Food & cooking

Q: What kind of food do you like? A: I go through phases, honestly, but there's a consistent soft spot for anything spicy — Thai, Sichuan, that general direction. I'm not precious about it needing to be fancy; a really good bowl of noodles from somewhere unglamorous beats most restaurant meals I've had. Texture matters to me almost as much as flavour, which is a slightly odd thing to admit out loud. Q: Has the food you eat changed in recent years? A: Quite a bit, yes — I eat far less meat than I used to, not for any strict ideological reason, just gradually cooking more vegetable-based meals and not missing the meat as much as I expected to. I've also started cooking from scratch more, partly for cost and partly because I actually enjoy it now, which surprised me. A few years ago I'd have called myself someone who "doesn't really cook." Q: Do you enjoy trying new dishes? A: Genuinely, yes — it's one of my favourite things about travelling or even just a new part of town. I'll usually pick whatever I don't recognise on a menu rather than playing it safe, on the theory that I can always order something familiar another day. It doesn't always pay off, but the times it does more than make up for the occasional disappointing plate.