The girls are back together!
Good friends Jennifer Garner and Ina Garten collaborated in the kitchen once again for a special Thanksgiving event for the Walmart Community Table initiative at Calamigos Ranch in Malibu on Tuesday. The pair, along with Walmart chef Mark Emery and World Food Championships Winner Lidia Haddadian, cooked up healthy holiday recipes for around 150 members of local nonprofit organizations and their families.
Garner and Garten received help from some of the kids in attendance to make an apple crisp and chipotle sweet mashed potatoes. They shared food and holiday traditions as they served the families — who work for organizations like Save the Children, YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles, Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, and Special Needs Network Inc. — before joining them to eat. Other dishes from the event included Brussels sprouts and stuffed turkey with gravy.
The Barefoot Contessa star shared a candid snapshot from the night, writing, “What a great cause and fun too!”
“Thanksgiving is all about cooking and baking and it’s also about just plain old being together,” added Garner on her own post. “This evening had all of it-and we loved every minute.”
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Garner teamed up with Walmart in October to help launch the Walmart Community Table, and met with Walmart workers to highlight dishes that are meaningful to them. The initiative encourages others to do the same by sharing special recipes and using their hashtag #walmartcommunitytable.
It was only natural for the duo to pair up for this give-back event. Garner and Garten have been friends for about four years now, and this marks the second year they’ve collaborated for Thanksgiving. Garner announced last year that her Facebook “Pretend Cooking Show” was invited to do a special cameo appearance in Garten’s Thanksgiving special on Food Network.
The chef has previously opened up about the time they first met: “Somewhere along the line I found out that she liked my cookbooks and my TV show, so I asked if we could cook together,” Garten recalled to PEOPLE in 2018. “She was very sweet she invited me to her birthday party. It was all girls in swimsuits—it was so Jennifer! It was so fun and not fancy, which is what she’s like.”
