Nara Smith releases debut cookbook Homemade

Nara Aziza Smith’s debut cookbook, Homemade, is released October 13 with 80 recipes, according to HarperCollins’ catalogue. The collection combines family meals, baking and elaborate projects, extending the digital creator’s from-scratch cooking beyond the unusual preparations that attract attention online. ^[1]

What the cookbook contains

The publisher lists potato sandwich bread, English muffins, handmade cheese crackers and cinnamon breakfast squares. Main dishes include soy-glazed flank steak with a plum-and-herb salad and pork schnitzel. A separate chapter covers mozzarella, flavored butters and chocolate-hazelnut spread. ^[1]

Food & Wine’s October 13 interview describes a range extending from homemade marshmallows and cheese crackers to a kale-and-brussels-sprouts Caesar salad, red sauce and lemon-and-thyme roast chicken. Its account emphasizes the combination of ambitious projects and dishes that can fit more conventional family cooking. ^[2]

From online requests to a book

In an April 20 interview with Vanity Fair, Smith said she began developing the book after repeated requests for recipes from her audience. She wanted the collection to include both unexpected foods familiar from her videos and things she cooks regularly, such as roast chicken and pancakes. ^[3]

Smith told Vanity Fair that German recipes, including schnitzel, connect the book to her grandmother’s cooking. She described herself as a working mother and cooking as both an enjoyment and her job, resisting a simple political label for her domestic videos. ^[3]

The family-cooking background

HarperCollins says Smith grew up in Frankfurt with a South African mother and German father, learning by watching her father and grandmother. It describes a self-taught cook who shared her work online and now lives in Connecticut with Lucky Blue Smith and their four children. ^[1]