My kitchen is … quite long and narrow. On the right-hand side, when you walk in, there’s a big window, with a huge tree. The colours change with the seasons and it’s really beautiful. The kitchen is on the left, all stainless-steel counters with open shelving – also stainless steel. It’s just such a practical material – we can work directly on the surfaces, and it’s very easy to clean. We have lots of crockery and cookbooks displayed – it’s more aesthetic than practical, but that’s important for my flatmate Meg and I. We both spend a lot of time in there – we cook together more than we do apart, and we like that it’s a beautiful space. We love winter cooking – a bottle of red wine and a one-pot wonder is our favourite dinner.
My favourite kitchen tool is … a small Magimix hand-held blender. It saves you having to chop, which is lazy, but I like that. I also love my pestle and mortar.
My storecupboard staple is … lentils. Red ones, in particular, but we have many kinds – we tend to get through them quite quickly.
When I’m starving I … have very buttery scrambled eggs on Marmite toast. We usually have eggs and always have bread.
My culinary inspiration is … new cookbooks. We have a shelf full of them. Whenever we get a new book we always try and do a recipe from it. We’ve been teetering on the edge of cooking something from Our Korean Kitchen, by Jordan Bourke and Rejina Pyo – we just need to get the ingredients. And then Alex Hely-Hutchinson’s 26 Grains – she does a plum tart that is really beautiful. I have always fancied myself as a baker. We also have some very battered Nigel Slater books, which we always go back to – he’s a failsafe.
My best-kept kitchen secret is … to make more than you think you’re going to have. It’s so nice to have leftovers for the next day. Also, with our kind of one-pot cooking, the flavours are always better the next day anyway.
When I’m invited to dinner I always bring … a bottle of wine. I’ve been on a few wine tours, in Italy and Texas. I don’t pretend to know more than I do, but I am curious. I’m also very happy to drink anything, as long as it’s not a Gallo family white.
Everything tastes better with … butter and salt. My heart would probably disagree, but it’s true.
When I go shopping I … am not very organised. I shop as and when I need ingredients. We shop together, and we also always bring stuff back after photoshoots too. We both really don’t like seeing anything thrown away.
For dinner tonight … we’re having puttanesca pasta – garlic and onions, anchovies, capers, olives and passata, all sweated down into a really rich sauce.
- Issy Croker is a food and lifestyle photographer issycroker.com @IssyCroker
- Issy will be taking over Cook’s Instagram account this weekend. Follow us @guardian_cook for updates.
