How many people does your fridge need to feed?
Myself, and occasionally my dog, Doris.
What do you usually eat for breakfast?
Usually toast and cheese and tomatoes, but sometimes oatmeal.
Is there anything you eat every day?
Probably the only thing that’s every day would be coffee.
Every week?
Tomatoes and bread.
What item are you forbidden from purchasing right now?
Stouffer’s microwavable macaroni and cheese. It’s really horrible, and I can make macaroni and cheese myself, but I have a nostalgic connection to it from high school. One of my best friends always had it and I was never allowed to eat microwavable food as a kid—my parents never even owned a microwave—so going to her house was like all things microwavable. And that was my microwavable meal of choice.
What’s the most delicious thing in here?
Either the heirloom tomatoes or the fig jam.
The most disgusting?
The really freezer-burned green beans that look like dried out little mummy green beans. I make my dog food every once in a while and she doesn’t care if food is freezer burned. I’ll add them to the dog’s food. I don’t like to throw food out.
The oldest?
This tahini. How long does tahini last? It says it expired August 31st, but I don’t really pay attention to expiration dates.
Anything you regret buying?
The mixed nuts. I’m really particular about nuts—there are actually only two kinds of nuts I really eat. So these are going to sit here until someone else eats them.
Anything you wouldn’t typically find in a fridge?
My thrift store finds. I went to the thrift store two days ago and found yarn and fabric. I freeze everything I bring home from the thrift store because I’m paranoid about bedbugs and below-freezing temperatures for more than 30 minutes will kill bedbugs.
What's your guilty pleasure?
Besides Stouffer’s? Really good cheese. And it’s a problem because a new cheese shop opened up half a block from my house with all the really good cheese I could ever want.
Where do you do most of your food shopping?
The C-Town around the corner and Trader Joe’s.
How much do you spend on groceries each week?
Not very much. Other than my expensive cheese habit, I eat really frugally—probably no more than $35 a week. I started eating frugally when I was insanely broke in grad-school, but I also eat mostly vegetarian—a lot of vegetables, lentils, pasta—and it doesn’t really amount to a whole lot each week.
How often do you go grocery shopping?
Three times a week, because I have a small refrigerator and because I always forget what I was supposed to get.
What percentage of your meals do you prepare at home?
I work from home somewhere between two and four days a week, so a good 75%.
Is there anything in here that we would have found in your childhood fridge? Frozen chicken carcasses. My mom always made homemade stock.
What do you wish you had in here?
More cheese.
Natasha is a non-profit management consultant and she works with the City Reliquary Museum in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She lives in Manhattan’s Inwood neighborhood, and she’s holding some silk and yarn she found in a thrift store and which she’s been freezing as an anti-bedbug precautionary measure. She plans to knit a hat or a snood.