Ina Garten, since opening specialty store Barefoot Contessa in 1978 and subsequently turning the brand into an iconic cooking show in 2002, has built quite the enviable empire.
The Food Network star's fans have long vied for her epic East Hampton home and breathtaking garden, her romantic Paris apartment, and, though she of course is best known for her cooking (and her over ten cookbooks), her storybook romance with her beloved husband Jeffrey Garten has become as undetachable from her image as her signature poplin shirts.
Fans always know to see the legendary chef to dedicate each one of her books to her husband, who she has been married to for nearly 60 years. Revisit their love story and what we know about their marriage below.
© InstagramEarly days
Ina and Jeffrey first met in 1963 while on the campus of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, when Ina, then 15-year-old Ina Rosenberg, was visiting her brother. Jeffrey saw her from a library window, sent her a letter with his picture, and they began a long-distance courtship.
They tied the knot at Ina's parents' house in Connecticut in December 1968, and were subsequently sent to live in Fayetteville, North Carolina, as Jeffrey had enlisted in the army.
Four years into their marriage — during which they spent a year apart while Jeffrey was stationed in Thailand, and spent four months together backpacking through Europe — they moved to Washington D.C., where he worked for the State Department and her as a nuclear-budget analyst at the Office of Management and Budget.
© Getty ImagesMeet Jeffrey
Jeffrey, 79, is an economist, businessman, and former government official, currently Dean Emeritus at the Yale School of Management, where he teaches several economics courses.
© InstagramHe worked in the Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations in both the White House and at the State Department, and was the United States Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade under Clinton, as well as a managing director of Lehman Brothers and later of the Blackstone Group.
On their decision to not have kids
In a conversation with BBC News' Katty Kay in 2023, Ina, 77, opened up about her and Jeffrey's decision to not have kids, something they decided on early on, in part because of how Ina might not be able to have done what she wanted to do professionally had she had them. "I think it's much harder," she said of balancing children with a career, though noted she doesn't think it's solely why she made the decision.
© GettyIna confessed it's in fact her childhood, it not being something she ever wanted to "recreate," that truly influenced her decision. At the time, she was working on writing her memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens, and she said: "I'm always looking forward to look back and realized a lot of my decisions were based on my childhood," adding: " I think that was the motivating factor."
Plus, she endearingly declared: "And Jeffrey and I were just so happy together."
