The homemade cook tells us about her new book, The Homemade Kitchen

By Sarah Emily Gilbert

Have you ever wondered why your attempts at cooking never look like the pictures in the glossy recipe books? Well, cookbook author, food blogger, and working mother Alana Chernila certainly has. And while Chernila writes books with gorgeous images of food inside, she is the first to admit that her cooking is far from picture perfect. Working at home in a house that she shares with her parents, 17-year-old sister, two young daughters, and husband in the Berkshires, Chernila’s life is a controlled chaos. Clear boundaries have to be set while Chernila is working so that she doesn’t go off to clean the bathroom or do laundry once she’s in her workspace. Even still, during our phone conversation, one of Chernila’s daughters had to ask Mom a question and the family dog could be heard barking in the background. But it’s in these moments of normalcy that make Chernila so great at what she does. Chernila is relatable and real. She may not be a professional chef, but she most certainly is a professional mom. And with that knowledge, comes a certain sense of comfort and ease when following her recipes. As Chernila explains, her food is not wrapped up in perfection, but is about a whole process of testing and working. In short, her cooking is much like that of the average home cook.

Unlike most chefs who spent years in culinary school learning to master the method of julienne vegetables, Chernila fell into the cooking profession. Having her first child shortly after graduating from college, Chernila tried a myriad of professions in order to support herself and her daughter. During this time of uncertainty, Chernila worked at the local farmer’s market as part of her Community Farm Alliance share. Although Chernila grew up in a cooking household, she never really learned how to cook the way she wanted to eat. Moreover, she wanted to figure out a way to cook that allowed her to feed her family while maintaining a grocery budget. So, produce in hand, Chernila started experimenting with food and sharing her new recipes with her farmer’s market customers. As recipe requests increased, Chernila had an epiphany that changed the course of her career.

“After a year or so of researching and creating recipes, it hit me as, ‘Aha! I actually want to work in food.’ It was the only thing I was doing that made me feel all buzzy, you know? But it surprised me because I had never considered that option.”

Working with food not only helped Chernila find her niche, but her food blog allowed her to resume writing, something she had stopped after motherhood.

“Once I started writing about food, I was able all of a sudden to write about everything because food just became a really clear window into all the different feelings I had about life and how I wanted to try and live. It became a really great little opening in which I could sort of go through and then open up to the rest of the world and think about it and write about it.”

What really seemed to interest Chernila’s readers were her homemade pantry staples and home dairy recipes, which led to her next big idea. She realized that there weren’t any books on those topics, so she thought to write her own. “On a wing and a prayer,” Chernila sent the idea to an agent, and got it approved. Thanks to the success of her debut cookbook, “The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making, Chernila is back at writing. Her newest book, The Homemade Kitchen, will be available for purchase October 6.

“This book is more about reframing the way we think about cooking and eating to really bring pleasure back into those two processes. I’ve looked at all the different ways in my life that I’ve been able to bring food in in a way that makes life better, and so the whole book is structured around these ways, everything from a chapter called “Invite People Over,” to my dessert chapter, which is called, “Don’t Be Afraid of Food.” The whole book is about these different ways that food really can make life more rich and wonderful, and it’s packed with recipes. It feels like a book of all the things I’ve been saving up and wanting to talk about.”