What a sweet — and boozy — surprise!
Ina Garten surprised Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager with sweet treats and giant cosmos when she appeared on Thursday's episode of TODAY With Hoda & Jenna.
The Barefoot Contessa arrived on-set to meet them when they were right in the middle of cutting her famous coconut cake, which TODAY's staff dubbed "the dessert to try for the holidays." But before Jenna and Hoda could take a bite out of the treat, Garten arrived with oatmeal cookies, brownies and peanut butter and jelly bars in hand — all items available in her new Goldbelly shop.
"I was in the neighborhood and I just thought it would be so nice to bring you some goodies," she said. "I like to surprise people, just drop in."
After the ladies sampled the desserts on the table, Garten surprised them once again when she offered them giant cosmos that looked exactly like the one she went viral for in March 2020, at the onset of the pandemic. ("It's always cocktail hour in a crisis!" she famously captioned the Instagram video.)
"All those baked goods, you need something to wash it down with right? So I actually brought something else you might enjoy," Garten said. "Since it’s 10 o’clock in the morning, I thought we all needed a cosmo."
"Is this how you drink your cosmos?" Jenna asked with a stunned look on her face, and Garten hilariously replied, "Only in a pandemic."
The "Modern Comfort Food" author said she doesn't make this drink for her husband, Jeffrey, at home because he normally likes to drink vodka with olives. (Her favorite holiday drink, she said, is a Campari and soda, because it's festively red.) But when it comes to her cooking, he loves "everything" she makes.
And she's cooking up some big plans for the two of them for Christmas.
"I'm going to cook. We're going to stay home. I'm gonna make a rack of lamb. We're going to have a good time," Garten gushed. "We're going to have a movie festival. It's gonna be great!"
At the end of the segment, Garten reflected fondly on the 20 years she's been appearing on TODAY.
"I remember the first time I came on the show, and I thought to myself, 'I hope it's always as wonderful as it is this moment,' and it always has been. It's just been extraordinary, really."
Cheers to that!