Alison Roman Returns! The Acclaimed Cookbook Author Is Back

Second Life

Who What Wear

Personal Journals, Business, Careers, Arts, Society & Culture, Fashion & Beauty

4.8 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2026

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Alison Roman is a food writer, cookbook author, and overall culinary powerhouse. Roman's food career began when she dropped out of college to pursue her dream of working as a chef. She started out as a sous-chef for various restaurants before pivoting into food writing and recipe development. Roman joined us on the show in 2020 to tell us about her path to getting published at outlets like Bon Appétit, Buzzfeed, and The New York Times as well as authoring her first cookbook, Dining In. Since being on the show, Roman has published three more cookbooks, the latest of which is called Something From Nothing, and started her own newsletter. She's also ventured into the consumer packaged goods space with the launch of her own tomato sauces and opened her own small grocery store, First Bloom. She joins us to tell us about the newest chapter of her career and where she's going next.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everyone. I'm Hilary Kerr, the co-founder and chief content officer of Who
0:10.2	What Where? And this is Second Life, a podcast spotlighting women who have truly
0:16.0	inspiring careers. We're talking about their work journeys, what they've learned from the
0:20.5	process of
0:21.2	setting aside their doubts or fears, and what happens when they embark on their second life.
0:26.9	Today on the show, I'm talking to cookbook author and friend of the pod, Alison Roman.
0:33.1	Allison is best known for her delicious restaurant quality recipes.
0:38.6	You may remember her viral chickpeas stew that was all the rage in the early days of the pandemic,
0:44.2	or you may have one of her best-selling cookbooks like dining in or nothing fancy or sweet enough
0:52.1	or her recent one, something from nothing.
0:56.0	Allison joined us back in 2020 to talk about her path to becoming a successful food writer,
1:01.9	from working as a pastry chef to being published in major outlets like Bon Appetit,
1:07.3	BuzzFeed Food, and The New York Times.
1:10.0	These days, Allison writes for herself with her cooking
1:13.5	newsletter and hosts her own cooking series on YouTube. I wanted her to come back to speak with us
1:20.0	about her recent evolutions that she's made in her culinary career, including launching her
1:26.2	own brand of tomato sauces and opening her own small grocery
1:30.1	store in upstate New York. I am so excited for you all to hear about Allison and her journey
1:36.6	now. On Second Life, it's Allison Roman. Allison, you ready to go? I'm so ready to go. Okay, excellent. So, Alison, welcome
1:48.6	back to the pod. The last time we did this, we sat down in person. You were one of my last
1:54.8	interviews in New York in before times. Oh, my God. Because we sat down in like early March of
2:00.6	2020 six years ago. Can you believe that? I really cannot believe that. That is a literal lifetime ago. Absolutely. And it was amazing. We were recording in person. Everything was fine. And then the world changed forever. Yeah, nobody knew. No. No, we were just sweet little dumdums back in the day. And I have to say for
	...

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