RHONY Star Erin Lichy Reveals How the Show Inspired Her 1st Cookbook

Erin Lichy wants to make entertaining less overwhelming.

The Real Housewives of New York City star has written her debut cookbook, She’s a Host (out Oct. 28), which features recipes, decorating tips and other advice for throwing a Bravo-worthy gathering. 

The serial entrepreneur and real estate agent tells PEOPLE she was inspired to write the book after seeing fans’ interest in her signature shakshuka, a North African and Middle Eastern breakfast dish consisting of eggs in a tomato-red pepper sauce, which she made on RHONY shortly after joining the cast in 2023.

“I think I got the idea when I realized that people really cared and loved my shakshuka recipe,” she says, adding that both times she’s shared it on Instagram, “It was just such a great response and people were saying how they didn't know what shakshuka was before I had posted it.” 

“I kind of felt compelled to share a lot of other dishes that are so regular to me that maybe most people wouldn't have known about,” she continues.

Lichy says her maternal grandmother, who was from Iraq, was “the cook of the family” when she was growing up.

“Her love language was through food,” she recalls. “She was cooking at all of our meals and every single big holiday. I spent a lot of time with her just as child care, really, and she would just always be cooking, so I was around such a homey chef.”

As a result, cooking became “not only familiar, but comforting and exciting too,” Lichy says.

“I realized, I think probably in my teens, that the food that she was making was very different and very unique in terms of what my friends' parents and what those families were eating," she says.

The Manhattan native remembers her grandmother kneading dough all day long while making sambusak, a dumpling-like pastry, and cooking beef stew with okra.

“In New York City, most of my friends weren't having okra for dinner, you know what I mean?” Lichy says. “She brought with her a lot of the recipes that she would have in Baghdad because she was raised, actually until she was 14, in Baghdad. So, yeah, we were just eating different types of foods, and it was just so unique to our upbringing.”

Lichy’s grandmother on her father’s side was from Yemen.

“When I'd go to Israel, I'd spend time with her,” she recalls. “She was making things like jachnun and malawach, which are also doughy recipes, but very, very different than what my [maternal] grandmother would make.”

She calls the two Middle Eastern culinary influences “so different, but somehow connected.”

Now, Lichy is a mom of four herself, having welcomed a boy named Jack Hunter in March, and cooking at home has changed.

Erin and her husband Abe Lichy also share sons Elijah, 4, and Levi, 9, and daughter Layla, 7.

“Oh, my God, I just have no time,” she says. “The past couple of weeks, I've been so bad about cooking. And I usually make my kids dinner at least three, four times a week. Fast recipes have become very important to me.”

The book includes some “kid-friendly easy dinners that you can make on the fly,” which Erin says she’s been leaning on. One of her favorites is a chicken and broccoli stir-fry. 

Another chapter of the book focuses on “girls’ night in” gatherings, which Erin enjoys with both her RHONY castmates and off-camera pals.

“The first thing you got to do is have a cheese platter, especially for Sai [De Silva],” she says. “And it's really all about picking at food and being able to walk around and talk to your friends and hang out and have cocktails.”

“I do think it's really fun, especially for a RHONY night, to have a bartender around just so that we don't have to make our own cocktails,” she adds. “I've actually done this with the girls before and I have cocktail stations where it's interactive.”

The newly minted author says the best part of writing the book was “the memories.”

“I brought up a lot of stories and memories from my childhood,” she explains. “A lot of it was kind of emotional because it touched upon my dad and things that he made. So it was kind of hard, but also very cathartic and really beautiful.”

Erin’s father, Eliahu Yitzhari, died in October 2024.

“I actually loved the process so much more than I would've thought, to be honest,” she says. “Just writing the words and then making the dishes. And even when I would smell some of the dishes that I make and be reminded of a specific memory of either being with my grandmother who's now passed, or just being with my siblings and my dad, it's a really beautiful experience."

Ultimately, Erin hopes her “unbuttoned cookbook” will inspire readers to host more.

“You can make a beautiful dinner party or a brunch or whatever it is, and not have to put as much effort as you would originally feel like you need to put into it,” she says.

“There are simple tips and tricks that I have in the book that I think really … just lay out good groundwork for an easy way to entertain, but still keep it very, very elegant. So, I hope people feel less of a barrier to entry to host.”