Iron Chef Alex Guarnaschelli Says Her 16-Year-Old Daughter Can School Her in the Kitchen

In her decades of experience, Alex Guarnaschelli has achieved countless accolades — including being an Iron Chef, a Food Network star and a bestselling author. But for her most recent project, she has partnered with someone less experienced in the kitchen: her teenage daughter Ava Clark.

The duo co-authored Cook It Up: Bold Moves for Family Foods, published Sept. 5 by Clarkson Potter, to share beefed-up versions of their favorite family recipes — 75 to be exact.

"I wanted it to be genuine," Guarnaschelli told The Messenger of her cookbook collaboration with Clark, 16.

She said she worked with her daughter to develop the book — and a writing process — that was natural for the pair, rather than striving for picture-perfect results.

"It was really important that this just feel organic," the chef said. "You know, that it didn't feel forced; like the two of us, sitting at a table with a perfect bunch of peonies and a slice of toast."

The generational aspect of the project goes beyond the authors' mother-daughter bond. The book, Guarnaschelli said, also serves as an homage to her late mother, Maria Guarnaschelli, a publisher who was known for her work on a 1997 revision of the seminal cookbook The Joy of Cooking.

There's also a tie to Clark's paternal grandmother and great-grandmother with a recipe called Nanny Ida's Potato Latkes.

"Everybody experiences a lot of multigenerational feelings around a bowl of spaghetti or a bowl of noodles or any number of other things," Guarnaschelli said. "And I definitely wanted to capture that feeling."

Clark told The Messenger she came to the book process with the understanding that cooking had been a skill for many of her relatives. "There's so much tradition on both sides of my family," she added.

But Clark said it was challenging to figure out which parts of herself, and which parts of her family, she wanted to include.

"I wanted to share what my lunches are like. My breakfasts. I wanted to share my own sensibility about food."

The book includes step-by-step photos and small sketched diagrams by Clark and Guarnaschelli.

"It's a little bit like a moment in time, like a photo album," Guarnaschelli said. "But it happens to have recipes."

It even features one for dog treats, inspired by their love for their pet Leon.

Those personal touches were intentional, according to Guarnaschelli, and are meant to help readers get to know the pair more intimately.

"There's something about drawings and writing and anything personal that connects anybody who gets the book to who we are," she added.

The Supermarket Stakeout host said her daughter "comes to the table with far less baggage" around cooking than she does herself, which she said makes Clark more of a "free thinker" in the kitchen.

Guarnachelli said she sometimes throws side-eye at Clark when her teen daughter recommends a recipe she found on social media. But the mom often eats her words when Clark makes a dish that's delicious, simple and something the world-famous veteran wouldn't have come up with herself.

Clark says it's not just social media that inspires her meals, rather a lot of the family recipes she had in her repertoire were also simple and helped to shape her thinking around cooking.

"It doesn't always have to be the most ambitious or complicated dish to call it dinner," Clark said.

"You think you know your way around the kitchen," she said, "and then you discover that a 16-year-old can school you on your own craft."

Clark told The Messenger that it would be "rewarding" to see "kids, teenagers and young adults take a chance in the kitchen" as a result of this book.

When it comes to their chemistry in the kitchen, the chef told The Messenger that they each give each other space, working in a way that resembles children practicing parallel play.

"I'll make something, she'll make something, and then that's dinner," she said. "I'll cook the fish. She'll make a salsa verde. We eat that."

She also said it's more than cooking skills that Clark is learning during their time spent in the kitchen.

"She seems to have picked up on something about the importance of a simple meal," Guarnaschelli said. "You know, what that can do for someone's day."

Guarnaschelli recalled coming home to a meal Clark made after hearing her mother say she had a hard day. The chef was moved, and realized her daughter was growing up.

"She had made a simple dinner," she said, "and she was waiting there and I just thought — I can die right now."

"So touching," Guarnaschelli continued, adding that gestures like her daughter's can really make anyone feel cared for.