“Honey, I always like a challenge,” Gisele Bündchen tells AD. She’s talking about writing her first cookbook. Nourish: Simple Recipes to Empower Your Body and Feed Your Soul: A Healthy Lifestyle Cookbook hits shelves on March 26, and it is the world-renowned supermodel’s second book, a follow-up to 2018’s memoir, Lessons: My Path to a Meaningful Life, but putting her recipes on paper was an entirely new task for the 43-year-old environmentalist. “I’m always living and learning,” she says with a laugh. “That’s for sure. That’s my motto.”
Someone who eats and lives thoughtfully, Bündchen is as passionate about food waste as she is about healthy ingredients, but she was more of a cook-from-instinct-and-experimentation type of person than a recipe writer. The work of recording her recipes exercised an entirely new muscle, but instead of letting the process of going back through years of her cooking wear her down, she just took it as a lesson for her next book. “It made me change. Now when I’m going to create new recipes, I’m going to start writing them [as I go] because holy cow, that was a lot of work.”
If writing a new book wasn’t enough, she’s also in the midst of a major renovation at the home where she lives with her two children, 14-year-old Benjamin and 11-year-old Vivian, whom she shares with her ex-husband, NFL star Tom Brady. The project was supposed to wrap up six months ago (construction timelines come for us all) but for now she is enjoying pared-back living and having her kids close at hand. “They have selected hearing, you know kids, but here they don’t have that excuse,” she jokes.
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We caught up with Bündchen about how she stays healthy at home (she is full of hot tips, like washing your vegetables as soon as you get them), what she loves most in her space, and how she reached a compromise with her kids over the thermostat.
AD: What city do you live in primarily?
Gisele Bündchen: Miami.
How would you describe the style of your home in one sentence?
Construction zone! I’m currently living in our 1,200 square foot home because our house was supposed to be finished nine months ago, but I’m feeling zen, there’s no clutter, only what’s necessary.
What is one kitchen item you use every single day?
My teapot. I’m a tea drinker. Tea all day.
What is your favorite gadget or appliance?
Vitamix.
What is your bedtime ritual?
I try my best to get everyone’s electronics out of their rooms at 9:00 p.m. including mine. I have this ritual with my kids, I’ve done it since they were little, where I do aromatherapy massages on their feet. It takes me 10, 15 minutes in each room—I stay longer with my daughter because my son is a teenager now, so most of the time he just wants me to give him his space. Then it’s around 10:00 p.m. and I just go to sleep. I like to go to sleep early because I wake up super early.