NEED TO KNOW
Ina Garten introduced Taylor Swift to a cocktail so good that it made it on The Life of a Showgirl more than a decade later.
A moment between the singer and Barefoot Contessa star may have been the inspiration for one of the most talked about tracks on the 14-time Grammy winner’s latest album, “CANCELLED!”
In the 10th track on Swift’s new album, she sings, “Good thing I like my friends cancelled / I like ’em cloaked in Gucci and in scandal / Like my whiskey sour / And poison thorny flowers.”
The cookbook author was the one to introduce her to the drink, she told PEOPLE while chatting about the new season of her Food Network show Be My Guest (premiering Oct. 19).
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“So what happened was we were on the shoot and we were making a pavlova together,” Garten explained of the Food Network Magazine shoot in 2014. “So we were putting this together, and I don’t know how it even came up, we were talking about cocktails. It was like 11 o’clock in the morning, and I said, my favorite cocktail’s a whiskey sour. And she said, ‘Oh, I’ve never had one.’”
Coincidentally, the Be Ready When the Luck Happens author had a pitcher of the drink in her refrigerator, so she asked her assistant to get it.
“At 11:30 a.m., she and I were drinking whiskey sours and making pavlova together. And I remember her saying to her mother, Andrea, ‘We’re day drinking.’ It was just so sweet,” she said. “Yeah, I made her first whiskey sour.”
So, while Garten couldn’t confirm nor deny the song’s reference, she “hopes” it is true. “She inspires all of us, so I’m glad if I inspire her a little bit, that’d be great,” Garten said.
The admiration goes both ways as Swift has detailed her love for Garten over the years.
“My most potent memories of Ina come from when I first discovered her TV show,” Swift said in October 2022 for the Food Network Magazine’s celebration of Barefoot Contessa’s 20th anniversary. “I was in my teens, and my life revolved around touring. On my rare days off at home, I barely ever cooked because it had always felt like a chore.”
The “Eldest Daughter” singer went on to say that “watching Ina prepare a meal changed my perspective on cooking and reframed it as something relaxing.”
“She made cooking feel like self-care,” Swift added. “Ever since, cooking has been my escape from stress and one of the only ways I can truly calm myself on a rough day. I’ll always be grateful to her for giving me that.”
