is in person glamour’’s first-person series features intensely personal stories of women shaping culture in their own words. Below, Nara Smith—model, lifestyle creator, and cookbook author home make—It shows how her health journey has completely changed her relationship with food for the better.
It all started with my grandmother. When I was really little, she cooked a lot. It was very simple cooking – traditional German food, nothing fancy. But because the ingredients were so good, it tasted really good. Or maybe it was just because my grandmother made it. Who knows? One of my first memories is of her making porridge, and when she died, there were a lot of meals I never made again.
When I was growing up in Germany, my dad cooked a lot. We went grocery shopping every Saturday morning, which was always the most fun part for me. Meanwhile, my mother took food in a very medicinal way. She used the ingredients to cure diseases. If we had ear infections, she would lay us on hot onions. When we had a sore throat, we used to eat garlic and honey. When we felt nauseous, we were given salt and sugar water. Both of these perspectives helped me see food as a way to nourish your body – for pleasure and also for health.
But when I started modeling, my relationship with food and my body became very complicated. The food restriction was hard for me, and I was really thinking about it. I became a vegetarian for a few years because meat seemed dangerous to me. I also became a vegetarian for a while. Then I met my husband Lucky. On one of our early dates he said, “Just try a piece of my steak.” So I did. After that I started eating meat again. With her, I felt like I was free from all the limitations I had imposed on myself. I didn’t care as much about looking a certain way anymore because I felt accepted and understood, like I didn’t have to fit into any specific mold to be loved or desired or even find happiness.