Rooted in Fire Is Here! And I Got To Photograph the Cover

Chef Pyet’s debut cookbook, Rooted in Fire, is officially out, and I’m so proud to have photographed the cover. This book is such a true representation of who Pyet is as a chef and as a person. She is Prairie Band Potawatomi and Mexican American, and her cooking has always been a bridge between those two worlds, full of memory, culture, and the kind of warmth that only comes from someone who genuinely loves feeding people.

When her publishing team reached out, they were clear that they did not want a typical cookbook cover. They wanted something that represented Pyet, not a staged version of her. So we sat down to talk through ideas, and what kept coming up was the way she hosts. Her food is an invitation. Her kitchen is a gathering place. Cooking, for her, is an act of service and an act of love. It made complete sense that the cover should feel like you are being welcomed to her table.

From there, we built a concept that felt like a big, vibrant dinner party. We wanted color, warmth, movement, and real human connection. I wanted to photograph her doing what she naturally does: plating dishes, passing food, serving people, laughing with them, and creating that feeling of togetherness that she brings into every space she cooks in. Nothing forced, nothing overly styled. Just Pyet sharing food the way she grew up experiencing it, generous, rooted, and full of intention.

Her cookbook celebrates the Indigenous and Mexican traditions that shaped her, blending stories of her childhood with recipes that are bold, flavorful, and tied to land and community. She talks about her path from growing up in Kansas, to rediscovering her cultural identity, to competing on and winning FOX’s Next Level Chef, and now releasing a book that honors the long line of cooks and knowledge keepers who came before her. Rooted in Fire is more than a collection of recipes. It is a cultural document, a reflection of lineage, and a reminder of how food connects us to identity, memory, and each other.

Photographing the cover of a book with that kind of meaning behind it was something I took seriously. I wanted the images to feel like an open door, like you are stepping into a moment with her before the meal is served. When the final cover came together, it felt exactly like that. Warm, alive, full of color, and true to who she is.

And seeing that cover in bookstores across the country now has been surreal. It is one thing to finish a shoot you are proud of, and another to walk into a store and see your photograph on a book that means so much to so many people. It is a moment I will always remember.

Rooted in Fire is out now wherever books are sold. If you pick it up, I hope the cover feels like the invitation it was meant to be: come sit, come taste, come be part of the story.