Ina Garten’s first beer pong experience included an invite from Taylor Swift and coaching from soccer star Abby Wambach — and it didn’t go well.
“I’m crazy about Taylor Swift,” Garten, 76, gushed during an episode of WSJ. Magazine’s The One series published on Tuesday, September 24.
The chef and cookbook author revealed that after attending one of Swift’s concerts, she ventured backstage and quickly entered another universe. “After the show, [Taylor] invited us to go to a party that she gave for all of the crew,” Garten recalled.
After Garten’s friend suggested, “Let’s go play beer pong,” she moseyed over to the table where Wambach, 44, was hanging out after recently winning the World Cup Championship for soccer.
Wambach approached Garten and said, “I’m going to be your advisor,” according to the baker.
“I’m like, ‘Great.’ I said, ‘What’s your advice?’” Garten remembered. “She said, ‘Get the f—ing ball in the f—ing cup!’ And I was like, ‘That’s your advice?'”
Garten confessed that she’d never played the drinking game. When asked if she was good, she yelled, “No!” revealing she hasn’t tried again since Swift’s party.
Although playing beer pong was a first, Garten and Swift’s friendship goes way back. “The first time I saw her was here [on the Today show],” Garten told Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie during an October 2022 appearance on Today.
Garten said Swift was only 16 when she saw her perform on the plaza. “I remember my assistant and I hanging out of the upstairs window like two teenagers, just going, ‘Oh, my gosh, she’s amazing!’” she detailed.
The Barefoot Contessa host and Swift later did a photo shoot and cooked together when the pop star was 25. “I just so fell in love with her,” Garten told the talk show hosts at the time.
“Just another day at the office,” Garten teased via Instagram in March 2014 after working with Swift for a Food Network Magazine piece, which was their first official meeting. “OMG cooking with Taylor Swift! Love her!!!”
Garten shared a selfie with the Grammy winner on her social media page. Swift had short blond curls during the cooking lesson and rocked her signature red lipstick for the picture. Garten, meanwhile, was smiling from ear-to-ear as she posed with the singer.
Swift has been a big fan of Garten for years, which she shared in October 2022 as part of Food Network Magazine’s celebration of Barefoot Contessa’s 20th anniversary.
“My most potent memories of Ina come from when I first discovered her TV show. I was in my teens, and my life revolved around touring,” Swift told the magazine via People. “On my rare days off at home, I barely ever cooked because it had always felt like a chore.”
When Swift watched Garten prepare her meals it “changed” her “perspective on cooking and reframed it as something relaxing,” she shared.
“She made cooking feel like self-care. Ever since, cooking has been my escape from stress and one of the only ways I can truly calm myself on a rough day,” Swift, who is known for her homemade Pop-Tarts and cinnamon rolls, added. “I’ll always be grateful to her for giving me that.”
Swift has also been candid about her beer games backstage at previous tours, noting that for her nearly four-hour Eras Tour performances, she’s had to change how handles being on the road. She joked to Time in 2023 that she used to tour “like a frat guy,” but her Eras Tour, which ends in December, was “harder than anything I’ve ever done before by a long shot.”
She trained for six months before her first show in spring 2023, saying, “Every day I would run on the treadmill, singing the entire setlist out loud. Fast for fast songs, and a jog or a fast walk for slow songs.” (Garten attended one of Swift’s Paris shows this summer.)
