This is Amused Bouche, SAVEUR’s food questionnaire that explores the culinary curiosities of some of our favorite people. This interview series will dive deep into their food routines, including dinner party strategies, cherished cookbooks, and the memorable bites they’d hop on a flight for.

Robinson describes herself as an “occasional cook,” and has recently dabbled in culinary television as a contestant on “The Great American Baking Show: Celebrity Holiday” and as cohost of “Clash of the Cookbooks.” Her memories of meals, kitchens of all sizes, and adventures around the world are seen in glimpses throughout her trio of nonfiction books—You Can’t Touch My Hair; Everything’s Trash, But It’s Okay; and Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes, which was published by her book imprint Tiny Reparations that turns five this year—and the TV adaptation “Everything’s Trash.” 

In recent years, Robinson also started marathon training—“I’m an unpaid athlete because I’m still doing the work,” she says—and it took time to develop a food routine that was easy to follow without being too boring. For long runs on Saturdays, she goes for salad and a big bowl of cacio e pepe the night before, and for pre-morning runs, she’ll prep overnight oats. “I don’t eat anything too heavy when I’m going to run because it’s going to suck to run and suck to live,” she explains. “You know, Gabby Thomas and I are very similar. Yeah—Olympian Gabby Thomas!”

Below, Robinson shares some of her hyperfixation foods, what it feels like to eat your favorite nostalgic snacks after the age of 40, and the surprising pasta shape she thinks is totally “forgotten.”

If you could only eat one thing 24/7/365, what would it be?

I am above all a carbs girl, so I could probably eat pasta every day. Sometimes I want a little bow tie if I’m feeling fancy, sometimes I want a little penne. I’ve leaned away from spaghetti because I’m like, “What am I, five?” I love bow ties because they’re fun and you don’t automatically think of them as a go-to pasta shape. They’re left out of the conversation a little bit. Me ordering it is saying, “I haven’t forgotten about you.”

What’s the first thing you learned how to cook?

It was me and my dad baking cookies. I was probably around five? I can see the picture in my head now—me standing with a fork making the marks in peanut butter cookies. I was wearing a cute dress, had little white barrettes at the ends of my little braids that my mom put in, and I was so excited!

How about your latest kitchen adventure?

I’m inconsistent with how often and what I cook. I tried being vegan, I tried being pescatarian. But the truth of the matter is that I really enjoy meat. I will not watch the documentaries that show how meat is procured and brought to us. I don’t need to know—I know it’s bad! I don’t need to look into it. When I eat meat, I want it to be filling, yummy, and simple, like this slow-cooked, keto, creamy Tuscan chicken thing I just made. I do enjoy cozy foods just because the world is hard. We’re working a lot. I’m marathon training. So my default is to eat or make foods that sort of feel like a big hug.

What’s your treat-yourself splurge?

Here’s the thing about getting older: As I’ve turned 40, there’s a clear difference in what I can eat and what I absolutely cannot. In my 20s when I was at the Pratt Institute, I would get a bag of Smartfood white cheddar popcorn, watch “Sex and the City,” and eat the entire party-size bag. I did that during COVID in my late 30s, and it betrayed me. I was up in the bathroom for a long time. I’m lactose intolerant but have always played fast and loose, and now I realize my treats have to be less dairy-based, which is kind of sad. But I found one that’s on my desk right now: Love Corn. It’s just little ultra-crispy kernels of corn dusted in sour cream and onion flavor. I eat them by the handful and like their sea salt, cheddar, and barbecue flavors, too.

If I’m going out, I love the Chinese chicken salad from Restoration Hardware Guesthouse in New York. It truly is to die for. I am the queen of saying I’m gonna minimize and not build it up, but I build that salad up because it is so good. That is my number one favorite salad in New York. It’s a $30 salad, so I won’t splurge on it five times a week, but it’s a sweet and healthy treat that is always well dressed. There’s nothing worse than a salad drowning in dressing.

What’s your most cherished cookbook?

I don’t have any cookbooks, but I do distinctly remember my dad having the giant Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook. And then he has his own little cookbook where he’s just constantly tinkering with his recipes, making notes, and updating it in Microsoft Word before reprinting it. It’s really cute. He made an absolutely fire pineapple upside-down cake when I was younger that I would always look forward to and ask for.

Is there a cooking disaster that made you swear off a dish forever?

I got an Instant Pot during COVID, and I never used it, but my ex did. So when we broke up, I decided to go on Instagram Live and learn as I went with the Instant Pot…and everyone watching was nervous. They told me to step away from it! There was one time I had a can of tomatoes, but I didn’t have a can opener because I guess my ex took it? So I was stabbing a can with a knife and people were like, what is happening? I said that it’s chaos—I’m not Giada [De Laurentiis], honey. I’m so ignorant in the kitchen. So if I chop my thumb off, you guys will see it first.

Which nostalgic foods from childhood bring you the most comfort?

Starbursts! Listen, let me tell you, we used to barter and trade for the flavors, honey. It was pretty fun. If I had to rank my favorites, it’d be red in last place. Like, girl, I guess we’ll have you around. Number one is orange, then pink, yellow, red. 

When you’re playing dinner party DJ, what’s spinning?

I pride myself on my playlists. Sometimes I curate them, and other times Spotify knows what up. But usually I will curate a playlist, and I always get complimented on them. Maybe in another life I could have been a DJ. At a dinner party, I’m always going to put on Luther Vandross’ “Never Too Much.” That’s one of my mom’s favorite singers of all time. There’s never a moment you hear that song and you’re like, “SKIP!” A little Usher moment, a little Mariah Carey with all her iconic eras and styles, and Whitney Houston—classics. A lot of new mainstream stuff is turn-up music, which is fun in some situations, but not when I’m trying to have a conversation. I loved Willow’s last album and will put that on for some more fun.

What is your biggest entertaining flex to impress guests?

I totally fell for an Instagram ad, and I fully, fully stand by it. No one is going to make me feel any kind of way about it. I got this hot chocolate maker that came with a four-pack of flavors: classic, milk chocolate, salted caramel, and mint chocolate. You just put the milk and powder in, press a button, and it whips and heats it up. It takes two minutes and then I pour the hot chocolate into cute little cups with marshmallows on top, and it’s such a fun, relaxing, and unexpected treat. You don’t think about hot chocolate often, but if someone offers it to you, you’re gonna be like, “HELL YEAH!” Then I send them off into the night.

Tell me about a meal so good you would hop on a flight to relive it.

The best tacos I’ve ever had in my life were at Hija de Sanchez in Copenhagen. I truly think about them several times a year. This was in 2018 when I went to see U2 for my birthday and we only had a few days. The location we went to was very unassuming, and we had incredible veggie and pork tacos in the most beautiful weather. I do absolutely want to go back to Copenhagen just for this taco, which sounds insane. I mean, I would obviously build a trip around it, but the main reason would be so I could go and eat those tacos again.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.