Ina Garten Is The First Guest On The New Julia Child Podcast

The first episode of HBO Max's much-anticipated biographical series "Julia" just dropped, and it's already earning high praise (via Variety) for its portrayal of the real-life Julia Child, the "flesh-and-bones" woman behind the iconic chef, television personality, and feminist figure.

If each episode of "Julia" leaves you wanting more (new episodes drop every Thursday), the show also has a companion podcast, "Dishing On Julia," hosted by Kerry Diamond, founder of "Cherry Bombe," a magazine/website and podcast that focuses on women and food. Each week, the podcast, according to HBO Max's YouTube page, will include a recap of the latest episode of the series and will feature interviews with various cast members and creators behind the show as well as special guests.

The first episode featured discussions with "Julia" producers Daniel Goldfarb and Kimberly Carver, as well as the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten. Why kick off the podcast series by interviewing Garten? According to host Diamond, the immensely successful Garten is, like Child, a self-taught cook and, of course, is also a famous cooking show host — a forum Child helped to create. Moreover, Garten says she taught herself how to cook by working her way through Child's magnum opus, "Mastering The Art Of French Cooking." Garten once even told the "Today Show" that, "I would have to say that Julia Child's my biggest culinary inspiration because she really taught me how to cook through her cookbooks ... I learned how to make hollandaise sauce the right way, and then she showed me how to make it the quick way without losing any of the quality."

In the first episode of "Dishing On Julia" — the official companion podcast to the HBO Max Series "Julia," starring Sarah Lancashire as Child and David Hyde Pierce as her husband Paul — Ina Garten discusses with host Kerry Diamond about the woman at the center of the drama. The same woman she calls "one of her heroes" (via YouTube and Food & Wine), the trailblazing author, chef, and television personality Julia Child.

There are interesting parallels between the lives of the two women. Neither discovered cooking until their 30s, and each after careers in government (via Insider and Biography). Also, like newlyweds Julia and Paul Child, a young Ina and Jeffrey Garten spent months in France, and this is where each woman discovered their interest in French cooking. In fact, Garten said in her spot on "Dishing on Julia" that it was only after returning to the U.S. from France that she purchased Child's famous "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." As Garten said, "That really was the beginning of my culinary education, my self-education."

Garten also revealed in the podcast that the life of Child taught her much about success in television. She told host Kerry Diamond that people like Child succeed not because they are more talented or lucky, but because they "push right through" barriers that stand in their way. The Barefoot Contessa mused, "I'm sure nobody thought anybody would want to watch somebody making an omelet on TV. And yet she believed in it. She really believed in it and she just kept going."