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The recipe that Alison Roman may be best known for today is her caramelized-shallot pasta, published in 2020 when she was a food writer for The New York Times. It became the defining recipe of the early pandemic in part because its ingredients—except for the anchovy fillets—are pretty basic. And there are only 10 of them, including the pasta and salt. For Roman, the mega-viral recipe came to embody her signature “Stone Soup style”: familiar ingredients magically transformed. For many amateur home chefs, the recipe is still bound up with tiny relief from pandemic desperation, having made us feel less alone and a little creative at home. It’s also a relic of an age when food media was coherent enough that a recipe could go mega-viral.
Since then, Roman has had a couple of internet dust-ups, made a cooking show, gotten married, and had a baby. Recently she published a new cookbook, Something From Nothing, which continues the tradition of using the existing pantry as its primary inspiration. This episode of Radio Atlantic is a live conversation with Alison Roman, recorded at Sixth & I in Washington, D.C. We talk about her family Thanksgiving, why she makes her own baby food, and what’s wrong with quinoa. We also discuss food trends, and what life is like for her as a solo creator. “I’d say the hardest part of that is: Nobody is gonna give me an assignment,” she told me. “I am so busy all the time, and nobody told me to be busy.” We also put the cookbook’s philosophy of simplicity to the test. I bring items from my own pantry onto the stage; Alison chooses three, blindly, and has to create a dinner on the spot.
The following is a transcript of the episode:
[Music]
Hanna Rosin: Hey, friends. This is Radio Atlantic. I’m Hanna Rosin. And we have a treat for you today, today being Thanksgiving.
Recently, I interviewed chef and cookbook author Alison Roman onstage in D.C. at Sixth & I. And since many of us are thinking about food this week, we decided to share that conversation.
Even if you don’t know Roman, it’s likely you’ve eaten one of her recipes, especially her megaviral one for caramelized-shallot pasta. And one of the reasons that dish was so ubiquitous was because of how few ingredients it called for.
Her new book, Something From Nothing, uses that same minimalist approach, relying mostly on pantry staples.
I gave Roman a test onstage: I had her pick items from my pantry out of a bag, blind, and see what dinner she could make up on the spot. I also asked her some questions sent in by you, the listeners, about how food is changing, how food media is changing, and whether you should switch up the Thanksgiving staples.
Here’s our conversation—
The big controversy over the last couple of years is go traditional or go salmon Wellington or—
Alison Roman: Absolutely not.
[Rosin and audience laughter]
Roman: And if anybody here is thinking about doing salmon Wellington, please call me—
Rosin: Please leave.
Roman: —and I’ll come over.
Rosin: (Laughs.) Yeah.
Roman: No, no, I wanna help you—I wanna call you in. I don’t wanna push you away, because we gotta fix that.
I don’t think it’s an either/or situation. I am a big fan of additive rather than burn it all down. Because Thanksgiving is also famously not just about you, right? It’s about the people that you’re eating with and giving thanks. (Laughs.) Unless you are doing Thanksgiving for one, which is cool, and then you can do Wellington everything if you would like.
Rosin: So you mean you make a traditional turkey?
Roman: Yes.
Rosin: Traditional pie?
Roman: Pie, I do galette. I have my Thanksgiving menu, which is also the problem with doing Thanksgiving publicly, is that my personal Thanksgiving preferences don’t really change that much.
I do one regular, classic turkey—full turkey, let’s call it—and then I do turkey, the slow-cooked legs and the thighs, because it’s so much better tasting than a regular turkey, but without the pomp and circumstance of a beautiful bird in front, I feel like I’m missing something. So I do understand the attachment, at least visually, to the full turkey.
Rosin: And what do you add? [Are] you saying, every year, you feel pressure to add something—something new, something interesting?
Roman: And in 20 years, it’ll be, like, 18 things on the table. No, I consider it to be like, okay, the stuffing and the turkey and the gravy and the cranberries never really change for me; it is what it is. And then, one year, it’s green beans. One year, it’s Brussels sprouts. One year, it’s squash. One year, it’s carrots.
Rosin: That’s still pretty basic.
Roman: Yeah, but, like, it’s a vegetable. And then I put a salad.
So it’s like, you kind of rotate in these things, but if there’s somebody at your table that’s like, If I don’t have X, Y, and Z dish, I’ll simply die, then just make it. That’s not the time to say no; it’s time to say yes.
[Audience laughter]
Roman: Yeah.
Rosin: If somebody comes to your house for dinner, and they wanna make a side or bring something, do you allow it?
Roman: God. (Sighs.)
[Rosin and audience laughter]
Roman: Do you mean at Thanksgiving, or generally speaking?
Rosin: You decide. (Laughs.)
Roman: Here’s what I’ll say: I think that it’s okay if you’re like, I made everything, and I just need a bowl and a plate to plate it, and I’m like, Great. But if they’re like, Where’s your skillet? I’m like, Nope, shut it down. Do not cook in my kitchen. Bring something—but I feel that way about other people too. I would never do that to you. I would never come over and cook in your kitchen.
Rosin: But you evaded the easy way out, which is what if someone just wants to bring something?
Roman: (Laughs.) Sure.
Rosin: Really?
Roman: Yeah.
Rosin: Okay. (Laughs.)
Roman: Sure. Although, I—
Rosin: Probably, it doesn’t happen to you, ’cause people are intimidated.
Roman: It doesn’t. People wouldn’t dare.
[Audience laughter]
Roman: I also think that potlucks are the worst thing that’s ever happened to us. (Laughs.)
[Audience cheers and applause]
Roman: Because that’s how you end up with just a menu that does not go—it doesn’t go.
Rosin: Okay. We have a question from Meredith: “After the holidays, when we’re sick of eating, what are some of your go-to recipes to get back into eating on the lighter side, but also stay cozy?” It’s very specific.
[Audience laughter]
Roman: Yeah. I’m gonna go with—that’s gotta be soup; it’s soup. And soup is kind of always the answer, if you’re wondering.
But I feel like you make the broth with the bones from the turkey. You have some vegetables you can throw in. You can also just sip turkey stock. You can do a lot with that. I feel like that is the on-ramp to doing it all over again.
Rosin: People in the audience, people out in the world sent us a lot of questions in a lot of different formats, and I’m gonna sprinkle them throughout.
From Robyn: “What enabled you to break free and set yourself apart in the crowded world of food bloggers and cooking shows? Were there distinct things you did or did not do?”
Roman: Mm, okay, Robin. Yeah, I think that, for me, I started cooking in restaurant kitchens, and I just wanted to be a cook, and that was my goal. I started cooking before iPhones existed, before Instagram existed. I didn’t start cooking with the goal of being, like, a blogger or on the internet in any capacity.
And so I think that knowing that, even as the internet and Instagram and social media became a part of my life just as a product of being a person in the world—it kind of doesn’t matter what your profession is; it’s something that you kind of partake in—and I think just knowing that the whole time, having that be my north star, of like, Well, I’m a cook, and I cook, and that’s what I do.
And then, I think—it’s funny ’cause it is crowded, and sometimes even I am like, Well, how am I different? Okay, you all write recipes, and you all have a YouTube channel, and you all have a newsletter. You all duh, duh, duh. It’s like, okay, it does become a bit more of a struggle.
And I think that the only answer remains—and as cheesy as it is—is being yourself, because there’s only one of you, and there could be a hundred YouTube channels, but there’s only one of you and your personality.
And so the more you can double down on being yourself and infusing your recipes—and that means the title of the recipe, the ingredients you use, and the way that you write instructions—the more personality and individualism that you can infuse into those things, I think that is the answer.
Rosin: Although I do think you also have an uncanny ability to figure out what people actually wanna cook, as opposed to just your own—the world of Alison. It’s what actually translates into people’s kitchens. I don’t know what that is—
Roman: I don’t know what that is either.
Rosin: —but you have a good radar for it.
Roman: Yeah, I don’t know. I think it’s an authenticity when it comes to developing because I’m living in the same timeline, where I’m like, Oh, the weather is this, and I feel like this, and you all do too at that time.
It’s a bit different for a cookbook because, obviously, you’re sort of picking things and investing in recipes that are living as a collection, versus like, This is coming out this week, and you’re all gonna make this this week.
Rosin: Yeah, yeah.We have a question from Danny: “What do you see as the biggest misconception in food media right now, and how do you think creators should respond to it?”
Roman: Mm. I think that the misconception is that it’s dead entirely, because I do think that it has died, but I do think it will come back.
Rosin: What is “it”—food media?
Roman: Food media, yeah.
Rosin: Interesting. Okay.
Roman: Because there’s already people doing it. There’s already people that I know that are starting up a thing or kind of returning to, Let’s rebuild what was kind of taken away.
When I started working at Bon Appétit in, like, 2011, there were, I wanna say, eight other food magazines. And you could work at any of them, and it was sort of like, Which magazine are you at? And you would go to an event, and you’d be like, Oh, there’s so-and-so from Food & Wine and so-and-so from Real Simple, and there was, like, a community of people that were editors or writers—people that worked within the concept of food media.
And now there is not that. It is: There’s people that work at a magazine. There’s magazines that have food sections, newspapers, etc. And then there’s people that create food on the internet.
Rosin: Right, they’re influencers.
Roman: Exactly. It’s completely all over the place. And I think that there are people that are really interested and invested in kind of regaining what it means to be a journalist in the food space and sort of tell stories of culture and cooking and food that aren’t just these sort of entertainment narratives that are, like, content creators. And so I’m optimistic about it.
Rosin: That’s so interesting because food, it does take experience—to write a cookbook, to figure out, Okay, now I have a concept big enough for a cookbook, so—
Roman: You would think it does.
Rosin: —I don’t know how you get from creator to that.
Roman: Well—
Rosin: You have to cook a lot; you have to have experience in kitchens—or, at least, that’s the way it’s been.
Roman: You don’t, is the sad part. But I think it’s also because a lot of people don’t write their own cookbooks, like …
Rosin: (Exclaims.) What? No, I’m just kidding. I knew that.
Roman: In the same way that a lot of people don’t write their own books, or ghostwriter is an occupation, and people do it—I know them; I know people who do it. And I think that it is a different skill set.
Rosin: Who wrote this book?
Roman: Me. I do everything. You can tell ’cause there’s typos.
[Audience laughter]
Roman: ’Ccause things are messed up—that’s how you know it’s me. Yeah.
Rosin: You started out working in institutions, like BuzzFeed, The New York Times; now you’re independent. Can you compare pluses and minuses—what’s better about one; what’s worse about the other?
Roman: Yeah.
[Audience, Roman, and Rosin laughter]
Roman: You know what I will say? I really miss working with other people. I really miss collaboration, and I really miss being—some of my editors would say that this is not true—but I actually really do miss being edited.
And I don’t mean my writing specifically or the style of recipes, but I mean the push and pull of getting somebody to make the writing tighter, to sort of ask you a question that you hadn’t maybe explored, really making sure something is as well thought-out among people as possible. And that doesn’t always make for a better recipe, but it does make, I think, for better writing, to have a great editor.
Rosin: Less lonely. It’s less lonely.
Roman: Yeah, I think working for yourself can be pretty lonely. I think, more recently, I’ve started—and during book time, there’s a lot more collaboration that goes into it. And that’s why I love making books, because you get to work with photographers; you get to work with artists and designers. And then comes the promotion of it and the tour. It becomes more community-based.
And when you’re not in a book-writing season, it is a little bit more you, and I’d say the hardest part of that is nobody is gonna give me an assignment. I am so busy all the time, and nobody told me to be busy.
Rosin: Right.
Roman: Nobody’s giving me a deadline. Nobody’s demanding anything from me. Nobody’s asking me to, like, launch a tomato sauce. But I’m like, I’m gonna do this thing, and then I’m like, I’m so stressed out with this job that I just made myself do.
Rosin: For myself, yeah. (Laughs.)
Roman: I’m like, Oh, maybe I should stop giving myself so much work.
But there is an element of like, What am I doing this for? Even though I know the answer to that, but it’s so much easier to work with people and be like, Ope, I have an assignment. I have an assignment. And that’s why I really love things like Thanksgiving, because that, to me, is the ultimate assignment. It’s like you know what you’re doing, and you’re coloring in the lines a bit, and—I don’t know.
Rosin: Since you wrote your last book, you had a baby. He’s very cute. I’m sure you guys have seen pictures. You told New York magazine that you make your own baby food. Do you actually make your own baby food?
Roman: Yeah, I do. But I’m not making baby food; I’m making food that he can eat—which I feel like there’s a distinction there. I make lentils, and I eat lentils, and so does he. I’ll roast squash and eat some, and then he eats roasted squash.
I’m not making—I don’t—I think I have a hard time admitting that I’m making baby food, so I’m really talking around it.
[Audience laughter]
Rosin: (Laughs.) I’m being silent on purpose just to make you defensive, yeah. (Laughs.)
Roman: I’m like, No, I don’t make baby food;I make food for the baby. (Laughs.)
Rosin: I don’t—I swear. I’m not trying to start a war.
Roman: Yeah. (Laughs.)
Rosin: (Laughs.)
Roman: But, yeah, I thought that that would never be me, but—and it won’t last forever. It’s lasting right now because he eats so little, and the things that he does eat are very simple.
When it comes time to be making, like, fish sticks from—like, No, thank you. Pass. I don’t think that that’s me. But right now, it feels doable.
Rosin: How many people here made the caramelized-shallot pasta?
[Audience cheers and applause]
Rosin: Probably everyone.
Did you ever figure out why that one went viral, in all these years of thinking about it? I recently looked back at the recipe—it’s so simple. The only complicated ingredient is anchovies. But other than that, it’s so basic.
Roman: It’s complicated emotionally for people, but anchovies in and of itself is not a complicated ingredient.
I think that it was sort of right time, right place. I don’t think recipes can happen in that way anymore. I think that it was very zeitgeisty moment where Instagram was just like—I think there’s, statistically speaking—I looked this up; I forgot the actual numbers—but I wanna say the way that it’s grown from five years ago, the amount of users on Instagram, is just an unfathomable number and—
Rosin: Because there’s no unified thread of popularity, so—
Roman: Correct.
Rosin: —it just can’t be one thing that goes viral that way, yeah.
Roman: Exactly. So either things aren’t going viral, or so many things are going viral that we sort of don’t notice anymore, but it feels like it was a very special place and time. But I also think that it’s really delicious pasta—
Rosin: Yeah, totally.
Roman: —and every person who made it told five people to make it, and those people told five people to make it. And it wasn’t a product of the internet; it was a product of people actually cooking it and eating it and being like, Oh, my God, I have to make this again. I have to have this. And it’s also, like, five ingredients.
And I think that that, in and of itself, is fascinating—to me, anyway. And I find that with music and art and movies and even getting dressed or something; I’m like, Oh, sometimes paring back and simplicity is the best choice.
And it’s not a result of something being easier or lazy or a consolation prize. Sometimes the easiest or most simple thing is the best, and you can just be like, You know what—like, that pasta doesn’t have cheese on it, because it doesn’t need it. I’m sure we’ve all put cheese on it; it’s okay.
[Audience laughter]
Roman: I’m okay with that. But it doesn’t need it, and I think that that’s really important to remember.
[Music]
Rosin: After the break, we put her new cookbook’s approach of making “something from nothing” to the test.
[Break]
Rosin: I’ve never done this onstage, but we’re gonna try it: We’re gonna play a little game with Alison.
But first, I want you to read something in your book, which I thought was so—
Roman: Oh, I’ve never done that either.
Rosin: Really? It’s so lovely. It’s the thing I—I’m sorry I wrote in your book. I hope that doesn’t bother you.
Roman: No.
Rosin: It’s that little purple part.
This is what Alison wrote about her husband, because she also recently got married, and I thought it was really beautiful.
Roman: Just do it all at once, guys. It’s honestly great.
Rosin: Yeah.
Roman: Okay, this is so—I’ve literally never done this before.
Rosin: You can do it.
Roman: And when people hear that I’m going on a book tour, they’re like, What do you do? Do you just read from your cookbook?
[Audience laughter]
Roman: And I’m like, No. (Laughs.)
Rosin: Just get onstage and cook?
Roman: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Okay.
“In his vows, he told me that his favorite nights at home were when we didn’t—”
Rosin: Slow down.
Roman: Okay. Fuck.
[Rosin and audience laughter]
Rosin: Like, way down.
Roman: Okay. Well, I’m nervous. (Laughs.) You really put me on the spot. Okay.
“In his vows, he told me that his favorite nights at home were when we didn’t have time to go grocery shopping and I made something of what we had in the pantry, because it was in those thrown-together moments that he got to see how my imagination worked.”
Rosin: I thought that was really lovely.
[Audience applause]
Roman: Thank you, Max. Thank you.
Rosin: This is really weird, but just bear with me.
[Audience laughter]
Rosin: I brought a bag that’s made up from the pantry of me and my partner, and Alison has to go in and pick out three things from the bag and then tell us what she would cook from it. And if it works, we’ll do it twice.
[Audience laughter]
Rosin: If it’s boring and weird, we’ll just do it once.
Roman: And this is my fantasy, by the way. I am really into it.
Okay, so, I’m just picking it up and—
Rosin: You just have to pick up three things, and you can’t really look, but just go in and pick up three things—this is also merch from The Atlantic, just—
Roman: Yeah.
Rosin: And you have to say what they are, ’cause people in the audience can’t see.
Roman: One potato.
[Audience laughter and applause]
Roman: Okay, let me ask: Am I only allowed the quantity of which I pick up?
Rosin: No, no, no, no, no. This is a—
Roman: Okay, so potato as a—
Rosin: It’s a conceptual potato. It’s a conceptual potato.
Roman: Symbolic potato.
Rosin: Symbolic.
Roman: One symbolic potato. Okay—
Rosin: And you can add things that normal people would have in their house. You can be additive.
Roman: Garbanzo beans, organic.
[Audience laughter]
Roman: And to clarify as well, does everything have to go together?
Rosin: They have to—this is your meal.
Roman: Okay. You’re taking this very literally.
Rosin: They don’t have to be in one dish.
Roman: Okay.
Rosin: You have to make us—this is your husband’s concept here. It’s like we didn’t go grocery shopping.
Roman: Sour cream.
[Audience laughter]
Roman: To what do I owe the pleasure? Okay.
Rosin: We didn’t go grocery shopping; this is what we got. That’s the idea here.
Roman: Okay.
Rosin: Okay, so bring it. What are we having for dinner, honey?
Roman: Well, I gotta say, it’s gotta be some sort of potato soup. We’re going sour cream and potato together. The sour cream doesn’t have to go inside of it, but it should go on top of it. Bonus points if you have onion, garlic, leek, shallot—oh, you don’t.
Rosin: No, you do. That’s fine. That’s normal stuff—
Roman: Oh, great, okay—
Rosin: Yeah, totally. That’s fine—
Roman: I was like, We all do. (Laughs.)
Rosin: Everybody does, yeah.
Roman: Okay, so, yeah. And the reason that that soup is good, or a soup like that, is because you don’t have to have a shallot if you have an onion. You don’t need a leek if you have a shallot. You know what I’m saying?
Rosin: Yeah.
Roman: So allium, potato, broth—Better Than Bouillon if you don’t have broth.
[Audience cheers]
Roman: That’s right.
Okay, so potato-leek soup, or potato soup of some sort, with this. No blender—we’re not blending. No, we’re not making baby food.
Rosin: Okay.
Roman: But my baby does like potato soup.
Rosin: Okay, good.
Roman: In a chunky form.
Rosin: That is baby food.
Roman: For adults.
Rosin: Yeah.
Roman: And then if we’re doing this in the same meal, perhaps there’s some sort of, like, chickpea-salad situation, but, like, a frizzled chickpea, because a raw chickpea outta the can is never gonna hit the same. But if you had some greens, you could put it over the greens—like, toss it with that. And, I mean, you could even put a little sour cream in the bottom of that if you wanted. But I think just on the soup is good.
Rosin: Okay.
Roman: It’s a weird meal; I’m not gonna lie. Really, to me, the soup would be the meal, and then I would say, Well, I’m gonna put these back for another time.
[Rosin and audience laughter.]
Roman: But if I’m trying to play the game here—
Rosin: That’s not how the game works. Okay. (Laughs.)
Should we do one more?
[Audience cheers]
Roman: Okay.
Rosin: Okay. Great. Okay.
Sorry, Alison. One more.
Roman: Okay, so I can’t use any of these anymore. Okay. These are—
Rosin: You cannot use those.
Roman: Okay. It’s like, I can tell what the cans are.
Rosin: I know. I know. I couldn’t fix that.
Roman: Oh! Oh, no.
Rosin: (Laughs.)
Roman: Quinoa?
[Rosin and audience laughter]
Roman: Boo! There’s not one quinoa recipe in this book—I’ll save you the time, if you’re looking.
Panang curry paste. Okay. Gluten free, that’s good. And—
Rosin: We’re a healthy home.
Roman: I’m, like, really hoping this is coconut milk. Oh, fuck.
[Rosin and audience laughter]
Roman: Black-eyed peas, no salt added?
[Rosin laughter and audience applause]
Roman: I do wanna take this time to say, unless it’s for health reasons, I genuinely think that you should avoid the no-salt-added legumes in a can because, like cooking pasta in salted water, it’s so hard to season any sort of bean or pea that has not been seasoned from the beginning. You can add so much salt to these, and you’re always gonna be like, Why do they taste like this? And it’s because they were not treated with love and care and salinity from the beginning.
Rosin: All right, so we’re having kind of a crap dinner tonight, but—
Roman: We’re having an interesting—
Rosin: It’s raining, so we’re not going shopping. So what do we got?
Roman: Okay. Ah, fuck.
[Audience laughter]
Roman: Well, I guess what we’ll do is we’ll make some sort of, ugh, like, a salad with the black-eyed peas and the quinoa. I’m gonna make the quinoa. It’s gonna be mid, per uzh.
Rosin: (Laughs.)
Roman: But we’re gonna make it taste good with some grated garlic and olive oil, lemon juice, and we’re gonna add the black-eyed peas. We’re gonna let it sit. If you had something like lots of parsley or a cucumber, you could do a tabouleh-esque situation.
Rosin: Mm-hmm.
Roman: With black-eyed peas, which, as we know, are high in protein, which we love. Okay.
And then if you have curry paste, let’s pray you have a can of coconut milk and, like, one zucchini or whatever, or we’re allowed to use more potato. You could kind of make a quick sort of curry with that and call it a day.
[Audience laughter and applause]
Roman: Thank you. That was hard. Thank you.
[Audience applause]
Roman: Thank you. I’m so brave. (Laughs.) Thank you.
Rosin: Okay. This one’s a little serious, so we’re taking a serious turn.
This is from Jordan: “Having grown up in a diet-obsessed culture, how have you maintained a loving relationship with both your body, and with food and cooking?”
Roman: Mm, well, Jordan.
Rosin: (Laughs.)
Roman: That is extremely hard. It’s hard every day. I don’t wanna gender it and say that it’s specific to women, but I think that any person in the public eye, where you’re looking at photos or videos of yourself at a clip that no human should—it’s not healthy for anybody’s brain to do it—you become really self-judgmental and really hard on yourself.
And that’s in addition to where we are culturally, where we see photos of what—people say, Oh, well, that’s good, or That is aspirational. And I don’t know—you’re like, I see bones. Like, I see your bones. So I don’t know that that is aspirational. But we are in a place right now where, I think, things are so skewed because everybody is looking at themselves constantly. And—
Rosin: Right. And you’re supposed to love food. You’re—
Roman: Exactly.
Rosin: —you’re trying to convey a love of food, a love of making food, a love of eating.
Roman: And also, to be successful, you also have to be hot and young forever. And so you have to love food and love eating, but also look a certain way and never age and be a mom, but don’t talk about it.
There’s all these sort of things that you’re supposed to adhere to in order to achieve success that seem completely out of line with actually cooking and eating and living. And I think about it every day, and trying to square it, and it’s really challenging.
Rosin: So what do you—
Roman: I don’t know. I think that you—I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know the answer.
I feel like the work begins in yourself. You have to love yourself and etc., etc., platitude, platitude, but it’s true. Body positivity and all this stuff that kind of ebbs and flows culturally, I don’t think you can trust it. You can’t wait for the culture to change to make it feel like you’re doing the right thing.
Rosin: Yeah, yeah. I was thinking, maybe the culture has opened up to a wide variety of people in cooking—like, a lot more, maybe, than when you started out.
Roman: Yeah, absolutely.
Rosin: So that’s hopeful.
Roman: Yeah. I think the democratization that the internet provides, where everybody kind of has the opportunity to create their own space and their own niche, is really great, and there is truly something for everybody.
Rosin: I’m having a really hard time transitioning to the next question, and you’ll understand why after this profound conversation. (Laughs.)
Okay, here goes. From James: “I’ve been distressed for many years at how bland chicken has become.”
[Audience laughter]
Roman: That’s a you problem, James. I don’t think we’re having that problem.
Rosin: Whoa—“Fifty years ago, chicken was amazingly flavorful,” etc., etc. “What can we do?”
Is this true, or—
Roman: I’m not 50. I don’t know.
[Rosin and audience laughter]
Roman: But I think that a lot of our foods are not as good in the farming and the this, that and the other. I think what you can do is you can buy chicken from a farm, and that means going to your farmers’ market. I don’t suggest you, like, leave your home and go to the farm, but there are ways for the farm to come to you—almost every city has a farmers’ market—and those chickens are almost always significantly better tasting. They have more fat. They have more flavor.
When it comes to things like chicken, meat, or fish, and I would call it, like, specialty vegetables, I do think that seeking them out from smaller farms makes a huge, huge difference.
Rosin: It’s true.
Roman: It’s like a tomato: When you get a beautiful tomato from the market in the middle of August, you’re like, Well, this is delicious. And then you get a tomato at the supermarket in February, you’re like, Well, this tastes like shit. It’s not the same food, but it is, so it’s not really the tomato’s fault; it’s what we’ve done to the tomato.
And same for the chicken. If you’re getting your chicken in a place where they’re feeding it, like, ground-up gravel or whatever, and they’re living in a horrible place, they’re not gonna taste very good.
And so you have to take that into consideration, of when you eat meat or fish, especially, you’re eating what they’re eating, so I think about that a lot when I’m purchasing my protein.
Rosin: Yes, yes, yes.
Okay. Sarah: “What are some of your all-time favorite cookbooks? How did they inspire you as you conceptualized your cookbooks?”
Roman: Hmm. A lot of my all-time favorite cookbooks were ones that I started reading after I started writing cookbooks. And—
Rosin: That’s intimidating.
Roman: Yeah, well, I kind of went in pretty blind to writing my first book. I wasn’t a person who consumed a lot of food media or read a lot of cookbooks, and my parents didn’t have any cookbooks, really. My mom always just cooked from her brain. It was never a recipe household, same with my dad. I never really even saw recipes in my house. And it was a lot of like, Oh, this is how your grandmother makes her brisket, and it was bad; we didn’t need to remember it.
[Audience laughter]
Roman: But it was sort of lore. It was talked about. It was passed down verbally. It wasn’t a recipe thing.
So I would say that, after the first one that I wrote, I started looking to other books just to sort of—because the books that I was reading were, like, memoirs, and they were sort of longer form, like the Alice Waters biography and Judith Jones’s The Tenth Muse and books like that, that really inspired me to write about food.
Because I felt like the recipes I had nailed, in terms of I knew what I was cooking, and I knew what I wanted to cook, but getting the inspiration to figure out, well, how did I wanna say it? Like, Laurie Colwin–style: Okay, we’re not writing recipes, but we’re talking about food in a way that gets you excited to cook.
So I feel like those were the most inspirational to me and have shaped my career more than a book of recipes.
Rosin: Okay. Last one—this is kind of an ender question: “Do you experience cooking burnout, and how do you stay inspired or get back in the groove after a rut?”
I think this is relevant to a lot of people, who feel like, Ah, I’m doing the same thing, cooking dinner every night. What do you do?
Roman: Yeah. I experience that, also, and I think a lot of people maybe assume that I don’t or that I just have—if you do it for a living, maybe there’s the fantasy that you have this endless spring of inspiration. But I don’t.
And oftentimes, I think, to be totally honest, that’s how this book was born, was just going more simple and falling back in love with how good it can taste to cook, like, five ingredients together in a pot and be like, Wow, this doesn’t actually need anything else. And paring back and just kind of reminding yourself that, like, a chickpea cooked from dried in a bath of olive oil and garlic and herbs and chili for, like, three and a half hours in the oven is gonna blow your mind.
And when you’re always looking for something to excite you, you overlook those things, and you kind of think of that as maybe not as good or a consolation prize. Or you open up your pantry, and you’re like, Ugh, all I have are can of tomatoes and some lentils, and it’s like, Well, you can make the best tomato soup of your life with that, if you want. And kind of reframing and reminding yourself that you don’t actually need that much to do something really fabulous is a good way to get out of a rut.
Rosin: Well, thank you for sharing that all with us, and thank you guys for being amazing audience.
Roman: Yeah, thank you so much.
[Audience applause]
[Music]
Rosin: Thank you to Alison Roman. And also thank you to our hosts at Sixth & I, a center for arts, entertainment, ideas, and Jewish life in Washington, D.C.
This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Rosie Hughes. It was edited by Kevin Townsend. Rob Smierciak engineered this episode and provided original music. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.
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I’m Hanna Rosin. Thank you for listening.
