Before She Was The Food Network Icon We All Love, Ina Garten Worked For The White House, Was A Supportive Army Wife, Camped In Europe, And Got Her Pilot’s License

Chip Chick |

Apr 29, 2023

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Who doesn’t love the Barefoot Contessa, A.K.A the Queen of East Hampton, Ina Garten? With her deliciously classy recipes and giant quarantine cosmopolitans, Ina Garten is one of the most beloved figures featured on the Food Network.

But did you know that before she was known as the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten worked in a field entirely different from food?

The famous chef lived an exciting life before becoming a famous cooking show host, and here’s a look inside it.

Ina was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1948 and raised in Stamford, Connecticut. This was where she met her husband, Jeffrey Garten, who many of us famously know from her Food Network show. Ina and Jeffrey married in 1968 and moved to Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Jeffrey served a four-year military term during the Vietnam War, and Ina started to dabble in cooking and entertaining.

She also chose to get her pilot’s license because she and Jeffrey lived across the street from a small airport that offered flying lessons.

However, when she went over to sign up, she was told no one there could teach a woman how to fly. So, she went over to the next town and found someone who would and became a certified pilot.

Once Jeffrey finished serving in the war, the couple decided to go on a long trip to Europe and camped in Paris, France, for four months. On her Paris trip, Ina fell in love with French cuisine and the French people’s appreciation for food.

When she and Jeffrey returned to the United States, she extended her cooking knowledge by intently studying the famous Julia Child, Simone Beck, and Louisette Bertholle cookbook, Mastering The Art of French Cooking.

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She harnessed her dinner party hosting skills upon returning to the States, and her parties soon became well-known traditions within her community. Then, in 1972, she and Jeffrey moved to Washington, D.C., where they got government jobs.

Jeffrey worked in the State Department, while Ina started an entry-level position at the White House. Eventually, she kept working her way up and worked for the White House Office of Management and Budget. She became a budget analyst and the nuclear energy budget for presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.

When Ina wasn’t working at the White House, she continued to cook, entertain, and renovate houses in nearby neighborhoods to make some extra money. Not long after, Ina saw a newspaper ad for a food store in the Hamptons and used her house-flipping money to buy it. It was the Barefoot Contessa food store!

Ina quit her government job in 1978, moved back to New York, and became the store’s owner. She decided to keep the original Barefoot Contessa name, which is how her Food Network show got its title. Ina did most of the cooking for the store herself despite having no formal culinary training. She employed local chefs and bakers, and before long, the store became a local success. By 1985, she was able to move the store into a much larger location and expand it.

It became a Hamptons staple. Ina eventually sold the store to two employees after working there for two decades, and the store eventually closed in 2004, but Ina still carries its legacy. In the late 1990s, Ina started writing and publishing her own series of cookbooks, like The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, which became a bestseller.

Barefoot Contessa Parties! was published in 2001 and captured the attention of Martha Stewart and the Food Network. Her own show Barefoot Contessa premiered in 2002, and she has since become an Emmy Award winner for it.

Ina is still recording episodes of Barefoot Contessa and making appearances on other cooking and food-related shows. She is also a columnist for O, The Oprah Magazine, and, of course, still happily married to Jeffrey. They still live in the Hamptons.

Did you know anything about Ina’s impressive past before now?

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