How do I (30sF) confront my landlord/roommate (30sF) about properly replacing the food she's using? (Living together 8 months)

I rent from a friend of mind (both of us in our 30s), partially to save money and partially to help her out (she fell on some hard times and can't handle the full mortgage right now). Generally we get along great, with the exception of our food situation. It came to a head yesterday, and I'm not sure how to approach this situation without doing something drastic.

Our arrangement with the kitchen is basically "Try not to use the other person's food unless you're out of something. Call before you use the last of something. Replace it if you use more than half." I don't like being the kind of asshole that has labels on all of my food product and doesn't share. It generally doesn't bother me if a roommate just wants to avoid an after-work grocery store trip and cook with my stuff, on occasion (obviously not all the time).

If you can guess, it's turned into an all-the-time issue. At this point my landlord can't afford her own groceries because she's trying replace all the things she's taken from me during the week. It's getting a little absurd, and I have a slightly bigger issue with it: I spent way more money on food than she does. I'm a foodie and I like to cook. I spend a lot of money on quality ingredients, and I generally travel stupid distances to specialty stores get them. It's my hobby.

Landlord doesn't, and right now she quite frankly can't. She's trying to make it up with really infuriating substitutions. To name a few... box dry shells for some gnocchi she took, shredded mozzarella in a bag for burrata in brine, (actual) Bud Lite for craft beer, imitation vanilla extract for whole vanilla bean, that honey in a plastic bear for comb-in stuff from the farmer's market... the list can go on and on. I appreciate her trying to make it up to me, but it's definitely to clear her conscience versus actually make up for it. About half the time she takes really basic items (lettuce, fruit, milk, rice, etc) too, and generally replaces those with the original item before I need them.

The latest one was she used up a bunch of saffron strands while I was away for the week. I apparently looked pretty enraged upon hearing that, so she immediately went into defense mode and said she'd make a special trip to whole foods to get more... I basically told her not to- they're expensive to the point where the store I get them from (over an hour away) keeps them in a locked cabinet. She looked really disheartened at hearing they cost That much, and started asking when I'd need them again. I explained to her that probably not until the holidays, since I really only use them for a friendsgiving paia (longstanding tradition since I moved here). She still tried to replace it... with several boxes of instant saffron rice from the grocery store down the street, and she got really upset when I said thanks but no thanks.

So yeah, I need to have a talk with her about the food replacements and borrowing. I get that she's broke. If she needs me to buy the food for a while, I can (...admittedly, there's going to be less fancy stuff in the mix). I'd just rather she stop using all of the expensive stuff, and I'd really rather she stop wasting money half-assing it replacing it. I don't know how to put this politely, because I do have to live with this woman and I'd rather not have that much animosity in the house. I don't want to get to the point where I'm writing "do not use" on my food, either.

Tl;dr Live-in landlord steals my food, makes horrible substitutions to make it up to me. I can't figure out how to make it stop and still preserve a liveable relationship.

Submitted August 29, 2020 at 08:05AM by EarlGreyHTHP https://ift.tt/2EBExvG