The Difficult Relationship Ina Garten Had With Her Mom

Ina Garten is best known for her foolproof recipes and Hamptons lifestyle. But her life hasn't always been glamorous. Garten revealed many tragic details about her life in her 2024 memoir, "Be Ready When the Luck Happens." Not only was her father physically abusive during her childhood, but she also had a difficult relationship with her mother.

"I was physically afraid of my dad," Garten admitted in an exclusive interview with People. "I literally remember thinking he would kill me if I did something ... And my mother just was unsupportive." As a result, she spent her "very lonely childhood" secluded in her bedroom. But even her hideaway had reminders of her mother's controlling nature. The room had a peach and white motif, despite young Garten preferring purple, because her mom told her it would "turn out badly."

"She really didn't know how to have a relationship, which is why ... having relationships is so important to me," Garten added. It's evident in her 57-year-long marriage to Jeffrey Garten, who she met as a teen. Even though it was a match, her mom didn't approve. "[My mother] thought I was too young to get married, but it was the first time in my life when I just said to her, 'I know you don't think this is a good idea ... I'm really sorry to tell you this, but I don't care. I'm doing this,'" Garten recalls. Unfortunately, she and her mom didn't reconcile before her passing in 2006. 

Ina Garten and her mother, Florence, didn't always see eye to eye, to say the least. But it's safe to say that her mom's fascination with food influenced her career, even though she discouraged Garten from cooking. Florence was a trained dietitian who was "obsessed with what she ate," Garten recalled in an interview with The New Yorker. She instated restrictions that the whole family had to abide by, taking carbs, sweets, and eventually, cholesterol off the table. "It was all about nutrition rather than pleasure. My mother didn't understand pleasure," Garten attested.

Even getting attention from Martha Stewart as an adult with a culinary career and business didn't impress her mother. For instance, when Stewart's production company began crafting a Food Network television show for Garten, Florence's first response was, "why does she want you?" Alternatively, her father eventually acknowledged that they were wrong for discouraging her food career after the publication of her second cookbook.

It's not a surprise that Garten's upbringing influenced her decision to not have kids. "In my 20s, I kind of resisted having children. I was like, 'why would I want to recreate that nightmare that I just came from?'" she said in an interview with Today. By the time she was 25, she was sure about her decision, and her doting husband was on board.