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Jeffrey Garten is widely known for being the husband of Ina Garten. However, apart from his occasional Barefoot Contessa cameo, we know very little about the 72-year-old’s personal life.
Keep reading for a more in-depth look into Ina’s other half, Jeffrey Garten.
The pair first crossed paths when Ina visited her older brother at Dartmouth, where Jeffrey was a student.
“When I was 16 and Jeffrey was 18, I used to make him brownies and send them in a big box to school. I think he was the most popular guy in the dorm when they arrived,” Ina said, according to People magazine.
Jeffrey joined the United States Army shortly after he graduated from Dartmouth in 1968. He began as a lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne Division and worked his way up to become an adviser to the Royal Thai Army.
After serving in the Army, Jeffrey obtained his master’s degree, followed by his Ph.D., from Johns Hopkins University. NBD.
Sure, Ina has published ten (and counting) cookbooks, but she’s not the only writer in the family. Jeffrey has also written five books, all of which focus on the global economy.
His works include A Cold Peace: America, Japan, Germany and the Struggle for Supremacy (1992), The Big Ten: The Big Emerging Markets and How They Will Change Our Lives (1997), The Mind of the CEO (2001), The Politics of Fortune: A New Agenda for Business Leaders (2002) and From Silk to Silicon: The Story of Globalization Through Ten Extraordinary Lives (2016).
After assisting on four—we repeat, four—presidential administrations, Jeffrey worked on Wall Street as a managing director for Lehman Brothers, as Johns Hopkins Magazine reports.
He went on to serve as a professor at Yale, where he became the dean of the Yale School of Management from 1995 to 2005. According to his faculty page, he’s currently the Dean Emeritus and teaches five courses.
Unlike Ina, Jeffrey doesn’t know his way around the kitchen. In an interview with People magazine, Ina joked, “Jeffrey makes coffee.”
In December 2018, Ina celebrated the momentous occasion by sharing a series of priceless throwback photos on Instagram.
“How about those outfits and the ’70’s hair??” she wrote.
