Alison Roman
Alison Roman
Early Life
In high school, Roman wanted to be a writer. In an interview with Into The Gloss she said:
"I wanted to be a writer in high school—I was into my feelings, music, glitter, things with moons and stars on them, and I wrote a lot.
I cooked, but I didn’t have career ambitions with it at that point.
At college I studied creative writing, and I had this boyfriend who loved cooking.
He got me into cookbooks—they excited me, and I realized nothing in school was exciting me the same way."[9]
While in college, she began working as a pastry chef.
Later, she first moved to San Francisco and then to New York:
"I started as a pastry chef because that was the only job they had available—I would’ve taken any job.
Anyone who works in a restaurant will tell you there’s a certain adrenaline rush that is pretty undeniable, and it’s kind of addicting.
I moved to San Francisco just because I needed a change, and after that I moved to New York.
I had no money and no job lined up, but it was easier to be a broke 25-year-old before Instagram.
I was overdrafting my account every week, my apartment was really shitty, I bought all my clothes at questionable second-hand stores—I had zero dollars, and it didn’t really matter."[9]
Roman thereafter was hired to Christina Tosi's Milk Bar. She worked there for a year and a half, right when it opened. Then she left to go freelance.[9]
Career
Roman is a bi-weekly columnist for The New York Times Cooking section, as well as a monthly to Bon Appétit Magazine.[2]
Alison is the author of "Dining In," published by Clarkson Potter in autumn 2017. The cookbook features 125 recipes for simple, of-the-moment dishes that are full of quickie techniques. Her second cookbook "Nothing Fancy," a manual for relaxed, unfussy gatherings in the home, was published in 2019.[2]
Personal Life
Alison Roman is originally from Los Angeles, California. She later moved to Brooklyn.[2]