Ina Garten's down-to-earth style has endeared her to millions of television viewers. She's
a New York Times bestseller and a longtime favorite of Food Network fans. How did she
go from the White House to cooking up a culinary empire? Let's take a look at how Ina Garten's
transformation is turning heads.
With a resume that includes accolades of business owner, chef, television host, and author,
it's a given that Ina Garten has got some serious brain power. That intelligence showed
through for Ina even as a young child.
Born Ina Rosenberg, Garten was an excellent student, gaining extra marks for her careful,
detail-oriented nature and high marks in science classes, according to Good Housekeeping. That
braininess took her all the way to New York's Syracuse University. She particularly loved
her science classes, which would play an important role in her career as a chef. Garten told
Good Housekeeping that:
"All of her recipes and ingredients are measured precisely — as if they were a scientific
equation."
Garten's ability to learn things quickly would prove to be a vital trait in her professional
life. And she's taught herself everything she knows, from how to make a chicken pot
pie to the myriad ins and outs of running a small business.
In 1964, a teenage Ina took a trip to Dartmouth College to visit her brother, who was a freshman
at the higher education institution. She caught the attention of her future husband, Jeffrey
Garten, when he spotted her out the library window. He pointed her out to his roommate,
who not only knew who Ina was but had already planned a date with her that night.
Once Ina went back home, Jeffrey began writing her letters. Six months later, Jeffrey showed
up at Ina's house in Stamford, Connecticut ready to take her on a date. But that first
date was, as Ina described it to Food Network, quote, "a disaster." The two drove to a bar
in New York, as the legal drinking age in the state was 18 at the time. Ina was still
in high school. She told Food Network:
"I had never been to a bar in my life! The guy at the door says, 'Where's your ID?' and
I thought, 'What ID?'"
But the early speedbump in their relationship didn't deter the couple. They continued to
date as Ina went off to Syracuse University. The couple eventually married in 1968 when
Ina was 20 years old.
Ina Garten was still attending Syracuse University after getting married in December of 1968,
but she postponed her college career to move to Fort Bragg, North Carolina with her husband,
according to Country Living. Jeffrey had enlisted as an officer in the United States Army and
was to serve a four-year military tour during the Vietnam War.
Although she was putting off her pursuit of a college degree, the move to North Carolina
may have been the most important step in her future culinary career even if it didn't seem
that way to Ina at first. With Jeffrey away all the time, she began cooking and entertaining
guests as an enjoyable way to keep busy. Garten told People:
"From the time we got married, I really was interested in cooking, but I had never cooked
at all. He encouraged it so much by just being so appreciative when I cooked, and that was
really the beginning of my career."
Ina would eventually go back and finish college once Jeffrey's military service was complete.
His continued support proved to be vital to Ina throughout her studies. As she wrote in
Cooking for Jeffrey: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, he was:
"The first feminist I ever knew."
Ina Garten's success and accomplishments are made even morre admirable by the fact that
she has no formal culinary training. Her expertise comes from a nearly lifelong interest in all
things cooking, not to mention the help of some very good cookbooks.
Garten had already begun dabbling in cooking during her time in North Carolina. According
to Eater, after Jeffrey's military service was over, the couple traveled to France and
lived there for four months. It was her time abroad where Garten fell in love with food.
She shopped at the farmer's market and was entranced by the sights of locals eating outdoors.
Her experiences echoed those of the legendary chef, author, and television personality Julia
Child, who had also lived in France while studying how to cook.
When she returned back to the United States, Garten began teaching herself to cook by diving
headfirst into Child's cookbooks. Garten told Today:
"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."
It's not exactly shocking for careers to shift and change throughout a person's life. But
it's difficult to imagine a more dramatic career change than going from nuclear energy
to cookbook author. That's precisely what Ina Garten did, with a brief stopover at none
other than the White House.
In the 1970s, Garten and her husband moved to Washington, D.C. where she landed a job
at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Originally finding work as a relatively low-ranking White House
aide, Garten worked her way up to become a budget analyst in the Office of Management
and Budget. She was responsible for writing the country's nuclear energy budget. She held
the job during the terms of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. She also wrote policy
papers helping to establish regulations for nuclear power plants.
But it didn't take long for Garten to learn that the job simply wasn't right for her.
By the end of the decade, she was already looking for a new path that was something,
quote, "more creative and fun than writing nuclear energy budgets!"
Garten was desperate to find a career that allowed her to be more creative. In 1978,
she came across an ad in The New York Times selling a specialty food store in the Hamptons.
It immediately caught Garten's attention, even though she had no professional experience
in the food business and she hadn't even been to the Hamptons before.
She drove from Washington, D.C. to the east end of Long Island to see the store. She immediately
fell in love with the boutique shop but was on the fence as to whether or not she should
really go through with buying it. Her parents, especially her father, were shocked to hear
that she'd give up her White House job.
"And now his daughter worked in the white house, and he thought, she's gonna own a grocery
store? We're going backwards here."
But Garten's husband fully supported her decision to try to buy the store. Garten told Insider:
"Jeffrey said, 'If you love it, you'll be really good at it.' And that's the best advice
anybody ever gave me."
Garten gave a low offer for the store, thinking it would provide her time to mull over the
decision. But the owners accepted the next day, and Ina moved ahead with the deal. Garten
was the new owner of a food shop, and she named the establishment Barefoot Contessa,
of course.
Garten had learned how to cook for herself, but she quickly realized that she had no idea
how to prepare food for others. She's stated:
"Honestly, the first month I was there I thought, 'This is the stupidest thing I've ever done
in my life.' I'd never been in the food business, I didn't know how to do anything."
Garten decided to hire local chef Anna Pump, who taught her that people eat differently
when they're at home compared to a restaurant. According to Insider, Garten said:
"I remember a customer asked me to do a cheese platter. Anna walked over very quietly and
she said, 'Take everything off that platter. Put a big bunch of grapes in the middle, put
the cheese around it, do blocks of color, and then stop yourself.' That's what she taught
me — That the simpler things are the more elegant ones."
Because of that advice, Garten is now known for her simplistic cooking. Some of her cookbook
titles contain phrases like "Back to Basics," "How Easy is That?," and "Foolproof." This
inclusive culinary style is part of what has made her and her show so universally loved.
"You're a pro, right?”
“Not really, I'm a home cook, but I've just had a little more experience than most people."
If there's one thing you can say about Ina Garten, it's that she is always up for a new
challenge. Garten had built Barefoot Contessa into a hugely successful business. It became
so busy that she moved the store from its original 400-square-foot building in Westhampton
to a new 3,000-square-foot store in East Hampton. But after nearly two decades of running her
popular shop, Garten was looking to do something new. She told Eater:
"I like a nice project that I can chew on. And so the store was that, and then after
twenty years, it was time to do something else."
In 1996, Garten sold the store to two of her employees: the store manager and chef. While
she worked on charting a new course, Garten built an office above Barefoot Contessa and
began writing a cookbook. Filled with recipes she perfected over the years at her store,
Garten published The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook in 1999. The volume quickly became a best
seller and led her to publish two more cookbooks within the next four years.
By 2002, Garten had already established herself as a very successful and popular cookbook
author with an impressive business pedigree. That's when Food Network came calling. The
first season of Garten's cooking show, aptly named Barefoot Contessa, aired in November
of that year. The show centers on Garten as she shows viewers how to make not only impressive
meals but to easily create entire entertainment experiences for guests. It's filmed on her
property in the Hamptons, though Garten has admitted that the film kitchen isn't in her
main home.
The wildly popular program has since made Garten a household name. Approaching its 30th
season on the air, Barefoot Contessa is one of Food Network's ultra-popular long-running
series. But Garten doesn't dare to watch the show herself. She admits to having never seen
an episode, telling Food Network:
"I couldn't possibly. If I watched a show, I don't think I'd ever do it again."
Not only has Barefoot Contessa reeled in plenty of viewers, it's also awarded Garten some
serious praise from critics. She's won multiple Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Culinary
Host, and the show was named best Television Program, In Studio or Fixed Location by the
James Beard Awards in 2018.
Everybody loves someone who can cook, so it should come as no surprise that Ina Garten
is so popular. Still, the list of famous friends she's accumulated over the years is pretty
impressive, even for a culinary powerhouse like Garten.
But her friendships go beyond the television screen. Take her relationship with Taylor
Swift for example. The two were introduced through a mutual friend, and then suddenly
Swift was in Garten's East Hampton, New York home for a personal cooking lesson. Swift
even wrote Garten's commendation when the chef was included in Time's list of the 100
Most Influential People in the World. Garten told People:
"She's incredibly busy and incredibly in-demand, that she'd take the time to write about me,
it meant that she thought that we had a special relationship, which I feel we do."
Other famous faces Garten calls friends include Tina Fey, who name-dropped the chef in an
episode of 30 Rock, Jennifer Garner, who's had one of her own recipes featured on a Barefoot
Contessa holiday special, and Katie Couric, who's been known to share a cosmopolitan or
two with Garten.
"I'm like that woman on the food network whose husband only comes home on the weekends and
she spends the rest of her time eating and drinking."
It's obvious that people are obsessed with all things Ina Garten and the famous chef
has apparently caught on to the demand of the things in her life. In late 2019, she
announced she would be giving fans an inside look into her life by writing an upcoming
memoir, according to People.
In a press release announcing the move, Garten said her hope for penning the book is to help
motivate readers to build the life they want. She said:
"By finding a way to do what I love for a living – cooking – I've been fortunate
to build a career that has not only been incredibly rewarding but has brought people together
through the power of home cooking. I hope my book will inspire readers to find their
own unique story."
While Garten has written 12 best-selling collections of recipes, this will be her first time penning
a non-cookbook. And as excited as Barefoot Contessa fans may be, they'll have to be patient.
According to Food & Wine, the memoir isn't due to be published until 2023.
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