How many people does your fridge need to feed?
Christie: Currently, four people: myself, Sean, Nico—who’s 22 months—and my business partner from San Francisco, Michael, who’s staying with us for three weeks.
What do you usually eat for breakfast?
Christie: Not much. Coffee. And when I’m at the office, I always have scrambled eggs and cheese. I get it on the way in. I found the perfect place: three eggs and cheese for $4.
Sean: Always coffee, sometimes oatmeal, sometimes a piece of fruit.
Christie: Nico sometimes has a full bottle—8 oz—of milk, and she always has a big serving of oatmeal with maple syrup, butter, and some cream, and usually a pear, or a banana, blueberries, raisins, and sometimes grapes.
Is there anything you eat every day?
Christie: Eggs.
Sean: No, not the same thing every day. Nico has oatmeal everyday, and inevitably some Goldfish crackers.
Every week?
Christie: Sean does almost all the cooking. Every week we have some form of chicken, some form of fish, quinoa, greens, and rice.
Sean: These days Nico is really into pasta.
Christie: She also loves navy beans with curry powder and cumin.
What item are you forbidden from purchasing right now?
Sean: Veal. Although I had veal last night because it was unexpectedly cooked for me. But that’s the first time I’ve had it in years. I try to avoid eating baby animals. Also, super-processed food—we’re not really a manufactured foods household.
Christie: We have to avoid nuts because we discovered that Nico has a severe nut allergy. In August she had an anaphylactic reaction to half of a cashew nut and her lip expanded to 10 times its regular size. It was one of the most emotionally wrenching times of my life—I’ll never forget that.
What’s the most delicious thing in here?
Christie: Something that’s just about to enter the fridge: this slice of pumpkin pie I just brought home from The Blue Stove.
Sean: There’s some pretty good mashed sweet potato I made last night with butter, half-and-half, and a pinch of salt.
The most disgusting?
Sean: Olive tapenade with mold growing on top that for some reason I haven’t thrown out.
The oldest?
Sean: We have this random steak that’s just been sitting in there. I don’t know where it came from.
Christie: The duck would have been the oldest before we put it in the oven and broke it.
Sean: Oh, I have the other half of that duck! No, that duck that I burned was fresh.
Anything you regret buying?
Christie: This chunk of lard. I bought it for making pies and I haven’t made a pie since I bought it about two or three years ago so I regret it because it just makes me feel guilty. Every time I open the cooler for cheese I see this huge cube of lard and I think about how much of a pie failure I’ve become.
Anything that you wouldn’t typically find in a fridge?
Christie: These are children’s acetaminophen suppositories. They need to stay in the fridge so they’re cold enough to slip up the bum.
Sean: They’re really hard to get in.
What's your guilty pleasure?
Christie: Any kind of chocolate dessert.
Sean: Sriracha on everything.
Where do you do most of your food shopping?
Sean: FreshDirect.
How much do you spend on groceries each week?
Sean: About $120.
How often do you go grocery shopping?
Christie: We do two trips to the grocery mart and then FreshDirect.
Sean: We’ll buy a handful of things at the corner store, like an avocado for Nico, and beer.
What percentage of your meals do you prepare at home?
Christie: We do breakfast, lunch, and dinner at home on the weekends, usually, and these two do breakfast at home during the week. And all Nico’s meals come from here. So I’d say 50%.
Is there anything in here that we would have found in your childhood fridge?
Sean: Mayonnaise.
Christie: Hellman’s mayonnaise and butter. Heinz ketchup.
Sean: Bonne Maman jam.
Christie: Mine, too. My stepmother always had it. It’s big in Canada.
Sean: Worcestershire sauce.
Christie: Yea, mine, too! In terms of consumption of food, Sean and I are really well-matched. Sean loves talking about food and different types of food and cooking methods. I love that too, but I can’t match him on that. And we like to make different things. He likes to cook and I like to bake.
Sean: Except remember that pie guilt? Also, our oven’s busted. I broke it. That duck breast I broiled caught fire and I put a fire extinguisher on it. Foam was everywhere. And I busted the little thermostat sensor when I was cleaning it up.
Christie: I thought we were going to go up in flames.
Sean: Never broil a duck breast.
What do you wish you had in here?
Christie: I wish I could have my grandmother's “strawberry freezer jam,” as it was called. I'm not sure if anyone in the family kept the recipe—sometimes I think, “Oh, I'll probably never have that jam again!” I loved it so much as a child. I wish I could have even one more taste—just one more!
Sean is the CTO for an interactive agency and he’s holding a bottle of Sriracha. Christie is a science journalist and entrepreneur who recently cofounded a publishing platform called Publet. She’s holding a jar of Bonne Maman jam and her almost-two-year-old, Nico. They live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.