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Despite having been married for more than five decades, Ina and Jeffrey Garten never had any children. That was a conscious choice Ina made while still in her youth, a move rather bold for the time, The New York Times noted. Ina knew how she wanted to fill her days, and having little ones running around wouldn’t have made it possible. “I really felt, I feel, that I would have never been able to have the life I’ve had,” she said on the “Next Question with Katie Couric” podcast in 2017. “It’s a choice, and that was the choice I made.”
But that doesn’t mean Ina dislikes children. “I really appreciate that other people do and we will always have friends that have children that we are close to,” she explained. This might come as a surprise to some, given that many of Ina’s recipes are geared toward family meals. But being childless doesn’t mean she opted to have no family. For her and Jeffrey, a two-person household is as much a family home as any other arrangement involving more members.
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When Ina released her 2016 book, “Cooking for Jeffrey,” the author was met with criticism from many who believed its focus veered from the image of the strong, independent woman she promotes, Vanity Fair pointed out. But when Ina cooks for her husband, she is making a family meal. “I’m her family,” Jeffrey told Johns Hopkins Magazine in 2016.
