Ina Garten Gave Jeffrey a Box of Chocolates for Valentine’s Day

updated May 24, 2019

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Valentine’s Day is Ina Garten’s day. She seems to live her whole life in a state of romantic bliss, as “twitterpated” as all the animals in Bambi when they wake up in spring and suddenly fall in love with each other. Ina and her husband, Jeffrey, have been married 49 years and they still seem overwhelmed with glee to have found each other. So if there’s anybody I’d trust as an expert on romance, it’s Ina.

This year for Valentine’s Day she made Jeffrey a heart-shaped Coeur a la Creme with fresh raspberry sauce, but that wasn’t the only way they were celebrating. Clearly they needed chocolate, too, and Ina shared a photo of the decadent chocolates she picked out on Instagram.

“Decadent Belgian chocolates for my Valentine!” she wrote.

Garten’s box is part of the St. Valentine collection from Belgian luxury chocolatier Pierre Marcolini. Garten went with the 18-heart box, which sells for 19 euros and includes 18 assorted praline, caramel, and fruit-filled chocolate hearts.

Of course Ina’s taste in chocolates is as good as her taste in men and French ovens. The red hearts are Marcolini’s signature raspberry hearts, which are made of dark chocolate ganache with raspberry bits and lemon zest “for extra zing.” Marcolini describes the chocolates as “a perfect illustration of refinement and indulgence,” which is also an accurate way to describe Ina Garten herself.

The other hearts are filled with lemon, passion fruit, pistachio praline, nougat praline, and salted caramel.

I wonder which ones are their favorites, and if Ina and Jeffrey do that thing where they take a bite of a chocolate to see if they like it, and leave the other half in the box for the other one if they don’t. And there are three of each flavor, so now I’m imagining Ina and Jeffrey trying one of each, then negotiating the rest of the box to see who gets the third raspberry, and who wants the third salted caramel. (Dividing chocolate boxes in my house is like a contract negotiation.) Either way, it was probably adorable.