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Bernath created a seasonal dish just for Oprah Daily that you can make at home.

Do PB&J pancakes, cola-braised brisket tacos, or bourbon brown butter chocolate chunk cookies make your mouth water? Now you can learn to create these recipes (and many more!) at home, thanks to Eitan Eats the World: New Comfort Classics to Cook Right Now, the debut cookbook from 20-year-old chef Eitan Bernath that dropped in early May.

You've likely seen him cooking up a storm on television, or for his millions of followers across TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and beyond. As a food enthusiast who grew up developing recipes in the kitchen—some of which are featured in his new cookbook—Eitan entered the limelight at an early age. After competing on the first kids episode of Food Network's Chopped at age 11, he later appeared on Guy Fieri's show Guy's Grocery Games. Today, Eitan serves as a culinary personality, entertainer, and recipe developer, and also wears many additional hats: He's the CEO of Eitan Productions and principal culinary contributor for The Drew Barrymore Show on CBS.

Watch Eitan cook the perfect seasonal recipe for lunch or dinner, mint pesto radiatori with potatoes and peas, in the video above. Then, read on to learn how he felt as his cookbook hit shelves.

It is my mint pesto radiatori with potatoes and peas. It is super easy pesto—it's actually a very traditional type of pesto, it’s just not as popular here in the U.S., but has potatoes and peas in it. It adds a nice little bit of extra oomph to it. There's Yukon gold in there, there's some frozen peas, and then this is just a super classic pesto, except instead of basil, I used mint. Pesto is not always made with basil. The mint really just makes it super-duper fresh and new.

I'm really honored to have the opportunity to write and publish a cookbook. I always told my parents, “One day I'm gonna write a cookbook.” Now, I didn't know if that would be when I was 30, when I was 40, and I'm really grateful it happened now when I'm 20. I describe the food in Eitan Eats the World as comfort food from around the world.

My parents are both educators, and they used food as a vehicle for us to learn about the world around us. With Eitan Eats the World, my goal is to also show people, [that] these are the comfort foods that people eat around the world. Of course, I'm not the expert on the recipes that are from around the world, and I try to be super conscious of never appropriating and being extremely clear. I'm sharing what I learned because I'm excited, but making sure to give the credit where credit's due.

A lot of the recipes are, I wouldn't say, “American,” but very classically eaten here in the U.S., but with my fun twists on them. Then there are a bunch from around the world as well. I have lots of recipes in there: [food] from the Middle East, Asian cuisine, Indian cuisine, and Mexican cuisine. You can expect to really find some of your favorite comfort foods [that] you probably like to order at restaurants that you never make at home. For example, General Tso's chicken from scratch.

I describe comfort foods as recipes that bring you comfort and that you have fun cooking. Recipes that you have memories around. [For] a lot of these recipes in the book, I share stories. There's something for everyone, and my goal is really that wherever you are with your cooking abilities, you can find recipes that you're comfortable already making and then [can] keep on building up your confidence level.

The recent career highlight was definitely being invited to the White House. I was invited twice in December, once for a creator event. They invited a few creators to see the holiday decorations. And then while I was there, someone on Jill Biden's team actually invited me to the Hanukkah celebration that was the night after. I was just really honored, as a proud Jew, to be able to celebrate the holiday I've grown up celebrating, and that my community has been celebrating for thousands of years.

For me, it was a really proud moment to be proud, loud, and Jewish in the most powerful building in the world, celebrating with the president and vice president, the two most powerful people in the world. That was just a really meaningful moment, rounding out the year being loud, proud, and Jewish—even with these anti-Semitic attacks, we were not discouraged [from] being loud and proud about our traditions and everything. I think that for me was the most meaningful, knowing that the body of work I've done got me to where I was, standing there, celebrating.

Most of my career has been when I was in school. Technically, I still am enrolled at Columbia and trying to make that work part-time. I feel like I've always had this rush of like, I need to succeed by the time I graduate, so this can be my full-time job. It did happen. I'm in this place now where I'm really happy where I am. I'm striving for more and I'm always working on bigger and better projects.

My life has changed so much in the past two years, I can't even begin to imagine how it'll change in 10. I know that everything I think will happen will be totally different. A year and a half ago I was living at my parents' house in Jersey, working by myself, filming in their kitchen. I now live in Manhattan, run a big company out of my apartment, and I'm publishing a cookbook.

My grandfather passed away from Covid in March of 2020. It was a very challenging time. It was kind of my lowest low. I fell into a really deep depression. But then right after that, my whole career started exploding. 2020 was both the worst and best year of my life. I signed the cookbook deal a few months after he passed away. It was very weird timing. He'd always been my biggest supporter. It's bittersweet that all this happened because I wish he could see it. Even though he's not here, the thing that made him so proud is flourishing and is doing so well, which is also why I dedicated the book to him.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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