Alison Roman

EO

What does it mean to be yourself?

AR

[Laughs.] God, you asked me on a weird week. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I think about it constantly. It’s advice we’re given in everyday life—at parties, meeting new friends, even as children. But professionally, it’s harder. Most people can’t fully “be themselves” at work; a lawyer or doctor isn’t rewarded for that. But when your job is to publicly be yourself, you’re left with the question of who that person actually is. And you have to keep asking, over and over.

For me, it’s a gut check: does this feel authentic, natural, easy? Does it make me feel secure, fulfilled, happy? When we’re fake—at a party, in a meeting—we know it immediately. That bad feeling lingers. The same applies professionally. There’s nothing worse than realizing you did something that wasn’t really you.

EO

And how has that evolved over time?

AR

I think people will study what it means to grow up in real time in front of an audience, because my generation was the first to do that. There wasn’t really a precedent.

EO

The access and attention are unprecedented. We’ve normalized anxiety, the need to have an opinion on everything—often without history or experience behind it. People don’t register how public figures wake up each day and have to “turn the machine on.” It’s exhausting. My mantra lately is to ask for grace—if I mess up, or if someone else does, just show grace.

AR

Everybody’s doing their best. You have to assume that.

EO

But not everyone gets it. How do you know when you’re on the right path—when you feel good in it?

AR

I try to chart it: why did I feel bad one day and good the next? What external forces were at play? There isn’t a magic answer, but I know this—I’m addicted to work. If I’m not writing or cooking, I fall into a dark place where my self-worth plummets. I think, “I’m not contributing, therefore I’m not worth anything.” [Laughs.]

EO

Has that always been true?

AR

Yes. Certain personalities are drawn to certain careers. People in restaurants share a collective neurosis, a need to be useful. I don’t work in restaurants anymore, but I still see myself in the service industry—I’m of service to people. If I’m not producing, I don’t know what to do with myself.

I’m terrible at taking vacation. I’ll go away, but with my laptop. I want to write or cook on vacation, to do the things that recharge me so I can return to work. That’s when I feel most like myself. I’ve also realized it’s not about attention. Even if no one reads what I write, the act of making is what matters.

EO

Martino Gamper once told me he has to make or write ideas down immediately, just to clear space for the next one. If you’re not engaging with your ideas, you block your own workflow.

AR

Exactly. It’s a clearing of energy. Everyone is driven by some kind of purpose. Mine is the pathological need to feel useful. That’s what makes me feel like myself, and it’s why I’m good at what I do.

EO

Let’s take it back to Los Angeles. Where did you grow up?

AR

In the Tarzana and Sherman Oaks area.

EO

Where’d you go to school?

AR

Chaminade, in the West Hills near Calabasas. It was an odd choice. My parents were split up and the districts didn’t work, so they put me somewhere close to both houses. I wasn’t Catholic, but suddenly I was at a Catholic school going to mass. [Laughs.] The Valley shaped me less than being from a divorced household—my family wasn’t volatile, but the circumstances made me very independent.

EO

Are you an only child?

AR

I’m my mom’s only child, but my dad has two younger kids. I’ve realized through years of therapy that that independence made me who I am.

EO

How did that independence shape your choices?

AR

It’s why I left home, worked in restaurants instead of going to culinary school, dropped out of college, moved to San Francisco, then New York. I didn’t have money or a roadmap, but I already felt on my own—so I believed I could make it. That bred a deep independence and primed me to take risks.

EO

What happened after high school?

AR

I went to Santa Monica City College for a year and a half, then moved to Santa Cruz. Not UCSC—I attended Cabrillo Community College while living in Santa Cruz. It lasted about nine months. I was working as a nanny for tech-adjacent families, which was funny because this was before Silicon Valley parents were ultra-wealthy, but they worked at Apple and Google.

EO

What was that time like?

AR

I lived in Los Gatos. It was beautiful, but I didn’t fit. At nineteen I realized it wasn’t right for me, so I moved back to LA, to West Hollywood. I wanted to work at Sona, a restaurant I admired, so I knocked on the back door and asked for a job. The pastry chef answered. I told him I needed to work to pay for culinary school. He said, “Don’t go to culinary school—work for me instead.” It was the best advice I ever got.

EO

Was it helpful advice?

AR

Yes. He told me, “Most people spend $50,000 on culinary school, go into debt, and then discover they hate restaurant work. If you hate it, you’ll know right away.” I told him I thought I’d love it. He hired me as an assistant in the bakery across the street—cutting marshmallows, decorating baked goods, doing menial tasks where I couldn’t mess up too badly. [Laughs.] I still messed up plenty, but I loved it. Something clicked in my brain. I was working a real job, making $7.25 an hour, covering rent, walking to work, no car, no credit cards. I realized I loved to work.

EO

And eventually you wanted more.

AR

Right. I’d watch the restaurant team and think, that’s what I want to do. The energy was chaotic and focused—people working intensely, almost silently. It stressed me out but also pulled me in. Eventually someone left, and I reminded them I wanted a spot. That’s how I moved from the bakery into the restaurant.

EO

How old were you then?

AR

Nineteen. I worked there a year and a half, leaving just before I turned 21. It was a crash course in everything about pastry. Ron, the chef, taught us constantly—we’d dream up flavors and he’d show us how to make them.

EO

What was it like in LA at that moment?

AR

There wasn’t a big food community because the internet hadn’t created one yet. Jobs came through Craigslist, detective work, cookbooks, newspapers. If you wanted to learn, you had to put in the legwork. And I didn’t relate to home cooks—I saw restaurant cooking as performance, passion, high art.

EO

Were you modeling yourself on anyone?

AR

Not really. My influences were mostly men because so few women then ran restaurants and published books. But I wasn’t looking for role models, just styles I liked. What drew me was singularity—before the internet flattened everything, it was easier to be yourself.

EO

And that helped you shape your own cooking.

AR

Yes. I absorbed from everything I ate, read, and watched. I didn’t have a clear reference point, which forced me to filter it all through my own lens. Everyone I worked with had a “don’t give a fuck” attitude. The kitchens were intense, not always kind, but there was respect.

EO

How did your style evolve when you left restaurants?

AR

I went from foams and three-day sauces to a more practical approach. Once you’ve mastered the complex way, you can decide what’s worth keeping and what can be simplified. Writing recipes now, I’m always calculating: is skipping this step worth the loss, or does it ruin the dish? That thinking came directly from restaurant training.

EO

Then you went to Milk Bar.

AR

Yes. I’d just moved to New York, decided I didn’t want to work in restaurants anymore but needed a job. Milk Bar was hiring, and it still felt very start-up—chaotic, scrappy, but fun. Hard work, but an exciting time.

EO

Did you know your path then?

AR

Not exactly, but it was the first time I thought, I want to do something else. Christina Tosi was writing her first cookbook, and I realized so much of my own work had been teaching—training new hires, explaining not just how but why. Watching her made me see that writing could be teaching too. Cooking and writing together could be my way forward.

EO

What did New York open up for you?

AR

It felt like anything was possible. I arrived with no money, no apartment, just the need to work. But I also knew I didn’t want to own a restaurant or bake for someone else forever. After six or seven years in restaurants, I realized I wanted my work to serve my own vision.

EO

How did you navigate that intuition?

AR

Collaboration was complicated. I love advice, edits, mentorship—I still crave it. But executing someone else’s vision when it didn’t align with mine became difficult once I had my own style. Early on I was happy to just be there; later I wasn’t the yes-man type. Fortunately, I’d been empowered young to develop my own tastes and opinions. That made me less ideal as an employee, but more myself.

EO

What was it like starting at Bon Appétit?

AR

I was a freelancer for a year. They wouldn’t hire me full-time, but I kept showing up anyway. I worked three official days a week, came in a fourth unpaid, and inserted myself wherever I could. It was a year of “pick me” energy—I wanted to be there so badly. Eventually they hired me, but only after I proved I wasn’t leaving.

EO

And what was the magazine’s reputation at that time?

AR

It wasn’t cool. No cultural cachet. Friends in restaurants would say, “Wait, that one for home cooks?” Nobody cared. But for me it was huge. I’d always had a complex about not graduating college, about being underestimated as “just” a baker. I wanted to show that food was art, that I was smart and serious.

EO

How long did you stay?

AR

A few years. Then I went to BuzzFeed.

EO

Why BuzzFeed?

AR

Honestly, it wasn’t the right move. I knew on the first day. My title was senior food editor, but the role didn’t make sense and the department was in flux. I cried every day, thought I’d ruined my career. But there was no room to grow at BA, so I felt I had to try something new.

EO

And yet it pushed you toward books.

AR

Exactly. Deep down I knew I wanted to write. And by the end of that year, I sold my first two cookbooks as a package deal. Once the advance cleared, I left.

EO

Two books right away?

AR

Yes. My agent negotiated a two-book deal. It wasn’t just about committing to one project; it set the stage for me to write forever.

EO

Did you feel ready?

AR

I was nervous, but also so young and excited that the permanence didn’t scare me yet. I just wanted to make something unique—different photography, layout, tone. Cookbooks then were moody and serious; I wanted mine to feel bright, fun, like sunshine. No food stylist, just natural light, my own cooking, photographed as it happened. At the time, that felt radical.

EO

So Dining In became the debut.

AR

Yes. I started with the table of contents: what do I want to make, what do I want this book to be about? The answer was simply—me. Recipes that worked, but in my style. Not every recipe I’d include today, but it was a pure snapshot of who I was then.

EO

And by the second book, Nothing Fancy, you were also writing for the Times.

AR

Right. I freelanced for them for over a year before landing a column. Nothing Fancy came out in 2019 and did really well. The Times validated me in a new way—it was the dream job, because it recognized my intelligence alongside my cooking.

EO

How did the column work?

AR

I’d pitch two months’ worth of ideas, then write about 500 words and a recipe. They let me shoot everything myself, which was important—I needed the food to look like I cooked it. We worked out of my apartment with a small budget, my own plateware, a photographer, and a prop stylist. Scrappy, but I liked that. High production doesn’t feel like me.

EO

And then came the viral recipes.

AR

Yes—first the cookies, then others. There was no precedent. I assumed it would never happen again, and then it did. People think there’s strategy, but I wasn’t mapping anything out. I was just making what I wanted, and some things resonated. That era of the singular “viral recipe” is gone now—there’s too much noise.

EO

So the field felt more diffuse.

AR

Exactly. There used to be a handful of major food names; now there are millions. It’s harder to stand out when everyone’s making it, but not really making it.