Gigi Hadid Makes "Tim's Pasta" and an Arnold Palmer, and Talks Modeling, Motherhood, and Cooking From the Heart

The Arnold Palmer: Tea, Honey, Lemon, and Tasting as You Go

The Arnold Palmer uses four ingredients: black tea, honey, lemons, and water. Hadid notes that the flavors can be mixed and matched. The process starts with boiling water, then steeping tea bags in a large pitcher filled about halfway. Hadid settles on four bags ("let's just say four") and adds honey directly to the hot tea, stirring so the sugars dissolve. The pitcher then goes into the fridge to cool into iced tea while the lemonade is made.

The lemonade section shows how loosely Hadid cooks. Lemons are cut in half and juiced with a juicer Hadid calls the "juice king," with Hadid as "the juice queen," until there are about four cups of juice. When it comes to combining everything, Hadid calls it "a tasting situation": lemon goes in gradually, then more water, then more honey. Hadid gives one rule: "You can add water, you can't take it away. So, it's like salt." The tea bags are fished out ("bobbing for tea bags") with a quick check on whether three or four went in, and the finished drink gets the verdict "Heaven." There's also a small aside about the yellow props: yellow is Hadid's favorite color, and a crew member, Jess, apparently guessed that without being told.

Early Modeling and Growing Into the Job

While the tea steeps, Hadid remembers the first modeling job, a baby Guess campaign. The memory is mostly funny: as a child, Hadid thought that keeping your eyes open while looking into the sun was what made you a really good model.

Hadid says experience and time taught more practical lessons: understanding your place in the process and how to make everyone else's job easier. Hadid also describes becoming more confident with age, "especially with a child now," and links that confidence to getting through obstacles. In Hadid's view, the confidence you find in your personal life trickles into every other part of life, including work.

Music on Set and a Schedule Shaped by Parenting

While juicing lemons, Hadid explains that the music played during a shoot depends on the creative concept of the day: the story, the character, what that character would listen to, and what Hadid wants to feel and show through the eyes. That's why Hadid says it matters to be excited about the creative.

Hadid then describes how work has changed. There is now half the time there used to be. Hadid has the daughter half the time and calls that lucky, and does most work when the daughter is with her dad. As a result, Hadid takes jobs that are inspiring and creatively aligned, and calls that "the non-negotiable these days."

What 50 Covers Mean

Hadid calls it "really wild" to have been on 50 international Vogue covers, or 50 covers at all. Thinking about that number, Hadid doesn't picture the finished images. Hadid thinks about the days spent with the teams. Each cover is remembered as an experience: the trip, the hotel, and the people behind the image.

Seeing Life Through a Child's Eyes

Near the end of the drink, Hadid talks about motherhood. One of the best parts, Hadid says, is experiencing life "through little eyes." Children's presence, excitement, and questions make you see everything in a new way. Hadid also describes a harder side. At times a mother may feel something is too much to handle, but doing it again and again builds confidence, which Hadid calls "an amazing feeling." This echoes Hadid's earlier point about confidence coming out of obstacles.

Where "Tim's Pasta" Came From

The pasta came into Hadid's life toward the end of the COVID period, when travel was starting to open up. The family hosted Hadid's mom's best friend and her husband, and they made this dish. In Hadid's house it's now called Tim's pasta. The version in the video is "Tim's pasta, Gigi's version."

The ingredients are prosciutto, tomatoes, cilantro or parsley, spaghetti, Parmesan, olive oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes. Pine nuts also show up later in the cooking. Hadid describes it as an olive oil and garlic sauce with the prosciutto crisped in it, and thinks the red pepper flakes are one personal addition, because Hadid loves "a little spice." The tomatoes get cubed, though Hadid points out that "tomatoes taste the same in any shape."

A Father Who Cooks by Feel, and a Lifelong TV Cooking Student

Hadid credits the no-measuring approach to Hadid's dad, whom Hadid calls the natural chef of the household. According to Hadid, he can cook for 50 people easily. The biggest lesson from him was to cook with your heart. He doesn't measure much either. For him, cooking is about tasting, smelling, and feeling it out, and it's another way of being creative.

Hadid also calls themself "a student of television cooking" for life. On days home from school, Hadid watched either Forensic Files or cooking shows. On first moving to New York, one of Hadid's biggest goals, apart from modeling, was to be on cooking shows. At the end of the episode, Hadid calls this one a "dream come true of hosting my own cooking show."

The "Prosciutto Flower" Technique

The most distinctive step is how Hadid cuts the prosciutto. Over the years of making this recipe, Hadid has tried many ways of cutting it and has landed on one that creates different stack heights and thicknesses. The goal comes from frying: thicker parts become chewy, thinner parts become crisp, and the mix is what makes it good.

Hadid calls it the "prosciutto flower." Slices are laid on the board one at a time and rotated into a flower shape, then cut one direction and then the opposite. The middle ends up with chunkier pieces and the edges with thinner ones. Hadid admits: "Don't ask me more about why this works cuz I don't fully even know why I came up with this, but it's just what I do."

Comfort Foods and Cooking With a Five-Year-Old

During the prep, Hadid names two foods that work at any hour when landing in New York, jet lag or not. One is a bean and cheese burrito from a place whose name comes out unclear in the audio ("Sodel Norris"). The other is an acai bowl from Sunlife, which Hadid calls an OG Malibu spot. It was also Hadid's sister Bella's first job at the smoothie counter, so Hadid got the friends-and-family discount. That makes the bowl nostalgic.

Cooking at home usually happens on "mom duty," with "a lot of yapping with a 5-year-old." Sometimes the daughter wants to help. Other times she just wants the food to appear, and then the counter turns into an art space with watercolor, crayons, and Play-Doh while Hadid cooks.

For the greens, Hadid uses cilantro, noting no "genetic disadvantage of cilantro tasting like soap." Arugula has also worked when cilantro ran out. Anything with "a peppery freshness" will do.

The Cooking Order, Pine Nuts, and a Palestinian Food Heritage

Hadid says there's "a method to the madness." The pasta goes on first so it's done before the prosciutto. While loading it into the pot, Hadid mentions an upcoming Vogue France cover shot by Willy Vanderperre. Hadid says Vanderperre shot Hadid's first Prada campaign and several creative editorials, calls him "such a calm lovely spirit," and says they can't wait to see the result.

Next the pine nuts are toasted, with a warning to stay close because they burn quickly. Hadid says you can get distracted, think they need more time, and turn around to find them burnt. Hadid pulls them off as soon as they start to smell and brown.

While the nuts toast, Hadid talks about the family's food roots. Much of Hadid's dad's cooking is Palestinian food. Hadid's teta cooked it often and taught him, so whenever the family cooks Middle Eastern or Palestinian food, Hadid says, "she's with us." Hadid finds that comforting, loves eggs with za'atar, and keeps a huge jar of za'atar in the kitchen.

Frying the Prosciutto and Building the Sauce

About half a cup of olive oil goes into the pan, depending on the batch size. Hadid's guideline is that it should look like enough oil to coat all the pasta. To check whether it's hot enough, Hadid drops in a small piece of prosciutto. When it sizzles, the oil is ready. After a quick taste confirms the pasta is "perfect," the rest of the prosciutto goes in.

Hadid breaks up clumps with two utensils (two forks also work), aiming for varied textures. The first pieces added turn more red-brown, which signals the right texture. Chunkier pieces become chewy and smaller ones get crisp, which is the point of the flower cut. Along the way, Hadid mentions not wearing an apron at home and not usually looking this polished while cooking.

Once the prosciutto is nearly crisp, garlic goes in at about a clove and a half per person, for roughly four people, followed by a good pinch of red pepper flakes to make the oil spicy.

Tossing, Plating, and "the Crunchies"

With the heat off, the pasta goes into the pan to coat in the oil. Hadid notes that if the pasta sits in the pan, it starts to crisp. Then comes a generous amount of Parmesan ("the big guns") and the pine nuts. Hadid describes the result as crispy with a lot of freshness from the greens and mentions having made it for "my man," who loves it.

On plating, Hadid says the pasta is the base, but the crisp bits left in the pan, "these crunchies," are what people come back for. The bowls are topped with tomatoes, more greens, pine nuts, and cheese. Hadid adds, "It's good every time. I swear."

Sharing It With the Crew

To finish, Hadid makes more bowls for the people on set, including Demetri and Maria. They react to the smell and textures, especially the tomato, and toast "Cheers, Tim." Hadid says they'll finish eating off camera.

Hadid ends by thanking viewers for joining this "dream come true" of hosting a cooking show and asks them to make their own version of "me and Tim's pasta" and share any good substitutions they come up with.