Maggie Baird Writes Recipe Book to Pass Down Family History to Her Grammy-Winning Kids
Maggie Baird wants her recipes to stay in the family. So she wrote a recipe book.
The book, which she wrote for her two kids — Grammy-winning artists Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell — is filled with family stories about the grandparents they never got to meet.
It is also entirely plant-based, ensuring both of her children can enjoy every dish.
“Unfortunately, my parents both died, so my children didn’t grow up with grandparents, so I’ve been including those recipes and now I’ve been adding stories about them,” Baird told TODAY in an interview, published April 9.
“So they know how my mom made apple pie for my dad. She made cherry pie for my dad for years until he told her he didn’t actually like cherry pie. He liked apple,” she added.
Baird said she felt compelled to write down her recipes because her kids would always ask her how to make certain things.
“So I really had to write them down and, you know, go, ‘OK, if you follow this recipe exactly, I promise you it will taste good. Now, feel free to change it anytime you want,’” she told TODAY.
A Favorite Family Recipe With New York Roots
Among the collection, one recipe stands out as a family favorite: sesame peanut noodles, inspired by Baird’s time living in New York in the 1980s.
“One of the only takeout things you could get at the time was these cold sesame noodles,” she told the outlet. “And then we moved to L.A., they didn’t really have those here.
“Many, many decades ago now, I veganized that, and it’s always been a hit in our family,” she added.
In a 2021 interview with Vogue, Eilish was asked by Orlando Bloom why she decided to go vegan. At the time, she said she had been vegan for seven years.
“Even though I have lots of friends that eat dairy and meat — and I don’t want to ever tell anybody what to do — I just can’t go on in my life knowing what’s going on in the animal world and not doing anything about it,” she said.
A New Cooking Show on the Horizon
In 2020, Baird founded Support + Feed, a nonprofit organization that aims to combat climate change and food insecurity by promoting plant-based eating.
More recently, on March 26, Baird announced that she is creating a new lifestyle cooking series called Climate Kitchen. Like her nonprofit, the show will feature recipes for plant-based meals and tips for sustainable living.
Eilish and Finneas, both of whom love to cook, will be featured as guests on the show.
“Some the best days of the year are those where they join me in the kitchen or I join them in theirs,” she told People last month.
“It makes me so happy when they tell me they made one of the recipes,” she said of the recipe books she has made for them.
The show is slated to begin production later this year and to premiere on public media in 2027.
Between the handwritten recipe books, the nonprofit work and a cooking show in the pipeline, Baird is making sure her family’s kitchen traditions live on — one plant-based dish at a time.
This article was created by content specialists using various tools, including AI.
