Ina Garten left a White House job to pursue her cooking careerhow the crazy risk paid off [Video]

Ina Garten built a multimillion-dollar empire teaching people how to host intimate dinner parties and roast the perfect chicken, but her career didn’t start in the kitchen. 

In her 20s, Garten worked in the White House for Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter writing policies for the nuclear energy budget. 

At first, she loved the job. In her new memoir, “Be Ready When the Luck Happens,” Garten, 76, reveals that her work was close to the president and that the projects she worked on amounted to $50 billion in value.

But despite the prestige, Garten soon grew restless. “I was withering a little more each day,” she writes. The slow pace of government work and limited creative freedom left her wanting more. 

She realized her future at the Office of Management and Budget depended on others — mainly men — choosing her for leadership roles.

“In 1978, that would never happen,” she …