For Rich and Johanna, the question “What’s in your fridge?” comes with a little extra baggage. As the husband-and-wife team behind Foodstream, food rescue is part of their everyday work, which means they spend a lot of time thinking about what we buy, what we eat, and what too often gets thrown away.
At home in Ridgewood, Queens, that translates into a fridge that’s surprisingly sparse, a condiment collection that is anything but, and a cooking philosophy built around using what’s already there. Add Rich’s British roots, Johanna’s Colombian upbringing, neighborhood Polish markets, a rooftop garden, and some very strong opinions about hot sauce, and their fridge tells a pretty good story about how they live and eat.
What ingredient do you always keep on hand “just in case”?
It changes with the season, but we always keep fresh eggs, a variety of cheeses, thinly sliced ham, olives, garlic and hot chilies on hand.
We also keep frozen fruit and vegetables handy for those days when we’ve worked straight through lunch and suddenly need an emergency liquid zap of blended fruit, vegetables and fibre.
Has working in food rescue changed the way you shop, cook or stock your own fridge?
Definitely, although there is some irony here.
We’re married. Rich is British, Johanna is Colombian, and between us we run three companies, largely from home. Both of us work very long hours, so despite spending so much of our lives thinking about food, food education and food rescue, it can be surprisingly easy to forget to actually feed ourselves.
Food rescue has made us much more conscious of using what we have. We try to eat down the freezer, reinvent leftovers, turn scraps into stocks and broths, and compost what genuinely can’t be used.
Living in Ridgewood, Queens, means we’re surrounded by multigenerational fruit and vegetable stores, Polish meat shops, bakeries and other family-run food businesses. Having all this on our doorstep allows us to buy little and often, keeping our food fresh and seasonal, with less sitting in the fridge waiting to become food waste.
When it comes to meat, eggs and dairy, we’re a little obsessive about how farmed animals are raised and treated. For those, we’ll often venture farther afield, including trips to The Meat Hook in Greenpoint, to find pasture-raised and humanely raised options.
The fridge itself is usually pretty sparse, although somehow we have enough sauces, mustards, pickles, chutneys and random condiments to open a small shop. A few may also be slightly beyond their suggested date. We choose to interpret some of those dates creatively.
What’s your best “use what you have” meal?
For Rich, bubble and squeak.
It’s basically the original British leftover meal: potatoes and whatever vegetables survived the previous dinner, fried together until crispy. Ideally with a good old-fashioned can of Heinz baked beans, and slices of ham.
For us more generally, it’s often some version of soup, stew, lentils, pasta or salad built around whatever needs using up: homemade broth, vegetables, tomatoes, greens, canned beans/pulses, maybe some sardines, oh, and cheese of course!
In the cooler months especially, those homemade broths tend to find their way into autumn soups, winter stews and gravies.
What’s your go-to late-night fridge raid?
Johanna will happily reach for arepas with queso fresco.
Rich is more likely to go for sharp cheddar, Branston Pickle and sliced ham from one of the Polish meat shops nearby.
And if we’re really tired: warmed oat milk and homemade granola. Good night!
If a coworker opened your fridge, what would they immediately judge you for?
Probably the fact that there isn’t actually that much food in it, but there are enough condiments to survive a minor emergency.
At first glance it can look like there is absolutely no dinner in there. Then one of us finds some homemade broth, vegetables, yams, leftover roasted chicken or pasta!
That’s probably the biggest influence food rescue has had on the way we cook: less “What do we need to buy?” and more “What can we make from what we’ve already got?”
If a neighbor stopped by unannounced, what would you offer them?
Depends entirely on the hour and the season!
Morning: ridiculously fluffy buttermilk pancakes with proper maple syrup and whatever seasonal fruit looks best.
Lunch: arepas, and something involving eggs, as well as scallions, baby tomatoes, chilies, Swiss chard, all straight from our rooftop garden, and plenty of cilantro, avocados and limes. Otherwise, a quick pasta made from whatever is around.
Early evening: probably an espresso martini made with our homemade brown-sugar, espresso powder, and fresh thyme syrup.
We might have forgotten to feed ourselves all day, but somehow we will always feed a guest.
What’s a fridge item that connects you directly to your roots or upbringing?
Our fridge is probably one of the clearest representations of our marriage.
On Rich’s side: Branston Pickle, Worcestershire sauce, tangy cheddar, and the occasional reminder that pork scratching is apparently a perfectly respectable food group.
On Johanna’s side: arepas, queso fresco, avocado and chicharrón.
And we both love chicharrón, although Rich will still insist on calling it pork scratching from time to time. Somewhere between Colombia and Britain, that one required absolutely no cultural negotiation.
Then Ridgewood gets involved: Polish meats, fresh bread from the bakery, seasonal fruit and vegetables from the neighborhood shops, and whatever herbs or tomatoes we’ve managed to grow ourselves.
Somewhere in the middle of all that, dinner happens.
Do you have a current obsession ingredient? What are you putting it on?
Hot sauce. Possibly too much hot sauce.
Rich and Johanna are both a little obsessed, and Smile Farms chili sauce is a current favorite.
Eggs, sandwiches, vegetables, leftovers, soups, pretty much anything that stays still long enough gets some.
What’s the most “you” item in your fridge right now?
Probably not one item. It’s the condiment shelf.
British pickle, mustards and Worcestershire sauce rubbing shoulders with Colombian staples, neighborhood finds and whatever sauce one of us has dragged home recently.
It’s basically our marriage in a refrigerator door.
What’s your favorite quick snack straight from the fridge?
A really crunchy, juicy, cold apple, an arepa with queso fresco, or, when the garden is cooperating, tomatoes and basil piled onto a fresh bread roll from our local baker.
That probably sums us up better than anything else in the fridge. Two different food cultures, one household, and a shared belief that food is always more interesting when you know where it came from, who made it, what season it belongs to, and what you can do with it before anything goes to waste.
Read more from our What's In Your Fridge Series
