- Ina, 75, has spoken openly about how her “obsessive” mother had a negative effect on her.
- She said her husband, Jeffrey, would have loved the children and supported her.
- Ina often talks about her decision not to have children because of her childhood.
Ina Garten candidly admitted that her husband Jeffrey would have “really wanted” to have children, but he sacrificed that dream to fully support her decision not to have children. I made it.
The celebrity chef recently appeared on Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Wiser Than Me podcast and opened up about the moment she realized she didn’t want to be a mother, and how she came to that decision.
The 76-year-old said she has “no interest in having children” and how her husband of more than 50 years, Jeffrey Garten, 77, has always supported her choices.
Ina, who will publish her memoir Be Ready When the Luck Happens on October 1, said her decision not to expand her family stemmed from her “horrible childhood.”
“There was nothing I wanted to recreate,” she explained, adding that she “didn’t have a hard time” deciding that she didn’t want children of her own.
“I think Jeffrey was a great parent,” the celebrity chef admitted.
“He would have really loved having kids. But he wanted me to be happy, and that didn’t matter to him,” she said.
The chef admitted that it was “understandable,” but [motherhood] When her friends got married at age 20 after they started having children, she “wanted nothing to do with it.”
“I don’t know where that belief came from, but I really believed it,” the Food Network star said firmly.
Ina, who grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, with her father, Charles, a surgeon, and mother, Florence, a nutritionist, talks about how her “obsessive” mother restricted her food and didn’t let her cook as a child. , had been speaking openly for a long time. Even though she was obsessed with her activities from an early age.
Barefoot Contessa learned to become a professional chef by studying Julia Child’s cookbooks, and has spoken many times about her strained relationship with her mother.
In 2017, she told Katie Couric on the Next Question podcast that becoming a chef felt like the “ultimate rebellion” against her “obsessive” mother, who spent years controlling her diet. said.
“My mother was obsessed with food,” she said. “So no carbs, no butter. There was margarine. And the great dessert she came up with was apples.”
She appeared on Al Roker’s Cooking Up A Storm podcast in 2021 and revisited her childhood, explaining that she turned to cooking because she “craved connection” as a child.
She also revealed that her mother never allowed her to be in the kitchen, even though her passion for cooking was evident from an early age.
In 2023, the chef spoke to Kati Kaye in an interview with the BBC, saying that concerns about balancing motherhood and career did not lead to her decision, and that she wanted to clarify her feelings by writing a memoir. He said he was able to do so.
“I’m actually writing a memoir right now, and I’m looking back at my childhood. There was nothing I wanted to recreate,” she said.
“Looking back, I realized that a lot of my decisions were based on my childhood. That was really a motivating factor. And Jeffrey and I were very happy together.”
“I don’t know, but I think my mom just wanted me in her room and had the kitchen to myself,” she explained.
“She said, ‘It’s your job to study and it’s my job to cook. Get out of the kitchen.’ So I always wanted to do it.”
“I think what I craved as a child was connection with people. I felt like if I fed them, they would always show up and have a good time with me.” That’s me. It was a connection I loved so much that I repeated it over and over again. ”
Ina said her marriage to Jeffrey in 1968 was the “beginning of life” for her, and in 2015 she told Eater that there was nothing left of her home from her childhood.
When I asked her to elaborate further, she said:[My mom] He wasn’t the warmest or funniest person. ”
Ina began her career by slowly honing her cooking skills while working as a budget analyst for the White House.
She left her government job in 1978 and bought a grocery store in New York called Barefoot Contessa.
The acclaimed chef spent over 20 years growing his business and published his first cookbook in 1999.
The book was a huge success and launched his career as a chef.
Ina became a frequent guest on Martha Stewart’s show, and in 2002 she appeared on her own Food Network program, “Barefoot Contessa.”
Since then, Ina has published a total of 13 cookbooks and embarked on many other business endeavors. Her show lasted 29 seasons before ending in 2021.
