peaks my excitement.

Ina: So, at this restaurant you met somebody who was a regular customer.

Erin: Uh huh.

Ina: And who obviously took an interest in you.

Erin: Uh huh.

Ina: So, what happened with that relationship?

Erin: Um, well, I got into this relationship. I was a young mom. I didn’t think a lot of myself. I was getting pretty low and deflated and I was waiting tables because I couldn’t make money working in the kitchen. There was no…

Ina: The hourly wage was…

Erin: There was no way. I mean, I had diapers to purchase, you know and rent, and all of these things so waiting tables seemed like the way to go and so I meet this man and I think this is, this is gonna solve all my problems.

Ina: Yeah.

Erin: It’s gonna fix all my wrongs.

Ina: And I also imagine because that’s what I felt when I was 21 and first got married. I just wanna make a home for myself and I can imagine you thinking you were gonna do the same thing.

Erin: You have this child and all of a sudden everything you thought you knew about life changes. I wanted to give him all the things that I felt that maybe I had robbed him from by being a single mom. 

Ina: And all the reasons are there but he turned out to be...

Erin: It was a toxic marriage, yeah.

Ina: But then you thought, okay, food is gonna get me out of here and there was a bank building in town that had been abandoned. Am I right that you were looking at it for, like, five years?

Erin: Five years, yeah five years it was on the market, and I would dream about that space and think about how I could create this candle-lit beautiful environment. So, I eventually decided I was gonna make a pitch to the owners coz I didn’t have any money.

Ina: No money because of…

Erin: Start small. And so, I invited the owners of the building over for lunch and I made them an apple tart and I made this pasta with collared greens and served some beautiful wine and…

Ina: I’m sure it was an unbelievable lunch.

Erin: It worked.

Ina: It must have been a beautiful lunch. 

Erin: Coz they said yes and from that simple lunch…

Ina: So, did you rent the whole building? Or just the second floor?

Erin: Just the apartment, just the apartment. I said, okay, you’re turning 30. You’re in a difficult marriage that isn’t bringing joy and it’s very challenging and what are you going to do to find your joy? And food was where I kept coming back to and so I opened this secret supper club. It was word of mouth. And I was, I was fearful. I was still very self-conscious about my food, and I was very worried if I would be any good at it, but I wanted to give it a go and I did this first dinner and I had to beg 12 friends to come over. And I only had the space for 24.

Ina: You can call me any time.

Erin: Yeah, and people showed up and at first, they were like ‘why are we paying you to come to your house for dinner?’ and then, at the end f it, it was this glorious evening, and I felt the power because I could see the joy. They clapped at the end and I just couldn’t wait to do it over and over again. 

Ina: So, you actually called this the lost kitchen.

Erin: I called it the Lost Kitchen.

Ina: Why the Lost Kitchen?

Erin: Because you had to find this place. It was a second storey apartment. You would only know it was open if I flipped on the light at the bottom of the stairwell. And it was like, what’s the most simple name and I remember thinking and I was naming it the moment just before people were about to ascend the staircase.

Ina: I can imagine. 

Erin: And that was it, so I just scribbled it on a chalkboard and thought, it’s the lost kitchen. 

(Laughter)

Ina: So, now you’ve got a great success. Everybody’s coming to this restaurant. The place is packed and you’re the only cook. If you get sick the restaurant has to close.

Erin: Right.

Ina: you’re cooking for, how many people were in that restaurant?

Erin: Oh gosh, we’d have nights when we’d do 72 covers. 

Ina: Oh!

Erin: Which was so small but…

Ina: With one person to cook?

Erin: Well, I’d have one person helping the supper club was just me And I was working, I was doing five nights a week. I was working 18-hour days. I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t sleeping. I was just, you know, constantly trying to fuel this place and keep it going because once you started it…

Ina: Yeah, you had to keep going.

Erin: You had to keep going.

Ina: And, and at some point, you start, you start just to relax yourself while you’re cooking. Have a glass of wine, another glass of wine. It becomes a bottle of wine. The pressure of getting everything ready, cooking for 72 people night after night after night.

Ern: Yeah, it was the perfect soup, I mean it was…

Ina: The perfect soup!

Erin: it was, it was brewing for a while. It was hard to see the writing on the wall. I was so head down with the business. I was so kind of trying to avoid the fact that I was in a toxic marriage. There’s one thing and I’ve said this before, if you wanna find any cracks in your relationship and you open your own business, especially a restaurant, and things will just explode. That’s what happens.

Ina: And then you found out what a really bad guy your husband was. Coz when you decided you would be better off on your own and divorced him it turned out that all of the papers that he had done to buy the building, the money from your grandfather, he put all of the assets in his name and all 0f the debt in your name.

Erin: Right.

Ina: he ended up with everything and you ended up with this huge debt, which was the loan, the loan for the bank building. And so, what happened next?

Erin: Well, I mean my mom, my sweet mom, picked me up and got me home and took me in and, um, supported me throughout that divorce because it was a warzone for a while. But you know my mom would just wake up with a smile on her face and say ‘okay we’ll figure out how to pay these bills today. Let’s send this person ten dollars so you’re not in collections and let’s go figure this out.

Ina: I can’t even imagine. It’s just incredible and I think you’ know, we talk about, oh I’m depressed or whatever. I don’t think you realise what real depression is.

Erin: Mmm.

Ina: Until you’re in it. So, then she decided that you should check yourself into rehab, which is probably really good. Hard thing to do.

Erin: I could feel my body start to shut down and I knew, I knew if I keep going, I’m not going to be alive next year. I might not be alive next month. I knew that I had to keep going, and to keep going I had to get better

Ina: So you’re home and you know there’s one thing that brings you joy, which is cooking, and taking care of people so some friends found an Airstream, am I right?

Erin: Yeah.

Ina: For $5,000 it must have been a really run-down Airstream. (Laughter)

Erin: There’s s nothing cathartic than taking a sledgehammer to the inside of an old camper and gutted it and outfitted it and really, like I had a 1930’s gas stove. I think I singed my bangs off first summer. It was a train wreck of a camper, but I didn’t care. I gotta keep going. 

Ina: And then, there’s an old mill in your town that was really run down and somebody in the town decided to resurrect that.

Erin: Uh huh. So, we had a couple, a couple who came in and decided they saw the potential of this space.

Ina: remember the mill is on a river. So, it’s in the middle of nowhere. And a town that’s nowhere, so it’s really remote, right?

Erin: It was a crazy idea. I mean, so it was the right people to team up with. You know, two people doing crazy things. And I went and pitched this crazy idea to them.

Ina: To do a restaurant.

Erin:  To do a restaurant.  

Ina: The Lost Kitchen.

Erin: Yeah. And you know they, they, the rumour mill was just all over the place about what was going on in my life.

Ina: Small town. That’s what happens with small towns.

Erin: Yeah. Everyone knew that I was going through this crazy time in my life, and I was not really probably the girl you wanted to make an investment with and say ‘yes please, take this space and do what you will with it’. Um, but they listened to me and at the end of the day they turned to me and said, you know, we believe in second chances. And, for the Mill, the second chance was that. It was like the sun finally started to come out and things started to fall in place when I started to really focus on being my best self.

Ina: Okay, so now you’ve got a real restaurant and the kitchen coz I haven’t been there yet, but I’ll be going. If I can get a reservation. There’s, um, the kitchen’s open to the dining room and it’s basically, basically like an old barn room, right? So, how did you think about setting it up?

Erin: I wanted it to be an open kitchen. I wanted it to feel like you came into my home and you’re sitting at my counter, or you’re sitting at my big, long, communal table and you were in my house and you were my guest. I wanted to bring you plates that I had just pulled out of the oven fresh and warm.

Ina: Who doesn’t? I mean it’s fabulous, absolutely fabulous. 

Ina:  So, the Mill looks amazing but there’s so much more to it than that.

Erin: Yes.

Ina: So, you pulled together women from those around you that had their own produce, and they would bring their own produce and their flowers and that’s what you use and that’s what you cook. This is an amazing story because it’s very easy to cook from a recipe. You just follow the instructions. You have no idea when you start the day what those women are gonna bring for you to cook. Am I right?

Erin: Yeah.

Ina: I mean, you might have ordered some seafood, you might have ordered some herbs and things, but you guys cook from what’s there and to me that just sounds like an absolute high-wire act.

Erin: It does make my heart pound every day. I’m terrified and I do, it makes me, it makes me very anxious.

Ina: So, now this restaurant opens, like, in the second year people have heard about it. You’re nominated for James Beard Awards for this restaurant and, multiple times and you open this registration line to make registrations. In April. What happens? Your phone explodes.

Erin: The phone explodes.

Ina: Yeah, I mean, we went from being the girls in, like, this little piece of, our reservation system was, basically, pencil and paper. People would call and we were booked up for a couple of weeks, and then a couple of months. The third year is when it really exploded.

Ina: You were booked in the first 24 hours for the entire season.

Erin: Yeah. 

Ina: Isn’t that incredible? The entire season. And then you did something which I think is so karmic. So, Erin lives in a small town, Freedom, Maine. So, basically two places to go. The General Store and the Post Office and you’d heard a rumour that the Post Office might close.

Erin: Uh huh.

Ina: And so instead of having the reservations, having people call what did you decide to do?

Erin: To save the Post Office? Well, no. there are a couple of reasons here. Yes, we had heard the Post Office was reducing its hours and it’s a rural town and so the next post is gonna make quite a difference. And, then. You know, we had really crashed our phone system. We couldn’t do this anymore. And for me, I was so, it was so exciting because I had built it and people were coming. It was this dream come true. It was like a total Field of Dreams moment but at the same time it comes with its own burdens. There were parts that I knew were magic and I knew it was special and I wanted to retain that. So I really got into this protection mode and I wanted to slow everything down because we live in this world...

Ina: Interesting, yeah.

Erin: That wants everything to be fast and everything on-line, instant and everything’s supposed to be quick. And, for me, all of a sudden, I need to slow everything down right now. It has to and to think about that as a reservation process I thought, well, what’s slower than the internet and the phone, what’s slower than the phone than the postcard?

(laughter) 

WOMAN DINER: This girl can hardly wait to find out if she’ll be celebrating her 50th birthday at the Lost Kitchen this year.

Woman 2: And she is.  I’ll do the scratch and sniff.

Ina: So, people send their postcards in by April 1st. it’s a lottery system?

Erin: Yes.

Ina: And you literally pick a post card for every single seat for the entire season. And somebody calls them up on the phone?

Erin: This is your name.

Ina: It’s you? You call them on the phone?

Erin: Yeah. It’s me.

Ina: The pioneer of a frontier restaurant: would you like it in July? Like, really?

Erin: No-one ever answers on the first call.

(Dials number)

Man: Hello?

Erin: How are you. It’s Erin from the Lost Kitchen. I’m so glad you answered. You were the very first card that we just pulled.

Man: Wow. That is amazing.

Erin: Yeah. 

(next call)

Woman: Hi, this is Ellen.

Erin: Hi, Ellen it’s Erin calling from the Lost Kitchen.

Woman: Oh my God, you’re kidding me.

Erin: No. I’m not kidding you.

Woman: I’m getting my dream phone call let me find a pen.

Erin: Okay.

Ina: And also, the level of expectation. They’ve come from all over the country, and they’ve waited for years for this reservation. The pressure must be just extraordinary.

Erin: It’s huge.

Man: Dale and Cat here from Denver, Colorado.

Woman: We’ve been waiting a really long time for this. I think we applied two years in a row. You feel like you’ve won if you can get here.

(Man goes down on one knee to propose on bridge)

Woman: Oh my God, oh my God.

(Cheers)

Voice: One knee! 

Erin: I remember the feeling of realising when people started saying things like, the best meal of my life and the pressure to produce that over and over again. And to create that, and you know they’re coming in there with expectations that are up to here. But, then I realised that what that was actually doing was adrenalin and it was pushing us as a group of women to become stronger. We were becoming our better self.

Ina: Incredible. And then something happened that changed your life. Is that you found a wonderful husband.

(laughter)

Erin: Here’s a chance for a second for love too, so I, I met my now husband. On Golden Match.com. But…

Ina: Isn’t that great?

Erin: Yeah, we became pen-pals at first because we were living 400 miles apart and really got to know each other through writing emails every day and I was in love with him before I met him.

Ina: Oh, that’s sweet. And he lived in New York. You lived in Maine, Freedom Maine.

Erin: I know. 

(Laughter)

Erin: Where are you taking me to? What is it? And we’ve, we’ve really built a life together and now to be in this warm and nurturing and loving supportive relationship. Just Ina, I know you know that too. And to have that…

Ina: It makes everything worth living for. And then, somebody decides they want to make a major feature film out of you, out of your life. Oh my gosh.

Erin: Yes.

Ina: That’s incredible. Is that scary?

Erin: Yeah.

Ina: So, you had 13 people bidding for the movie?

Eerin: Yeah.

Ina: That must have been like, the moment you’re like, woo!

Erin: We were having some whacky zooms. I couldn’t believe that I’m sitting in my little Freedom and then a zoom comes on and there’s Lake Lively talking to you and like wanting to play you and talking to you, like, how is this happening? 

Ina: She’s great.

Erin: Yeah, and then it’s Ron Howard’s company is calling you and they want to, they want to do you…

Ina: I can’t imagine.

Erin: It was wild, it was a really wild time.

Ina: (laughs) I can’t wait to see the movie.it certainly doesn’t lack in drama. They don’t have to make that up. That’s baked in the cake. So, are you gonna teach me how to make your father’s meatloaf?

Erin: I would love to teach you how.

Ina: That would be so much fun. And, of course, we all love meatloaf.

Ina: So, there’re certain foods that everybody really loves and one of them is meatloaf. Classic comfort food. Erin learned how to make meatloaf next to her father at the diner, right?

Erin: Yeah. I sure did.

Ina: She’s gonna teach me how to make it next to you.

(laughter)

Erin: I have the best sous-chef help ever. 

Ina: I’m so happy to be your sous-chef. How am I doing slicing bread?

Erin: You’re doing great. It’s beautiful.

Ina: So, what are you doing? You’re doing thyme?

Erin: Yeah, I’m just picking a little bit of thyme. 

Ina: I’ve never seen carrots in meatloaf so it’s in there going in, right?

Erin: They are, and I know that’s sounds strange, but I feel like this was a signature part of my dad’s meatloaf. I’ve never seen anyone else put carrots in a meatloaf.

Ina: Yeah. This is very cool.

Erin: I know we’re using fancy bread, coz this is the father and daughter version of this meatloaf.

Ina: Yeah.

Erin: My dad would often, at the diner, he would use the heels of the soft white bread at the end of service from the breakfast shift and make the lunch meatloaf.

Ina: How smart, how smart is that? So would he cube it up or would he just tear it?

Erin: He’d cube it up or tear it, whatever mood he was in that day. 

Ina: I’m in a cubing mood. Do you ever make this at home?

Erin: I make this at home quite frequently. Once a month. Yeah, it’s kind of a go to. 

Ina: Is this about the right size?

Erin: Yeah, that looks good, perfect.

Ina: Oh my gosh, am I doing it right?

Erin: That’s the way I feel, I’m on the job too.

Ina: So, this should be about two cups, about, right?

Erin: Ina, yeah. The next job we have, we have the carrots. I take the box grater and then I just like to take, I like to use the biggest one because I like seeing the carrots. So, it’s really good to getting a grate on there. Grate the carrots get them ready to go in.

Ina: So, wait a second the carrots have sugar in them, there’s a sweetness about it that will be great with the meatloaf.

Erin: Yeah,

Ina: So, how do you develop recipes? When I’m figuring out a recipe I wanna do it’s usually a remembered flavour, but I get something really exact in my head, exactly what I’m shooting for and then I read everything there is to read about whatever it is I’m making. Meatloaf. And then I put everything away before cooking it over and over until I get there. What’s your process?

Erin: Oh, gosh, you know, I’m probably one of the worst as far as putting recipes together because I have this stack of just scrap paper in my kitchen and when I’m coming up with the recipes, I’m thinking about how I want it to taste and I start by writing it down. And so, now I have is a stack of pieces of paper with no titles at the top, they’re just ingredients and only I know the secret to them and what to do with them. I keep stacking them and they’re covered in egg yolks and covered with butter stains, and they’re covered with salt and then, if it makes it to my computer and I actually put it in…

Ina: Yes, that’s exactly right. Isn’t that interesting? My test is actually after we’ve made it and my assistant who’s been helping me prepping. If she goes home and makes it for her family, I know it makes it into a book.

Erin: maybe I’ll have you finish up with these. I’ll grab the bowl because we’re getting very close, and we’ll start to put everything together. 

Ina: The pressure is on.

Erin: While you’re doing that, I’m just gonna, you know what I’d kinda like to do? Kinda like to get everything soaking a little bit. These bread, the bread just likes to get nice and…

Ina: Isn’t that smart? That’s great.

Erin: That’s the bread, now I’m just gonna put the milk right over the top to let it soak in. Gonna give the eggs a little whisk. Now it’s soaking I’m adding the shallots and I’m sprinkling in that little bit of thyme. All the flavours are gonna start to come together and this bread is gonna get nice and moist to bind everything together. You want a moist meatloaf; no-one likes a dry meatloaf.

Ina: No. Never.

Erin: Exactly. We can sprinkle the carrots.

Ina: All of it?

Erin: Go for it. Go for it.

Ina: Go for it, okay. It’s really interesting.

Erin: It feels healthy in this way. And then, um, we’ve got some other interesting ingredients.

Ina: What kind of cheese is that?

Erin: So, I put pecorino, in here because that’s my favourite cheese.

Ina:Yeah.

Erin: Because it’s a sheep’s milk cheese that’s a little salty. When my dad would make it a lot at the diner he would frequently use like pizza mozzarella because we had pizza ovens and would just grab a big handful of shredded mozzarella so it can really be what cheese you have on hand.

Ina: But pecorino really has more flavour.

Erin: I think so.

Ina: Yeah.

Erin: You have two different kinds of meat. I like mixing the pork and the beef because I think it brings out more flavour.

Ina: I do too.

Erin: Not just plain beef, so I’ll go ahead and add in the pork.

Ina: So, is that about a pound and a half?

Erin: Yeah, about a pound and a half of each. So, a 50/50 mix and you know, the special thing about meatloaf is it can be whatever you want it to be.

Ina: I actually do it sometimes with sausage.

Erin: Yeah, why not?

Ina: Which makes a lot of flavour, a lot of flavour.

Erin: Yeah, and then the most important ingredient.

Ina: Salt.

Erin: Salt and pepper. Love pepper. And then, we’re pretty much ready to start mixing it with our hands. The only way to really get in there.

Ina: And feel whether it’s well mixed.

Erin: Well, part of being a self-taught cook is you have to have that intuition. And how can you have the intuition if you’re not…

Ina: Touching it.

Erin: Working with it. And touching it and feeling it and just, like, to feel it all together. 

Ina: How about if I clean up my mess here?

Erin: Yeah, clean up your station, please. Don’t feel bad. The ladies At the Lost Kitchen give me a hard time all the time, they actually have…

Ina: ?

Erin: Well, I’m a mess maker.

Ina: Oh!

Erin: They are always cleaning up after me. 

Ina: You know what they called me at the store? Hurricane. Need I say more? Because what would happen, I would start some thing and then I’d get distracted to something else and then a customer was on the phone for, you know, a catering order  and the next thing I knew I’d just walked away from it.

Erin: You’d taken over every, everywhere, every surface.

Ina: Right.

Erin: Okay, we’re ready. So, go ahead and just. Yeah, go ahead.

Ina: Okay.

Erin: And if I didn’t break that evenly you can steal a little bit. 

Ina: Perfect, okay.

Erin: Now I’m just gonna get washed up because now one of the best parts. We’re going to make the glaze. The glaze is the magic part.

Erin: So, the glaze is so simple and there should be all things that you just have in your pantry anyway. So, we’ve got a little bowl over here.

Ina: Okay. 

Erin: And then, how easy, it’s just ketchup.

Ina: Wait a minute ‘how easy’ is what I say. (Laughs) Just kidding.

Erin: Some ketchup, ketchup goes right in.

Ina: Yeah. 

Erin: And then we’ve got a little half a cup of brown sugar.

Ina: Brown sugar, sweet meat, oh that sounds good. And?

Erin: And just a little spoonful of mustard like that. Yeah, just go for it. That’s good. That won’t hurt anybody. Um, this is Dijon but you know, back in the day, when all we had was like a French and Sialo mustard in the fridge, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s kind of delicious as well.

Ina: Exactly.

Erin: And that’s it. This is just a super, super, super simply glaze.

Ina: I love recipes where you probably have everything in your pantry or the door of your refrigerator, right?

Erin: Right.

Ina: And that’s it?

Erin: Yeah, it’s ready to do. 

Ina: Great, wow.

Erin: I’m just going to pour it on half and half and then if you spread and brush out for me.

Ina: This is gonna be so good.

Erin: Yeah.

Ina: So are these done?

Erin: Yeah, this is ready. Into the oven for about 45 minutes at 375 degrees and then let it rest for about 10 minutes.

Ina: Can’t wait to taste it.

Ina: Okay, I got the door, you got the meatloaf. This is girls working together.

Erin: This is so great, oh my gosh. I hope you love it.

(They embrace)

Ina: Of course, I’m gonna love it. Can we talk about your mess here? This is my station, that’s yours. 

Erin: Messy cooks make great food.

Ina: Right.

Erin: Oh, that’s great. 

Ina: So, the meatloaf’s done. I can’t wait to taste this.

Erin: Yeah. Smells great.

Ina: So, rest it for ten minutes.

Erin: Yeah, that’s how you keep it nice and juicy and I’ll just un-mould it and we’ll slice into it and see if it tastes like my childhood. 

Ina: Ha, ha. Why do I think it will? 

Erine: Alright.

Ina: Look how gorgeous that is.

Erin: My knife right here.

Ina: What is it about meatloaf it’s just so appealing isn’t it?

Erin: Mmm. 

Ina: Especially if it’s your childhood memory. 

Erin: It’s comforting, it’s really comforting. I’m sorry, I’m gonna use my tools right here.

Ina: Your best tools are your hands. Ha, ha. Oh, look at that. So interesting inside. You can really see the ingredients.

Erin: Mmm, mmm. 

Ina:  Look at that, wow. Do I get to taste it?

Erine: Yeah, so one for you.

Ina: Thanks, mom. 

Erin: Yes, thanks dad. Alright, let’s see what we think. 

Ina: Okay, dad’s meatloaf. Mmm.

Erin: Uh huh.

Ina: It’s so good. It’s so interesting. You can actually taste the sweetness of the carrot. 

Erin: Uh huh.

Ina: Alright, and the glaze is fabulous. Mmm, my God.

Erin: Yeah.

Ina: I’m so making this. It’s really good. Okay, so you’ve never been to East Hampton before?

Erin: No.

Ina: Shall I give you a little tour?

Erin: Please

Ina: And I’m gonna stop and get you a little something sweet at the end. What do you think?

Erin: Let’s do it. That’d be really fun.

Ina: East Hampton’s pretty small. It’s like, it’s bigger than Freedom.

Erin: it’s gotta be bigger than Freedom, anything’s bigger.

Ina: Well, this is main street and then there’s the shopping street which is new town lane. But these houses date back to 1640 which is what I love about East Hampton. I think people think it’s this really fancy place but, in fact, it’s, you know, it’s farmland and fishing and there’s a lot of historic buildings. Like this is Martha’s Farm the original windmill that’s been restored. And these are all buildings that date back to the 16, 1700’s. And they’ve all been restored.

Erin: Gorgeous. 

Ina: And, you know, the village green and I just think it gives the village a real grounding that’s a real place and the library’s very old. And this is Guildhall where there’s a theatre,

Erin: And there’s stop-lights, we don’t have one of those. I’m not in Kansas.

(laughter)

Ina: So, this is, kinda, the shopping street The hardware store. 

Erin: Ooh, that’s a good-looking hardware store.

Ina: Isn’t that great? It is, a great hardware store. The pizzeria.

Erin: Yeah.

Ina: Really good pizza. Pan pizza and this is the building, an old office building and that’s the building my store used to be in.

Erin: This one here?

Ina: Yeah, that’s it. Yeah. That’s it, that’s the building.

Erin: Oh my gosh.

Ina: I love that building. And, before me it was Dino de Luca and before that it was a movie theatre.

Erin: Wow. 

Ina: So that’s the main shopping street. And now we’re going to my favourite little café restaurant bakery that I think you’ll really like.

Erin: Perfect. Another windmill!

Ina: Yeah, within about half a mile. Who’d have thought in East Hampton.

Ina: Yes, and this is Clarissa’s. 

Erin: I love it, I love it already.

Ina: I thought you might, it’s just fabulous. 

Erin: I can’t wait. 

Ina: Let’s go.

Ina: A little Russian sage. I love the kind of wildness of it, don’t you?

Erin: Yeah, it’s got a nice feel. 

Ina: So, this is Clarissa’s.

Ina: Hi, Rene.

Woman: How are you?

Ina: This is Erin.

Erin: How are you?

Woman: Nice to meet you.

Ina: This is pretty fabulous, right?

Woman: Yeah, we have a full case today.

Ina: These look amazing, don’t they? Little pastries.

Erin:  Beautiful. Oh. I love the edible flowers.

Woman: I know. And the gold leaf.

Erin: Gorgeous.

Ina: So these, Lorrie brought up some of these. They’re little cheesecake tarts. A little sour cherry on them, right?

Woman: Yes.

Ina: Does that sound good?

Erin: Yes. 

Woman: I’ll plate these. A cherry one?

Ina: Yes. Can you put it on my tab.?

Woman: Yeah. 

Ina: I want everything. 

Erin: Thank-you so much.

Ina: Come with me. 

Ina: How great is this? I hope you like it. Doesn’t this feel like France?

Erin: It sure does coz of the trees and the umbrellas.

Ina: Look how gorgeous this is.

Erin: Oh my gosh. There’s cherries on the bottom.

Ina: The cherries on the top and the cherries on the bottom. Cheers.

Erin: Perfect.

Ina: Isn’t it perfect? Okay, I have a pop quiz. What movies have you seen the most?

Erin: The one I used to watch over and over and over again was You’ve got Mail.

Ina: Isn’t that great? I love that Nora Effron. What food makes you happy?

Erin: Tapioca pudding.

Ina: Oh! That’s interesting.

Erin: My mom would always make dessert after dinner, and she always had minute tapioca and I tried so hard to make a homemade tapioca and there’s nothing like minute tapioca.

Ina: Isn’t that great? What was the best job you’ve ever had?

Erin: The best job I ever had was probably working for a catering company that I worked for.

Ina: Really? 

Erin: Yeah, really. It was the first time I ever thought food was beautiful.

Ina: That was really inspiring.

Erin: It inspired me, so it was one of my favourite jobs.

Ina: What was the worst job you’ve ever had?

Erin: the worst job I ever had? Um, sometimes it would have been working at my dad’s diner but those were also beautiful moment so that was hard.

Ina: Sometimes the worst job you ever had could be the best one too.

Erin: Yeah. 

Ina: It depends on the day.

Erin:  It was a fry station. My dad’s diner was a fry station.

Ina: What’s the best present you ever got.

Erin: A set of earrings that my husband had made for me. He had shavings taken from our wedding bands it was one of the best.

Ina: Oh, lovely, really thoughtful, that’s great. And the last question is from James Wilson, the famous interviewer. If heaven exists what would you like to hear God say when you arrive?

Erin: I guess that’d  be you did okay.

Ina: I think you did more than okay. 

Erin: Thank-you.

Ina: I think you did brilliantly. Thank-you so much Erin. I just so loved today. Loved getting to know you.

Erin: One hundred percent. Thank-you. 

Ina: How fun.