Feast And Family
Trudy Crane and Chloé Crane-Leroux dish on their luscious new cookbook, The Artful Way to Plant-Based Cooking, the careers that brought them back to food, and the importance of gathering.
Photography by Rose Callahan
Interview by Laura Neilson
Hair and Makeup by Ashley Meyers
I’ve known Trudy Crane, and her daughter Chloé Crane-Leroux, for all of 20 minutes when I happen to find myself conducting this interview from Chloé’s bed. I’m slouched on top, to be more accurate, as Trudy sits beside me, and Chloé is perched in a chair across from us.
What’s remarkable is how comfortable this potentially awkward setup actually feels, thanks to the instant, almost familial ease I have in their company. It’s obvious enough from the gorgeous images of mother and daughter together in their new cookbook, The Artful Way to Plant-Based Cooking: Nourishing Recipes and Heartfelt Moments (which Chloé photographed herself), that the two share an intimacy beyond words. But it’s the way they so easily welcome others into their orbit that makes one feel especially at home. That extends to the book as well— a collection of 80 or so vegan recipes that are both delicious and inspiring, but above all, inviting.
We’re in Chloé’s sun-filled apartment on the Upper West Side, a very different setting from her childhood home in Montreal, but it suits her, she says. She arrived in New York a decade ago to study photography at Parsons School of Design, and it’s been a romantic-feeling backdrop for her life since. “This is my home—it really does energize me. It's a very intense city, and there’s all this chaos, but I feel like New York is the city of dreamers and doers, and that's why I'm here,” she says, smiling wistfully.
Trudy, 64, also found her “home” at a similar point in her 20s. Originally from the west coast, she moved to Montreal when she was 26. “I fell in love with it immediately. I just felt more at home in Montreal,” she echoes. Both women also recently moved: Trudy to a more rural setting outside of Montreal, and Chloé to a different building in the same neighborhood. Alas, they’re each still settling into their new abodes as they prepare to embark on a busy round of events celebrating their book’s debut. “We kind of always make these changes simultaneously,” laughs Trudy.
Both women pivoted to food from fashion, too. Chloé, 30, focused her early career on fashion photography, but quickly found the food space more fulfilling. “I realized that I loved not only photographing food, but being around food people, being in the food industry,” she explains. Nonetheless, her photography conveys a sort of considered, chic lifestyle that’s enabled her to collaborate with a swathe of fashion brands like Chanel, Dior, Anthropologie, and J. Crew.
Trudy, on the other hand, had spent the greater part of her life as a fashion marketing executive when, at 50, she opted to abandon her office for a ceramics studio. “I felt I wasn’t being creative anymore. And you know, you have to follow your heart,” she says. She wanted to get her hands dirty and work on something that yielded immediate tangible results. “So I quit my job, and I started making ceramics every day in a local studio.” As her ceramics prowess progressed, she launched her brand, lookslikewhite, which gained a significant following when it was picked up by the online food and home goods site, Food52. Today the brand comprises a number of handcrafted tablewares bearing Crane’s trademark spare, artisanal aesthetic.
Alas, it’s rather fitting that their respective occupations have brought them back to the dinner table—a gathering place in many households—which for them, especially, has always been their center of gravity.
Throughout Chloé’s childhood, the family routinely hosted guests and friends. “Like, every weekend,” Chloé emphasizes. “That was something I loved. There was always a celebration in the kitchen and dining room outside.” Even ordinary moments became joyous occasions bolstered with food and wine, and endless conversations. Things would quiet down during the weekdays, but one ritual was perennial: apéro, that casual social gathering over a pre-dinner drink and maybe some light bites. “It’s something we talk about a lot in the book. It was always about that moment to be together at the end of the day. Even when it was just my parents and me, that was something that we really prioritized,” affirms Chloé.
Befitting to Montreal’s European-leaning culture, the family routinely ate a lot of meat before Chloé moved to New York and quickly adopted a diet prioritizing vegetables over veal. “I never really liked meat. And even my mom always said, ‘When you move out, I know you’re going to become a vegetarian.’ And I did,” Chloé remembers. (“She was always putting it to the side of her plate,” adds Trudy.) Being embedded in the food world, and watching how chefs seasoned their various dishes with spices and herbs was a formative experience in learning to do the same with plant-based ingredients. Chloé was already cooking favorite vegan foods for Trudy during visits, as Trudy’s own diet and eating habits eventually evolved—first cutting out meat, then fish and dairy, and eventually eggs.
The Artful Way to Plant-Based Cooking is the result of a project they’ve been cooking up since the pandemic, and perhaps the sincerest expression of their individual and mutual sensibilities as epicureans, creatives, and bon vivants to date. Photographed in Spain and France, it’s a resplendent celebration of setting and the seasonal local bounty, as much as togetherness and what’s on the table. That the book was photographed by Chloé brings an especially personal touch to its pages.
With crisp autumn days fast upon us, I ask the two what produce they’re especially excited to see at local greenmarkets. Squash is the unequivocal response: butternut, honeynut, spaghetti—all kinds, they agree. The cookbook features several recipes highlighting the gourd, including an autumn kale salad, and a decadent ricotta and squash galette, both of which I’ll be thrilled to serve at my own dinner table this season, surrounded by a cast of friends and bon vivants. And perhaps we’ll even start with an apéro and a toast, if anything to celebrate the occasion of togetherness. As Trudy reminds me: “It’s about the importance of rituals in our lives.”
Many thanks to Chloé and Trudy for preparing the dishes featured in this story: Pappardelle Mushroom Bolognese & Ricotta and Squash Galette. Both delicious dishes can be found in The Artful Way to Plant-Based Cooking.
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