This Model Not Only Eats, But Can Make a Mean Eggplant Parmigiana
Chrissy Teigen, you’re not the only model wielding a spatula.
Elettra Rossellini Wiedemann, who’s been shot for Vogue and Elle and Harpers Bazaar, has also penned a cookbook, the Impatient Foodie, an accessible, entertaining guide to consuming what’s in your fridge. This proves that models like Teigen and Wiedemann do, in fact, eat – albeit, with foresight and planning.
“I do hear that a lot. There are models who eat and I know them and they’re friends of mine. It’s also true that some models don’t eat and I know them to,” Wiedemann tells Yahoo Style. “I had to teach myself how to cook when I started modeling because I had to fit into sample sizes.”
Unlike other tomes, which send cooks out on very pricey and specific shopping sprees, Wiedemann helps you work with whatever stuff is buried in your cooler and needs to be grilled or sautéed or roasted. She first started out doing a blog (check out her attempt to replicate rainbow bagels for a good laugh) that ultimately became a book.
“Each ingredient has four different ways of making it. I wanted it to be something people could pull out and find out what to do with the three bunches of asparagus in their fridge,” she says.
While prepping her book, Wiedemann went all out. “I created vision boards and mood boards. Cooking is so intuitive. You taste something and pick up a pinch of salt and throw it in,” she says.
Wiedemann, born and raised in New York City – she’s the daughter of legendary model and actress Isabella Rossellini and American design manager and former model Jonathan Wiedemann – has food in her blood; but let it be known, she’s also earned a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics.
“For my whole family, whether I was eating with my mom or dad or my grandparents, having dinner at the dinner table was non-negotiable,” she says. “Sitting down and having half an hour together was really important. Sometimes people would cook if they had time. We would just use stuff that was already made from the grocery store. But we sat down and ate together. It means a lot to me.”
She takes a minute to catch her breath, and scarf down some food. “I just got some breakfast,” laughs Wiedemann.
And she’s refreshingly honest that yes, Wiedemann has had to modify her diet and no, she won’t feed you a bunch of nonsense about how calories don’t matter in an industry that’s driven by appearances.
“I like to make hearty flavorful foods but usually with a lot of vegetables. That helps. After 12 years of modeling, I figured out how to make my food taste good and satisfy me without being calorie-dense,” she says. “I’m a super-athletic person. I compete in triathlons. I’m obsessed with Orangetheory fitness. I’m very active. But I have found that eating in a certain way is 80 percent of the battle.”
It helps that Wiedemann has good genes on her side.
“My mom is really a very authentic person. She really likes to be natural. She never sat me down and gave me a beauty talk,” says Wiedemann. “She takes care of herself. If she’s not working she doesn’t wear makeup. She does a big eye or big lip but never both. She dresses beautifully, and very minimally.”
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