If you’re a foodie and supporter of Jai Nice than you know her cooking recipes are literally a chef’s kiss and she’s back with Vol. 2 of her highly anticipated cookbook, Kitchen Envy!
Jai Nice is a renowned entrepreneur/fashion designer and now successful Kitchen Envy owner/cookbook author. With an audience of over 2.4M on Instagram alone, Jai Nice made her mark with her stylish womenswear brand Kloset Envy and has now gained popularity for her cookware brand/cookbook line Kitchen Envy.
Released in October 2021, her debut cookbook – The Kitchen Envy Cookbook – amassed over $1M in sales and featured 100 recipes for soulful favorites, such as Garlic Rosemary Lamb Chops, Jambalaya Creole Rice, Rasta Pasta, and Peach Cobbler. Now, Jai Nice is preparing to release The Kitchen Envy Cookbook: Volume 2 today!
Liz Smith: Can you take us back to your first time in the kitchen and when you fell in love with the culinary arts?
Jai Nice: One of my first experiences was being in the kitchen with my Grandma. My Grandma raised me so she was known for cooking big dishes, big Sunday dinners and everyone who lived in the neighborhood, friends and family would come over. Her food was so good and I remember I was like ten or eleven years old.
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LS: Love that and those moments in the kitchen led you here today. Can you talk about the importance of being a hands on Entrepreneur with every project that you take on, especially one of this magnitude?
JN: Well the first thing is no one can get in that kitchen and cook the recipes but me. You know I can have sous chefs or an assistant helping but when it comes to cooking, adding the seasonings, it’s just something that has to be done by me. Same with the cookbook! I was very hands on. I picked every picture, every background, every plate that the food was plated on, the color theme and the book designs. I am very hands on and a hundred and fifty percent with this project!
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LS: Many of your supporters know you are a true business woman and juggle so many business ventures. With that being the case, I’m sure your team is solid and help you take all this to another level. How did you go about finding the perfect team to help your vision come to life?
JN: Honestly, I didn’t even know if this was going to be a perfect team. I just knew I needed all these roles fulfilled and had to be done. Now living and working with all these people for 21 days was quite a challenge. We worked for like 10 -12 hours a day under the same roof. I just picked the people who had great experience and flew them out to Arizona and we were just working. Of course there were some hiccups along the way, few disagreements but that’s normal. We were all under a lot of pressure but I don’t know how we did it! I keep saying it was God, honestly!
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LS: Amen to that. What lessons did you learn from Vol. 1 that you took into account for Vol.2?
JN: I definitely wanted it to be more recipes and better. I wanted to give my costumers more for their buck! My first cookbook had 100 recipes and was probably like 280 pages. Cookbook two has over 200 recipes and it’s 500 pages. I also added more chapters to it, Holiday sections, something for mommies on the go, air fryer section, juice and smoothie section just more!
LS: Now, I know you see all the love support in your comment section on Instagram, women thanking you for helping them learn how to cook and more. The girlies love it! How do you feel when they reach out and say your cookbook actually helps them in their love life, with their partner and with their self confidence?
JN: It inspires me so much! It was a thing on social media a few years back where men were making fun of the generation of women who don’t or can’t cook. One of my supporters reached out to me and said “You don’t understand, everybody didn’t have the opportunity to grow up with their mom, dad or grandma and be taught. Some of us don’t even know our parents and you have helped me!” Stuff like that pushes me to put out more. Women saying “I was self-conscious in the kitchen” or “My cooking has brought me closer to my family” is beautiful. Besides my daughter, those words keep me going.
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LS: As an entrepreneur I’m sure social media has been a great tool to use to help promote, sell and bring in a wide demographic of supporters for your businesses. What’s some advice that you would give to those who want to step into this industry when it comes to properly using social media?
JN: I would say just do it and keep going. Don’t give up. Never compare your process to what someone else is doing. Don’t be intimated by someone else’s moves and never let someone tell you that the market for your skill is oversaturated. Social media is a free platform, FREE and you can make so much money and reach so many people so use it to your fullest potential! Do not sleep on it!
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The Kitchen Envy Cookbook Vol. is now available for purchase here!