On her sourdough routine: I usually make sourdough bread and a batch of rosemary crackers at the beginning of the week (I eat the crackers with soup). You have to feed a sourdough starter, and you end up with extra sourdough that I'd otherwise have to throw away if it wasn't for the crackers.
On her classic go-to foods and go-to cookbooks: Butternut squash recipe--I buy it frozen from Costco and it is so easy to use in food, a lentil loaf from the Tulane culinary medicine class, black beans with smoked paprika and cumin. For cookbooks, I love Ottolenghi's Plenty, and the Moosewood Cookbook. Davin just got me Ottolenghi's Simple and I have a lot of recipes bookmarked to go.
On her ultimate goal in her food life: I want to be good at improvisational cooking, the kind where you aren't just reading from a cookbook. I'd also like to be inspired by local and sustainably farmed food. I recently read Omnivore's Dilemma and they were talking about polyphase farming, which is basically what all the millennial people with goats are trying to do--everything very intentional and cyclical, not just a monoculture. So I guess good food locally, with improvisation and a minimal impact on the environment.
On becoming vegetarian: My family is very food oriented, and I remember bonding over good food growing up. We would go to a fancy steakhouse on Tuesdays in grade school. I actually became vegetarian when I was 13 for environmental reasons, and I've stayed vegetarian since. I don't even remember breakfast sausage.
On having her boyfriend move in on the floor below her: Davin moved in downstairs two months into our relationship but it's been really wonderful since we cook back and forth together. We recently perfected a stuffed pepper recipe with Arborio rice and beer. Davin used to just make salads and tabbouleh and falafel, and then I loaned him a cookbook and he started cooking, and now I would say he's just as good at cooking as I am, but not as good at baking.. to be fair though, I haven't really eaten baked goods that I didn't bake myself since college, so I've had a lot of practice. For Valentine's day, he made cheese and halloumi carrot fritters, which turned out really well.
On the food that makes her swoon: I made the most amazing grilled cheese the other day: Shaved gruyere with mushrooms, butter and marsala wine. It was delicious.
I'll admit that after Clair mentioned this combination of foods, I craved that exact mix and bought gruyere, mushrooms, butter and wine the next day to make my own sandwich. It truly was amazing.
