Alison Roman

Alison Roman was born on September 1, 1985, in Los Angeles, California. She pursued a career in the food industry after withdrawing from the University of California, Santa Cruz, at age 19, where she studied creative writing. Her early culinary training included working as a chef at Sona in Los Angeles, Quince in San Francisco, Milk Bar in New York City, and Pies ‘n’ Thighs in Brooklyn.

Roman began her professional writing career as a freelance recipe-tester at Bon Appétit in 2011, eventually becoming a senior food editor. She departed Bon Appétit in 2015 for a senior role at Buzzfeed Food. Her first cookbook, “Dining In,” was published by Penguin Random House in 2017. In early 2018, a cookie recipe from “Dining In” gained significant traction on Instagram, becoming widely known as #TheCookies. Later that same year, Roman joined New York Times Cooking as a regular columnist. Her second cookbook, “Nothing Fancy,” released in 2019, was a New York Times Bestseller and emphasized “unfussy” ingredients and authentic hosting. During the COVID-19 pandemic, her recipes, particularly the #TheStew and the shallot pasta (#ThePasta), gained widespread popularity, with #ThePasta later named NYT Cooking’s most popular recipe of 2020.

In 2020, Roman’s New York Times column was put on temporary leave following controversial remarks about Chrissy Teigen and Marie Kondo. She subsequently departed from The New York Times in December 2020. Since then, she launched a cooking show, “Home Movies with Alison Roman,” on her YouTube channel and is developing a new series for other platforms. In 2023, she opened First Bloom, a small market, in Bloomville, New York, expanding her brand into a physical retail space.