When you marry a vegetarian, it doesn't have to be all or nothing

Chef Sarah Copeland, author of Feast and food director of Real Simple, enjoys a good steak. But after meeting her husband, who is a vegetarian, she began to gravitate toward vegetables. Now she eats vegetarian 90 percent of the time. "I think the whole idea that there's one way to eat or to say, 'I only do this ever, ever, ever' almost invites backlash," Copeland says.

Melissa Clark: You're a trained professional chef, and your husband is a vegetarian. How do you negotiate the whole food thing? How do you feed each other?

Sarah Copeland Photo: Yunhee Kim

Sarah Copeland: When we met, the very first meal we ever had together, I didn't really realize it until later but it was a vegetarian meal. We were eating all kinds of labneh, hummus and baba ghanoush. It really never came up.

As we started dating and he said he was a vegetarian, I was like, "Wow, I cook a really good steak. That's going to be a bummer for you." But I never ever thought about changing his mind. I never thought what I do is better or more delicious or what he does is better or better for the planet.

I just thought, "OK, he's a grown-up. I'm a grown-up. This is the way he eats. This is the way I eat. We'll just eat this other way together." But then my life morphed. The way I eat morphed more toward his.

MC: You started eating 90 percent vegetarian?

SC: Yes, I would say 90 percent vegetarian.

MC: You wanted to because you were more attracted to the way he was eating?

SC: Right. Whenever I would go to a restaurant -- in our profession, sometimes you get a tasting menu and you get to have anything you want on the menu -- I was really gravitating toward the vegetables. Everything around the meat was the most interesting to me.

I don't eat a lot of meat at home, but I never really thought about it. The things I loved and the things I craved were the only things he ate.

MC: What about that amazing steak that you make? Do you ever make it, or is it the end of your steak days?

SC: Right after I wrote my vegetarian cookbook -- and I had been pretty strictly vegetarian for 2 solid years -- I did a story on grass-fed beef. I ended up being in the fields with these amazing, beautiful creatures, these gorgeous animals, the cows that had been just nursing their babies. They were so human-like in their relationships. I was so moved by it.

But then the farmer gave me this incredible grass-fed beef. I took it home and cooked it right away. My daughter, who was 2 at the time, toddled out after her nap and sat down. It was like it was so innate for her. She just dug in, and I dug in with her. We totally enjoyed it. It was amazing.

I still love it sometimes. I think the whole idea that there's one way to eat or to say, "I only do this ever, ever, ever" almost invites backlash. Whereas if you allow yourself your moments -- it's just like if you're a healthy eater, it doesn't mean you never eat a cupcake, right?

MC: For you, vegetarianism is expansive. It's what you do most of the time, but then there are also those moments. What does your husband say when you break out the steak? Does he roll his eyes?

SC: No, not at all. He's so comfortable in any setting. He's the guy who will never even tell you he is vegetarian. He doesn't want anyone to do anything special for him. He doesn't want anyone to work around it. If we're guests at someone's weekend house, I bring eggs. I can make anything work.

MC: I know exactly what you mean because my husband doesn't eat dairy. He'll eat butter but not cream or cheese. I use a lot less cheese in my cooking. But every time I eat cheese in front of him, it makes him really happy. He wants to see me enjoy that. We've been able to negotiate a relationship around what he doesn't eat and what I love to eat. Somehow we all get fed.

SC: I think that's so great. It's really nice to acknowledge that other people really enjoy different things.

MC: What about when you're cooking for your family? Do you find yourself using all kinds of different ingredients, maybe ingredients that are a little bit out of the ordinary?

Copeland's recipe: Bottomless Pot of Bibimbap

SC: I always joke that my husband is a vegetarian who doesn't really love vegetables. He'll be like, "Are we having kale again?"

My whole philosophy around the way I cook is it's not about meat substitutes; it's just about delicious food. I think that opens up so many doors.

We have guests a lot at our house who are dairy- or gluten-free, vegetarian or complete meat-eaters. I make things like artichoke enchiladas, which I'm making for friends this weekend. It's all the familiar things: yummy tortilla, this juicy enchilada sauce, and inside is artichoke and quinoa. It happens to be gluten-free, which isn't my family's thing but it works for other people. It also happens to be vegetarian.

But we never talk about it. We don't say, "You're coming over. Do you mind having vegetarian? That's what we eat at home." It's just like, "We're having mushroom goulash tonight or we're having kale pizza." Everyone seems to be really happy. I will say that I often have sliced charcuterie somewhere present just in case someone is really freaking out.

MC: You always have meat just in case?

SC: Right. It's like bacon: "the gateway meat," they call it.

MC: When you were becoming a vegetarian cook, was there one ingredient that really opened up the vegetarian universe that you learned something from in particular?

SC: Mushrooms were my first aha. Because my husband is Hungarian, I thought, "How can I make goulash -- a food that's so ingrained in his culture -- in a way that everyone would just go nuts for it?" It's a little obvious, but there are just so many ways to go with mushrooms.

MC: There are so many different kinds of mushrooms and they all have different flavors.

SC: There's not a tremendous amount of prep. There's chopping, trimming and cleaning them. But it's not like tofu where if you really want to make it shine, you have to press it and season it so much. Mushrooms have their own great flavor and they really marry with so many things very quickly and easily.

MC: How do you boost flavors? Do you have one particular ingredient that you find yourself reaching for more than when you ate meat, like miso or soy sauce?

SC: Miso would be a perfect one. I should use it more.

The thing for me is really paprika paste or something like a red hot chili paste, which you have in so many different cultures. You have it in Hungarian, but you also have an Italian or a Turkish red pepper paste, and you have chili paste in the Asian culture.

There are so many ways to use it. One of the things that was really a fear for me, because I love soup and we're a total soup family, was how to pull off a really nourishing, exciting soup without chicken broth. Vegetable broth, I like, but it's a lot of work to coax out a lot of umami. You can throw in Parmesan rind and there are things you can do. But I found that if I added paprika paste, red chili paste or anything to my broth, it just got this warm, really earthy aroma, and a flavor that felt more satisfying than a wimpy veggie broth.