Ina Garten Said Her Husband Jeffrey Once Accidentally Sent a Steamy Text to Her Friend
Ina Garten called her first date with her now husband Jeffrey “a disaster” but it didn’t stop these lovebirds from eventually getting married. Garten also shared how her sweet husband sends her love texts — and how one slightly raunchy message made its way to the wrong person.
Ina Garten said her first date with Jeffrey didn’t go well
During an appearance on the Nov. 16 episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, Garten dished on her disastrous first date with Jeffrey. It might not have been perfect, but Garten and Jeffrey continued dating, got married — and the rest is history.
“Why he ever wanted to see me again I have no idea,” she said.
The Food Network host was 16 when she first met Jeffrey, who was a student at Dartmouth. “We had a mutual friend and he’d seen me walking around the campus of Dartmouth and he asked the friend could he call me,” she explained.
Garten continued, “So, he called, and I just knew he was a friend of the friend and I thought, ‘Well, he’s a Dartmouth guy so he probably wants to like go to a bar or something.’ I had never been to a bar and so I said, ‘Oh let’s just go this bar Hilltop,’ like I’d been there many times.”
Garten tried to be “cool” about the date but didn’t realize she needed an ID to get in.
“We parked there and walked in and there are two big guys at the door and I said, ‘What was that?’ I didn’t understand what they were saying,” she explained. “Finally, Jeffrey said ‘they want your ID’ and I said to him, ‘What’s that?’”
Garten added, “I had no idea that I needed a fake ID to get into a bar when I was 16.”
While that didn’t go quite as planned, everything worked out. Garten said they kissed “in front of my house in the car.”
Garten noted, “Many years later I said, ‘What did you think, like why did you want to take me out again?'” and he told her, “I thought you needed taking care of.”
Jeffrey once sent a racy text to Ina but accidentally sent it to her publicist
When Barrymore asked if Jeffrey sends Garten love texts, the Food Network star confirmed he does, though one racy message made its way to the wrong recipient.
“He does… and sometimes they go astray. He sends them to the wrong person,” Garten explained. She said he mistakenly sent a raunchy text to Garten’s friend and publicist, Kristina Felix.
“My dear friend, who’s also my publicist, he sent a text to her, and he meant it for me, and he said, ‘You’re gonna be delicious tonight,’ and it went to her. She was like, ‘Woah.’ She sent back, ‘I don’t think this was meant for me,'” Garten said.
Ina Garten gets her a street named after her
East Hampton Mayor Jerry Larsen stopped by Barrymore’s show to present Garten with the honor of a street named after her. Ina Garten Way is now the honorary name of the corner where the Barefoot Contessa Fine Foods shop once operated.
“Ina’s an icon in the world and we have her right here in East Hampton,” he said (via Dan’s Papers). “It’s just wonderful for all of us.”
Garten said, “When I first came to East Hampton, I remember looking around and thinking, it is so elegant and it’s so beautiful, I don’t know that I’ll ever fit in here. And now I have my own street.”
