Celebrity Chef Ina Garten Reflects on Troubled Relationship With Father in Upcoming Memoir

Ina Garten speaks onstage at the New Yorker Festival in New York on Oct. 12, 2019. Brad Barket/Getty Images for The New Yorker

Ina Garten, a beloved celebrity chef and host of the Food Network cooking program “Barefoot Contessa,” is set to share details about her troubled upbringing—including her experiences with physical and emotional abuse—in her forthcoming tell-all memoir, “Be Ready When the Luck Happens.”

Ahead of the book’s release on Oct. 1, Garten, 76, spoke with People about the turbulent relationship she and her older brother, Ken, had with their late parents, Charles and Florence Rosenberg.

“I was physically afraid of my dad,” the cookbook author said during the interview, published on Sept. 4.

Garten told the publication that her father—who passed away in 2004—would strike her and pull her hair as a child.

“I literally remember thinking he would kill me if I did something. I was physically afraid of him. I think if there’s a threat of violence, you’re always afraid, even when it’s not happening,” Garten recalled.

“So I basically spent my whole childhood in the bedroom with the door closed, and I think it was just protection. It was just to keep myself safe, and so I had a very lonely childhood.”

Garten said her mother, who died in 2006, “did the best she could.”

“She really didn’t know how to have a relationship, which is why I think, as I’ve gotten older, having relationships is so important to me,” Garten said. “She wanted me to be away from her. And so again, my room was a safe haven.”

‘Difficult Life at Home’

Garten took to Instagram earlier this week to share that she was able to reconnect with some of her high school friends while conducting research for her soon-to-be-released memoir.

“I had a pretty difficult life at home so my friends were like a lifeline for me,” she wrote on Sept. 1, adding that her friends were “smart, creative, and so supportive.”

Speaking to People, the renowned chef said she managed to overcome her troubled childhood “by sheer determination,” noting that she was able to make peace with her father before he died.

“He, in his own way, apologized,” she said.

Garten’s marriage to her husband, Jeffrey—who serves as a dean emeritus at the Yale School of Management—also proved to be a major turning point in her relationship with her father. The couple met when Garten was 16, marrying four years later in 1968.

“My dad and I had a complicated relationship when I was young, but once I got married we were able to change that,” the television personality wrote in a special Father’s Day message posted to Instagram on June 16.

“I’m really grateful for the positive happy times that we spent together, and thinking back he had a huge influence on my life.

“I think that we’re very much alike. He loved parties, loved his work, treasured his friends, and cared about style. Happy Father’s Day, it’s a good day to celebrate fathers’ present and past.”

‘Barefoot Contessa’

In 1978, Garten left her promising job at the White House, where she worked in the Office of Management and Budget, to buy a specialty food store in The Hamptons, an affluent seaside community located on the eastern end of Long Island, New York.

“Forty-six years ago this weekend I bought my first store, Barefoot Contessa,” Garten wrote on Instagram on May 27.

“I remember telling Jeffrey this may be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but it was also so exhilarating. (I guess it turned out okay?).”

Seeking a “new challenge,” Garten decided to sell the store in 1996.

“At that point, with nothing to do, I built myself an office over the store and tried my hand at writing a cookbook,” she wrote on her website.

Garten’s first cookbook, “The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook,” was published three years later.

“[It] turned out to be the most exciting thing I’ve ever done professionally,” she wrote. “Happily, that first cookbook was a surprise best-seller.”

Garten has since authored 12 more bestselling cookbooks, including “Barefoot Contessa at Home” (2006), “Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics” (2008), “Barefoot Contessa How Easy Is That?” (2010), “Barefoot Contessa Foolproof” (2012), and “Cooking for Jeffrey” (2016).

In November 2002, the celebrity chef’s cooking program, “Barefoot Contessa,” debuted on the Food Network. Garten’s fourth season of her television show, “Be My Guest With Ina Garten,” premiered on the cable channel in April of this year.