How Cooking from Scratch Helped Nara Smith Rediscover the Joy of Food
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Photo courtesy of Adrian Martin
Nara Aziza Smith practically glows through the screen when she joins our Zoom call from Paris. “It truly feels like a magical world I stepped into,” she says, noting the auspiciously good weather as rays of afternoon sunshine softly stream around her. The model-cum-influencer is in town for fashion week, but today she’s relatively untethered from any obligations, save for a fitting and a Céline Dion concert later in the evening. Tomorrow it’s a day of vintage shopping and the Business of Fashion gala.
Fashion week festivities aside, there’s another upcoming occasion on her mind, one that’s been over two years in the making: the launch of her debut cookbook, Homemade (out now). Written with everyday home cooks in mind, it contains recipes ranging from traditional (like schnitzel, which Smith ate growing up in Germany) to trendy (including her viral Cinnamon Toast Crunch–inspired cereal), plus plenty of family-friendly dishes beloved by her husband, model Lucky Blue Smith, and their young children.
Even those who aren’t chronically online have likely seen Smith’s ASMR cooking videos, which have helped garner her over 17 million social media followers. In them, the Connecticut-based mom of four often looks as though she’s come straight from the runway, dressed in Cult Gaia and Zimmermann while painstakingly making homemade gummy bears, French onion soup, and everything in between. The results are sometimes bewildering to her audience, but Smith views her content creation as a form of art and self-expression. “They’re always like, ‘You can just run to the store and get Skittles,’” she says. “It’s going to take you 10 minutes instead of spending seven hours making a Skittle, but where’s the whimsy in that?”
While Smith infuses her cookbook with a healthy dose of sartorial fun, it also pulls back the curtain on her highly curated image—detailing her warm childhood memories of cooking with her grandmother, her struggles with perfectionism, and the personal health conditions that have shaped the way she approaches cooking today.
“When I got diagnosed with my autoimmune disease and I developed really severe eczema, food kind of became the enemy in a way, and I got really scared of certain ingredients,” she says. She eventually realized that “if I just focused on good-quality ingredients and making things from scratch and knowing exactly what goes into my food,” the kitchen could become a source of healing for both mind and body.
Over the years, it’s also become a gathering place for the rest of the family. Smith’s six-year-old daughter, Rumble, has taken to dreaming up her own culinary creations, including cookies made with peanut butter, sunflower seeds, milk, and an unusual number of eggs. “I don’t know whether she just pretends they’re great or whether she actually likes it, but it’s really fun seeing their little minds work,” Smith says. Clean-up often falls to Lucky, who doesn’t mind tackling the dishes. “Bless his heart, because I cannot fathom doing those,” she says.
Make It from Scratch
From morning until evening, Smith takes pride in preparing wholesome meals for her family. Here, she shares a quick glimpse into breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the Smith household—plus three exclusive recipes to help you conquer the day.
Coconut Cassava Waffles
The family begins the day with a rotating cast of favorites, including German rice pudding and German pancakes. “Sometimes I’ll do a banana bread in the morning, which is ambitious, but I want it to be warm for them when they wake up,” she says. Smith is also a fan of waffles but had to adjust her diet following her autoimmune disease diagnosis. Eager to once again enjoy the breakfast staple from her youth, she developed this gluten-free, grain-free, nut-free version, “finding a way to still enjoy the pleasure of [waffles] while also making sure I don’t inflame my body during a really vulnerable time.”
Spicy Butternut Squash Salad
Midday meals are often quick and easy, especially during the week: a sandwich on fresh bread, leftovers from the night before, a simple salad. This particular recipe is the result of a serendipitous accident, after Smith bought too much butternut squash for a soup and began researching other ways to use it. “I looked it up and they were like, ‘Roast it for an hour.’ I was like, ‘I don’t have an hour.’ And then I googled, ‘Can you eat it raw?’ And it said yes.”
Cornflake Chicken and Cabbage with Miso Gravy
For Smith and her family, dinnertime is sacred. Smith cooks, and everyone remains at the table until each family member has finished eating. That’s when “we get to really connect and catch up and talk and share a meal, which is so beautiful to me,” she says. This chicken dish will scratch the itch for those nights when you’re looking to make something more involved. “I don’t mind spending an hour and a half, two hours, in the kitchen at night if that tickles my fancy,” she says.