IN 2018 ALEXIS NIKOLE NELSON did something her friends and family had been begging her to do for a while. She started an Instagram account — called Black Forager — and it became a place for her to post about her “weird food stuff” that was separate from all her regular life updates. Things like how to tell the difference between Queen Anne’s lace and hemlock.

“One’s a carrot and the other killed Socrates, so you have to know the difference,” Nelson says during a recent phone call.

In the years since, Nelson has become known for her foraging videos. In them, she makes learning about plant identification a joyful thing, her enthusiasm spilling out of her in a river of made-up songs, random facts and useful information. Now, her debut cookbook, titled with the quip she uses to end each video, publishes Sept. 22.

“Happy Snacking, Don’t Die!” (Simon & Schuster) is a seasonally organized romp that leads readers through foraging for ingredients both obvious (dandelions) and surprising (magnolia buds), talking through identification, history and offering a collection of vegan recipes in each chapter.

It was a labor of love to write — “emphasis on labor,” Nelson says.

A book like this takes time — focusing on foraging throughout the year requires at least a year to gather featured ingredients. There’s no running to the grocery store for out-of-season ingredients when they aren’t commercially grown. Add in a historic drought in Ohio where Nelson lives and that year turned into nearly three by the time recipe testing and photography were finished. (You can also track the seasons in the book by noting Nelson’s changing manicure in the photos.)

Nelson says that investment of time is the beauty of the book. Foraging seasonally, by nature, takes time — and sometimes that’s hard to remember.

“We are so insulated by these systems that have people so out of touch with these foods,” she says. “Our parents and our grandparents still remember the seasonality of foods. They still remember not having strawberries year-round.”

While compiling the book, she worked hard to “zero in on what makes a specific plant or fungi seem reachable and attainable” and recipes that felt relatable. The ingredients — like mugwort — might not be familiar to you, but the execution — potato mugwort pancakes or a mugwort matcha mug cake — probably are.

Nelson also didn’t want to dwell too much on ingredients that are at risk of being over-foraged and potentially disappearing. Nelson’s goal was to put in ingredients that could “stand up to a lot of people trying new things” while omitting more delicate foraged items like ramps or chanterelles.

“We did an entire chanterelle chapter that we ended up cutting. There’s a lot of chanterelle recipes. It’s not hard to find one,” she says. “I wanted to be able to add to the conversation and not just be doing my little riff on a lot of classic extant recipes.”

With specific sections on foraging tools, plant seasonality and identification, and weather, all written in Nelson’s approachable voice, the book strikes a great balance between attainable and ambitious, appealing to hardcore gardeners and naturalists and city dwellers alike. One could even argue this book is aimed at city dwellers like Nelson, who lives in Columbus, a city of 900,000-plus.

Nelson hopes the book “makes its way to people who live in cities, like me, who consider themselves very separated from nature. I hope it makes them know that nature is a lot closer than you think when you really start paying attention to the plants that even show up in a person’s lawn,” she says.

Ohio isn’t the same environment as Seattle, but there are many similarities to be found in the book. The spring chapter has recipes for magnolia bud tea and magnolia syrup, stuffed morels and garlic mustard scissor cut noodles. Summer showcases roses, milkweed and purslane while fall sings the praises of black walnuts, acorns, goldenrod and chicken of the woods. Rounding out the year, winter features field garlic, rose hips, juniper and evergreens — so many things the Pacific Northwest has in abundance.

Nelson also underscores the community aspect of foraging, noting that a person might see a pretty tree or shrub in their neighborhood and not think much of it. But once you learn about those plants, it’s like getting a secret password. Suddenly you’re “forming and fostering a relationship with that specific plant in your neighborhood,” she says.

It’s not just a gorgeous magnolia tree in your neighborhood, pretty when in bloom; it’s a resource to make sweet magnolia syrup. You want that plant to be there (even the dandelions), and you might even want to get to know the neighbors that live around that plant.

“A lot of people worry about foraging because there’d be nothing nowhere, the world would be barren. I beg to differ,” she says. “I think when you forage you start wanting to take better care of the spaces you’re foraging in.”

And yes, there is a difference between foraging and poaching. Taking better care of spaces through foraging is part of the social contract — Nelson stresses to only take enough for yourself or your family.

“I live in a big ramps area and I know folks trying to serve the fine dining community in New York City will come into West Virginia and Eastern Ohio and just pillage,” she says. “It’s why I tried to focus on fruits and nuts. Take all the acorns you want.”

Above all, Nelson just hopes her book helps people become less “plant blind.” She stresses she’s just one of many — a Black forager, not the Black forager — and the more you learn, the more excited you’ll be.

However, it can be dangerous.

“You’re going to want to learn more about the birds, and if you go way too far into it you’ll be where I am, when you get into the geology (underground),” she says with a laugh. “It’s a gateway to discovering that everything is exciting if you learn about it and all people are interesting when you slow down.”