Cook Alison Roman Creates ‘Something from Nothing’
Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso
Higher Ground
4.8 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 16 November 2025
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, cook and writer Alison Roman published her fourth cookbook, Something from Nothing—a collection of over one hundred simple, timeless recipes inspired by the items you may already have in your pantry.
On the heels of its release, we return to our conversation with the culinary force. We discuss her dessert cookbook Sweet Enough (4:55), her early years as a restaurant pastry chef (12:24), and the chaotic conditions of working in the service industry (14:50). Then, Roman describes working at the experimental bakery Milk Bar in New York City (18:09), hosting cooking videos at Bon Appétit (22:40), and eventually working as a food columnist at The New York Times (25:18).
On the back-half, we walk through the criticism she faced in 2020 (32:20), the subsequent fallout from her remarks (38:52), the personal newsletter that emerged (47:12), the connective power of cooking (55:08), the time capsule of writing (58:30), and what she hopes for in the years to come (1:01:45).
Original air date: April 23, 2023.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Lemonada |
| 0:02.0 | Lemonada |
| 0:04.0 | This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Forgo, so welcome to the show. |
| 0:42.2 | Today, my conversation with cook and writer, Alison Roman. |
| 0:46.0 | Over the past two decades, Roman has been a culinary force. |
| 0:52.4 | You've probably come across one of her recipes, maybe her newsletter, or her videos on YouTube, home movies. |
| 0:55.1 | This past week, she released her fourth cookbook, |
| 0:56.3 | Something from Nothing. |
| 1:00.2 | It's a collection of over 100 simple, timeless recipes inspired by the items you may already have in your pantry. |
| 1:04.3 | Like all of Allison's work, |
| 1:05.5 | this new book was born out of her obsession, |
| 1:07.3 | but practicality and efficiency. |
| 1:09.5 | That's also how she designed her New York corner store |
| 1:11.8 | First Bloom. Inside, there's a small produce table, but most of the ingredients are shelf-stable. The store, |
| 1:18.7 | just like the book, resembles her own lifestyle and a belief that incredibly delicious meals |
| 1:24.3 | can be made simply, just from the ingredients that you have. |
| 1:28.8 | Allison is currently on book tour for Something from Nothing, which she kindly invited me to |
| 1:33.8 | moderate her sold-out Chicago show just over the weekend, which was a real joy to do in front |
| 1:39.6 | of, I think it was 900 people. Even my parents showed up. My sister came. |
| 1:45.3 | It really was a great animated crowd here for Allison and her new book. |
| 1:49.5 | Since we didn't get to record the audio of that episode, |
| 1:52.7 | and it really was a joy to do that, |
... |
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