Ina Garten Debuts the Cover of Her 'No-Holds-Barred' Memoir Be Ready When the Luck Happens (Exclusive)

Ina Garten never wanted to write a memoir. "I just didn't think anybody would find my life that interesting," she tells PEOPLE exclusively.

Lucky for her millions of fans, Garten, 76, was convinced otherwise. The Barefoot Contessa star will release her memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens, on Oct. 1.

Garten's friend and collaborator on the book, Deborah Davis, changed her mind. "She said, 'Somebody's going to write your memoir and it should be you,' " Garten recalls. "I thought, 'Oh, my God, she's right.' "

That was four years ago — and Garten has been working on it ever since. Be Ready When the Luck Happens will chronicle her incredible journey to becoming one of the most beloved stars on Food Network. Garten will detail her "difficult childhood," according to a press release, and her remarkable love story with husband, Jeffrey Garten.

"In her unmistakable voice (no one tells a story like Ina), she brings her past and her process to life in a high-spirited and no-holds-barred memoir that chronicles decades of personal challenges, adventures (and misadventures) and unexpected career twists, all delivered with her signature combination of playfulness and purpose," reads the release.

Ina had plenty of material to pull from. "Jeffrey used to write letters to me when we first met, when I was in high school. And then through college. And then when he was in the military, he would write to me almost every day," she tells PEOPLE. "And I kept all those letters."

Ina and Jeffrey's romance began in 1963 when she was 15 visiting her brother at Dartmouth College, where Jeffrey was also a student. They were married in 1968 and Jeffrey was deployed to Thailand shortly after. They would eventually live in Washington, D.C., where Ina worked as a nuclear-budget analyst at the Office of Management and Budget under the Jimmy Carter Administration.

Her time in D.C. was one the more challenging eras to relive for her memoir. Ina recalls becoming "completely unglued" while writing it. "I completely lost it," she says.

"I'd forgotten how much I hated being there and how frustrated I was that I wanted to do something creative and something challenging that was mine," she adds.

There is a happy ending, of course. Ina answered an ad for a speciality food story in West Hampton, N.Y. called Barefoot Contessa, which would become her brand name and the beginning of her culinary stardom. When the shop closed, Ina continued to write her cookbooks and shoot her cooking shows from her home in East Hampton, N.Y.

Ina only let Jeffrey read the last draft of Be Ready When the Luck Happens. Jeffrey is dyslexic so he typically reads for just short periods of time.

But with her book, "He sat down after lunch and read it, and he didn't get up until 7:30 at night," says Ina. "He read the entire thing in one sitting. And I was like, 'Whoa.' I kept bringing him snacks and coffee. He just loved it."

Ina hopes others will be as receptive. "It was really fun to do," she says. "I wasn't scared at all, but the thought of sending it out in the world is a whole other story."

Be Ready When the Luck Happens, published by Crown, will be released on Oct. 1. An e-book and audio book read by Ina herself will also be available. It's available for pre-order now.