Who Is Ina Garten's Husband Jeffrey? All About the Barefoot Contessa's Well-Heeled Man
Ina Garten and husband, Jeffrey Garten
Ina Garten's husband is a lucky man.
Jeffrey Garten and the Be My Guest host have been married for more than 50 years and together for nearly 60—and he's still her biggest fan, collecting articles about her and saving every news clipping he can find and hanging them in his office.
"Ina doesn't like any evidence of her public life, so I collect all the newspaper and magazine articles," he previously told Food Network magazine. "The walls are covered with pictures of Ina."
Ina is just as smitten with her man. Get to know the love of her life and inspiration for Cooking for Jeffrey: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook.
Related: Ina Garten's 5 Best Dessert Recipes of All Time
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What age did Ina Garten get married?
Ina and Jeffrey tied the knot on Dec. 22, 1968, and the pair is still going strong today. Just this year, the couple played the "Not the Newlyweds Game," on Ina's Instagram, which is just as charming as you'd imagine. When the two got married, Ina was 20 years old at the time to Jeffrey's 22. How gorgeous are these two?
Related: The Simple Recipe Ina Garten's Been Making for 40 Years
What does Ina's husband Jeffrey do for a living?
Jeffrey Garten served in the Army and reportedly wrote Ina letters every single day. (Gentlemen, step your game up!)
When he finished his military service, he became an investment banker, economist, author and Dean Emeritus at the Yale School of Management. He previously worked in the International Trade Administration for presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, and served as Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade for Bill Clinton. Jeffrey also worked for Lehman Brothers and Blackstone Group before founding his own investment firm called Eliot Group.
Ina largely credits Jeffrey with her career success and says that he encouraged her to pursue cooking as a career when working in finance wasn't rewarding to her.
"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," she recalled to PEOPLE.
Jeffrey is still in awe of his wife.
"She has natural talent, but it's backed by so much effort and so much focus," he told Food Network magazine. "When she had the store, she'd work until midnight all the time. The discipline of her recipe testing and how seriously she takes it—she doesn't settle for anything but the best. She's like a runner who collapses at the finish line even though she was ahead the whole race."
Related: Why Ina Garten's Macaroni and Cheese Recipe Is the Greatest of All Time
How old is Jeffrey Garten?
Born Oct. 29, 1946, Jeffrey Garten is 77 years old as of this writing in December 2023.
How did Ina Garten and Jeffrey Garten meet?
How precious is this? The pair revealed to Food Network magazine that Jeffrey first saw Ina, then 15, through a window when she was visiting her brother at Dartmouth University, and Jeffrey thought she was stunning.
For his part, Jeffrey thinks it was love at first sight. "I don't want to make it seem supernatural or anything, but I saw everything that was to be. I just knew she'd be the kind of woman I'd want to be around forever."
As it turned out, his college roommate knew Ina's brother, which got the wheels in motion: Ina told PEOPLE that Jeffrey sent her a letter with a photo of himself as an introduction.
"I just remember running through the house and going, 'Mom, Mom, you've got to see this picture of this guy,'" she recalled. "'He's so cute!' " Six months later, they finally went on their first date (which they both previously described as "a disaster"), but it still led to a second date — and the rest is (adorable, sweet, delicious) history.
Related: Ina Garten's Famous Outrageous Brownie Recipe
Why didn't Ina Garten have any children?
While many people assume Ina Garten didn't have children because she wanted to focus more on her career, that's actually not accurate. She revealed in a November 2023 BBC News interview that while her cooking empire certainly would've been more difficult to juggle if she had kids, it was her own childhood that made her not want to become a parent.
"I'm actually writing a memoir right now and it's kind of looking back at my childhood," she said. "It was nothing I wanted to recreate. And I'm always looking forward to look back and realized a lot of my decisions were based on my childhood. I think that was the motivating factor."
Ina had previously noted that she made a decision early on in her adult life that she didn't want to be a mother, and she's been true to that choice ever since.
She said in 2017 episode of the Katie Couric Podcast, "I really appreciate that other people do [have kids]—and we will always have friends who have children that we are close to—but it was a choice I made very early ... I really felt, I feel, that I would have never been able to have the life I've had. It's a choice, and that was the choice I made."
Related: Ina Garten's Genius Secret to the Perfect Grazing Board
Is Ina Garten still married to Jeffrey Garten?
Yes, she is! Ina and Jeffrey are as blissfully happy and adorable as ever.
On his 77th birthday on Oct. 29, 2023, she wrote him a moving tribute alongside a carousel of sweet photos.
"Even with the dreadful things going on in the world, we need to celebrate the everyday joys," she wrote. "Happy birthday to my darling husband Jeffrey. I've loved you madly for almost 60 years and I'm just getting started."
Next, Ina Garten's Brilliant Meal Prep Hack That Will Save You Time and Space In Your Kitchen
