Celebrity cook Alison Roman has risen to fame thanks to her viral recipes (#TheStew and #TheCookies). And then there was that beef with Chrissy Teigen. Originally from Los Angeles, and currently based in Brooklyn, Roman is the author of the cookbooks Dining In, and Nothing Fancy (a New York Times Bestseller), and is currently a bi-weekly columnist for The New York Times.
With a cult millennial following that has only grown in size since the COVID-19 pandemic, and with more people trying a hand at cooking—you’ll want to join in the hype. But according to Roman herself, being tagged a “millennial food maven” is tiring at best. “I’m just a person writing recipes that people like,” she shared in an interview with the New Consumer. “That’s it. I’m not trying to corner a market. I’m not trying to appeal to millennials, which by the way, could be a 40-year-old at this point.” She adds that “There’s other people in my industry that would never get that label that, quite frankly, have never achieved the level of popularity, and I’m wondering why. It’s just interesting to me.”
It’s this kind of candid approach to cooking and writing which has gained her a massive following on Instagram, among other platforms. “I have no strategy,” she admits. “That’s something you should know about me. I’m like an animal. [Laughs.] I operate on instinct — yes or no. I say no a lot. And I say yes to not as much, especially these days.”
I”’m sure if I were smarter I would have, at this point, hired a business person to develop a strategy so that I could take all that I have and translate it into money, because I’ve never made less money in my entire life than during this pandemic,” she adds. “And I’ve never been more popular. So what does that tell you?”
Whether you’re drawn to her personality or not, you’d want to tune in.
