Karina: I love cooking because it gives me a sort of retreat and a break from my reality — when I’m cooking I’m in the zone. I’m creating something new. I don’t follow a recipe exactly; I always change it and do my own thing. I don’t do the same thing twice. I try to get creative with a dish.
Kareem: Now you cook for the baby — which is great because the baby gets homemade meals every day.
“When I’m cooking I’m in the zone”
Karina: She eats a lot of simple stuff like sweet potatoes or bananas, and now I do some protein like fish or chicken. I just steam it, and then I’ll add a grain like rice or quinoa and then vegetables. I try to make it with as many colors from the rainbow as possible
Kareem: I enjoy eating other people’s foods. I’m not a chef. So my greatest contribution to cooking is saying, “Wow, that is extremely good. Thank you for your hard work. I love it.” I see how much work goes into everything, and I’m grateful.
“I can only get along with people who like breakfast for dinner.”
Kareem: We matched on Hinge over a love of breakfast for dinner. I had it as a prompt on my profile. Something like, “I can only get along with people who like breakfast for dinner,” and Karina liked it. So I slid in the DMs, as a good man does, and was like, “Let’s get breakfast for dinner.” Of course, Karina was skirting me and avoiding me for a very long time, so we never got breakfast for dinner until I essentially lied to her and was like, “Hey, I’m at a smoothie shop in your neighborhood” — which I wasn’t — and she responded, “OK, I’ll be right down.” Then I was late to the smoothie shop, so I was busted in my lie. On our third date we saw a movie and then went for breakfast for dinner afterward at a diner in the neighborhood that we now live in. I think it was 7th Avenue Diner.
“I think most people who are not great chefs are pretty good at breakfast because they have to be.”
Kareem: I’m a traditionalist, so I like to get an omelette and a pancake for the table.
Karina: I get a salad usually, but that night I got an omelette.
Kareem: I think most people who are not great chefs are pretty good at breakfast because they have to be. So I’ve always been pretty good at making breakfast. I happened upon this wonderful dish at my friend’s house. He made a bed of arugula topped with scrambled eggs. Today we added avocado, mushroom, and feta, but the thing that makes it spectacular is the balsamic reduction. I’d never had that before until my friend put it on that bowl. I think people fuck eggs up by making them too complicated. I don’t have any secret tricks besides keeping the eggs moving in the pan the entire time. That’s how you make a perfect scrambled egg: You don’t let it sit. No milk.
“I think it’s just like, with practice you get better.”
Karina: I was never interested in cooking when I was growing up in Russia. I never participated. But I moved to New York for college when I was 19, and the food at school was really bad. That was also the first time I was in an apartment with roommates, and eating out was so expensive. I remember I tried to replicate something I had in a restaurant, and it turned out really good. So I was like, OK, this is a thing! Cooking for yourself. When I like something, I kind of get obsessed, so then I was cooking every meal for myself. I think it’s just like, with practice you get better. Then I’d Google recipes, play around, and try deviating from recipes.
“I decided to become a comedian. It was, in my opinion, a practical pivot.”
Kareem: I have had a career in media for a long time. I worked at Vice and The New York Times, and I had a lot of content development and audience development experience. I started a production company, had a museum of pizza. I just did a lot of different things at a lot of different times. One day I was like, This is unsustainable. I need to do something I really love, and I decided to become a comedian. It was, in my opinion, a practical pivot. I didn’t want to be at a desk or send emails for a living. That was five years ago, and now I have these shows on the internet and I’ve made a career in entertainment. We’re going to start publishing long-form episodes of Subway Takes that are 35 to 45 minutes. I have my first feature film coming out, and we’re going to have a screening in New York and L.A. probably in January. So people should come check that out. I actually go to a diner in my movie.
“Eating at home is better than eating out.”
Karina: I was a journalist at the United Nations and covered what was happening there, and then I worked on the other side in communications. I started feeling like I was lacking purpose, though, feeling a bit stuck about what to do next. Then I happened to be pregnant at the same time, and I was really excited. I thought maybe this will show me a new purpose and something to accomplish. I’m in that process now. I’m a stay-at-home mom right now, and I’m not certain what’s next after I stop being a stay-at-home mom. I was actually out today for longer than two hours, which is usually my limit for being away from the baby, and I missed her so much. It kind of hit me for the first time today: She really is the best thing, the best little magical thing happening in my life.
"If you’re not cooking, you should clean everything else!”
Kareem: My current take right now is that eating at home is better than eating out. I think particularly the takeout category has gone downhill. It doesn’t hit the same way it used to. Maybe the ingredients got worse — I don’t know. Or maybe the food I have at home with Karina is just better.
Karina: My kitchen take is that if you’re not cooking, you should clean everything else! That’s the rule in our house.
Kareem: For kitchen confidence, you have to fail as many times as possible. Don’t expect to be Jean-Georges. Fail consistently, and then something good will happen.
“For kitchen confidence, you have to fail as many times as possible.”
Karina: My advice is not to be afraid of not following a recipe exactly. Though I’m excited about this recipe that my mom shared with me, Sufi cake, which I will probably follow exactly. It’s a variation of a pavlova cake. My mom used to bake it for Sufi’s monthly birthday, and now Sufi is almost 1 year old, so I’m excited to bake it for my baby.
“She really is the best thing, the best little magical thing happening in my life.”
