What’s On My (Actual) Plate (Ice Cream, Sardines, Liver, & More…)
Real Talk: What I Actually Eat
I did a Q&A for our members recently, and one of the most common questions I got was:
“What do you eat in a day?”
Here’s the thing: I’m not a nutritionist (that’s why we have Ashley Koch!). But I am someone who loves food. I don’t eat to live or try to optimize every bite—I live to eat. Big difference.
My choices are driven by aesthetics and satisfaction. I eat food that’s:
Delicious
Fresh and in season
Ethically raised and treated
Beautiful
And ideally… fits into my ongoing Alice Waters fantasy
I’ve found that if I stick to rhythms instead of rules, everything feels so much easier. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’ve got a small but mighty anarchist living inside me. The moment strict rules show up, I want to rebel—even against myself.
I don’t do all-or-nothing when it comes to eating, drinking, or exercise.
(Cleaning is a different story, however.)
Soft serve time!
Q: What do you eat in a day?
People have asked me this for years, and I’ve usually avoided answering—because food is personal and everyone has an opinion. I’m not here to change anyone’s mind. I don’t follow a strict plan, but I am an aesthetic person who loves beautiful food (and it helps that my husband was a chef in SF and Charleston).
We eat organic 99% of the time. I eat protein with every meal—because I learned twenty years ago that if I don’t, I’m starving all day. My husband hunts a lot of our meat (elk, venison, wild turkey, duck, game birds). We also buy grass-fed beef or lamb, pastured chicken, and pastured eggs, plus wild-caught salmon, shrimp, mussels, and clams.
And butter. LOTS OF IT. We go through a brick of grass-fed butter a day (Kerrygold or the New Zealand butter from Costco which I actually prefer to Kerrygold). For real.
P.S. It's not cheap to eat like this, but we sacrifice in other places to make it happen. We don't waste food. And we make broth with bones, which we then use to cook rice or quinoa.
I eat liver once or twice a month—usually wild turkey liver when it's in season, or chicken liver. Beef liver is more of a commitment. I started eating it when I lived in NYC and felt completely run down: my hair was falling out, I was working from 6am to 10pm, teaching 15 workout classes a week, and barely functioning. I used to sit at the bar of this tiny French restaurant and order beef liver. The staff definitely had a “she’s back again” vibe. Like going to Cheers, but as a solo diner who sat there in silence while reading a book and eating a huge plate of beef liver.
P.S. This era is also why I completely shy away from over-exercising. I’ll get into that another time, but for me, 2–3 intense workouts per week is the absolute max—full stop.
Oh, and if you know me, you know that I LOVE ICE CREAM—but I don't like the fillers they put in most ice cream (Guar Gum, Soy Lecithin, Locust Bean Gum, Xanthan Gum, etc.), so I sometimes buy Straus when it’s on sale but mostly make my own with my KitchenAid ice cream bowl. That and wine are my biggest vices—unless you count butter, which I don’t.
Coffee with half and half is essential. I will never give it up for any reason ever. It makes me a better person.
Here’s a typical day:
Breakfast:
3 eggs—every single day. Usually with sour cream, salsa, and sauerkraut (sounds weird, tastes amazing). Or just butter and pepper.
Lunch:
Leftovers (meat + salad) and plain whole milk yogurt with hemp hearts, honey from our bees, and pumpkin seeds if I’m home.
If I’m at my studio, I force myself to eat sardines (I won’t do it at home), plus an avocado, some nuts, good cheese, and maybe an apple.
Dinner:
Wild game, high-quality meat, or wild-caught fish, a vegetable side, a big salad, a starch (rice, sweet potatoes, quinoa), and wine if it’s that kind of night. Which, I mean—it usually is.
Q: Go-to snack?
Whatever’s available that won’t ruin my dinner—or else I won’t enjoy dinner. Some butter and dried fruit (sounds weird, but it’s actually revelatory), olives and cold meat if we’ve got any, or peanut butter and honey on toast.
Q: Supplements?
Vitamin D3 with K2 daily. Magnesium when I feel like I need it, plus zinc and creatine most days. I buy all my supplements from Thorne.
Oh, and collagen if I remember and have some in the cupboard (which is rare—but in theory, I’d like to take it).
And that’s it. I’m extremely skeptical of supplements, re-evaluate what I take on a regular basis, and would honestly rather take none than too many.
Q: What kind of cookware do you use?
Never ever nonstick. I use iron pans, copper pans, the occasional Le Creuset if I feel like lifting something that heavy—and mostly, stainless steel.
You can actually make stainless work just as well as nonstick if you know how to cook with butter. You wait for the bubbles in the butter, then listen for the noise to dissipate (that’s the water evaporating), then turn the heat down. Voila! You have a nonstick pan—no forever chemicals required.
Q: Favorite nutrition book?
Deep Nutrition by Dr. Cate Shanahan.
Q: Favorite cookbook(s)?
Prune by Gabrielle Hamilton, The Zuni Café Cookbook by Judy Rodgers, and anything by David Tanis.
TL;DR Recap:
I just eat actual food. I don’t take protein powder or drink shakes—I like to chew my food. I don’t like green juices because again: I want to eat things, not drink them.
I cut out seed oils more than five years ago and can really tell a difference when I don’t. Because of this, we rarely eat out (though let’s be honest...having little kids is probably the real reason).
That said, I’m not weird about food at other people’s houses. If pretzel/Jell-O salad’s on the table, I’m totally in.
(And if you don’t know what that is, you clearly haven’t spent time in the South—where they love Cool Whip, which is basically just flavored seed oils + high fructose corn syrup.)
People bond over food—it’s hardwired. Sharing a meal actually builds trust in the brain, and I love that. I’ll always choose connection over adhering to a strict food philosophy—because getting to break bread with the people we love is a privilege.