Everyone's disrupting and it's exhausting
Millennial-bait money-grab groceries, unlinkable objects with imperfect souls, and more about living & eating well from Alison Roman
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— Jonah & Erin
Alison Roman — she’s a Patron Saint of the Spyplane Kitchen, and we’re not alone in our reverence. She’s amassed a legion of devotees who praise her name at the d*mn Boos block, because she’s funny, she’s piquant in her opinions, and most importantly, she’s nice with these recipes partner!! Yes, when you whip up a Roman joint you know she’s going to give the fussy foolishness a miss and steer you with efficiency & élan toward deceptively simple delights. She’s sensitive to moments of possible confusion, vivid in her descriptions, and allergic to overly complicated detours. Put simply: You know a Roman recipe is going to work.
Alison first made her name at Bon Appétit, she wrote hit recipe after hit recipe at the New York Times, and now she operates her own wholly Roman empire across digital & physical realms. You can watch her cook on her YouTube channel. You can read her smash sletter (link below), where, e.g., she’ll talk in one sentence about how carrot cake is best cold and, in the next, about how she hates feeling like she has to stump constantly for her “personal brand” in order to spend her life making things, because the Internet as currently configured deforms us. As we put it in a profound essay of our own just the other day, You Are Not a Commercial for Yourself.
And so you can also log off and hit up First Bloom, Alison’s beautiful upstate-NY grocery. You can catch one of her live shows. And you can get busy at your stovetop with one of her cookbooks: Dining In and Nothing Fancy stand tall above our fridge with mad post-it notes sticking out the sides, marking dishes we’ve made and those we plan to.
Also?? Alison f**ks with Blackbird Spyplane. All of which means I (Jonah) was stoked to talk with her about torched millennial-bait provisions, whether California has better restaurants than New York, the best peanut butter out, collecting things you can’t link to, and more.
Also — 🤌🤌🤌 ROMAN x SPYPLANE GOURMAND ALERT 🤌🤌🤌 in this coming Thursday’s newsletter, Alison created a slapping new summertime pasta dish and is debuting it in Blackbird Spyplane.
Yes, it’s a first look at a new warm-weather Roman banger, exclusively for you, the beautiful & blessed home cooks of Spy Nation. We’ve cheffed it up, it’s fantastic, and we are proud to call it The Spyplane Recipe of the Summer. Find it here.
Blackbird Spyplane: Erin and I have been cooking your recipes for ages, so it’s nice to finally say what’s up.
Alison Roman: “Me too, you’re legendary — one of the only good people on the Internet. I hope you feel proud of the fact that you continue to be a unique person on an Internet that feels increasingly flattened. I hope you sleep well at night.”
Blackbird Spyplane: Normally I cut this part of the conversation, but that’s too accurate to not keep in. Thank you. I didn’t sleep well last night, because I had to get an off-brand Magnesium Glycinate and the potency isn’t hitting. But I generally sleep OK.
Alison Roman: “Good.”
Blackbird Spyplane: There’s something I noticed about First Bloom, the grocery you opened in upstate New York. You stock the shelves with a high-low philosophy that’s appealing to me, because there’s this extremely torched category of “contemporary millennial-bait gourmet grocery products,” where it’s about making insane margins on s**t not because it’s particularly good but because the labels are quote-unquote cute. Whereas yes, you carry the nice Seed Mill Tahini and the small-batch artisan granola, but it’s next to Haribo gummy bears, Cento canned tomatoes and P.G. Tips tea — unf**kwithable regs where it’s not “elevated,” it’s just rock solid.
Alison Roman: “Yeah, I’m not a person who buys ingredients based on what they look like. I’m also not the person who thinks you need the highest level of a thing for it to be good or functional. I have a deep sensitivity toward products that exist for no reason, like, Do we really need another x, y or z? I’m pretty exhausted by the proliferation of things created by people who aren’t even in food — it’s this weird money-grab where they’re, like, ‘There’s a hole in the market,’ and no, there’s no hole in the market. We have everything we need.”
Blackbird Spyplane: Right, this VC-backed “disruption” mindset that’s making everything worse.
Alison Roman: “Everyone’s disrupting, and it’s exhausting. And sure, it’s nice to have options, but I don’t wanna ask people to spend their money on something that’s not necessary.”
Blackbird Spyplane: It’s how a lot of cooks shop for themselves, too. I remember Kenji López-Alt taking me to a Safeway in San Mateo, CA, telling me, “I buy Cento’s San Marzano tomatoes. Anything more expensive than that, chances are good you’re getting ripped off.”
Alison Roman: “Yeah, unless you’re in Italy. Whenever I test recipes, I always test with the lowest common denominator. That’s not to say I won’t personally spring for something really nice sometimes. I love spending my money on expensive pasta. But I make sure whatever I’m doing works with De Cecco, too.”
Blackbird Spyplane: When it comes to clothes it’s gotten really hard to find unf**kwithable-regs-type options. There’s, I don’t know, some Un*qlo pieces, very little else….
Alison Roman: “People are so brand-conscious now, and I think they’ve become that way about food. ‘Are those the Fishwife anchovies?’ No, it’s Cento. Or some Spanish brand you’ve never heard of, but it’s the same anchovies inside the tin. People are too conscious about choosing the ‘right’ thing that signifies their taste level, or who they are as a person.
“And I get it, sometimes I say, ‘What’s the white tee I should buy?’ instead of, ‘This is what I want to spend and here’s what looks good on me.’ Same with ingredients — ‘Here’s what tastes good to me, f**k what anyone else recommends.’ People are tuning out their taste compass.”
Blackbird Spyplane: I’m gonna get controversial now. We’re based in the Bay, where you used to live when you cooked at Quince — shout out to Lindsay and Michael Tusk. True or False: The Bay has better restaurants than NYC, for the simple fact that there’s way more top-notch produce, closer at hand, in the Bay.
Alison Roman: “False. I will say, the produce in the Bay is unparalleled. It’s glorious. L.A. comes very close, if not on equal footing, because the farmer’s markets are more abundant and frequent and they have a selection the Bay doesn’t have. But the Bay has really specific bespoke things that are really hard to find anywhere else, like huckleberries. But the Bay’s restaurants themselves are definitely not better, and L.A.’s are certainly not better, than NYC restaurants. Because I’m also talking vibe, service, energy. It’s not dish-for-dish, who’s a better chef? It’s the restaurant as a whole ecosystem. What’s a more enjoyable environment to be in?
“That said, I’m about to be in the Bay for 5 days, so I’m gonna do some investigating. Tell me where to go.”
Blackbird Spyplane: There’s a bunch of great spots in the Spyplane Travel Chat, and I’ll send you some favorites. By the way I’m a big peanut-butter boi, so I was intrigued to learn that your pick for the best peanut butter comes from a brand called Koeze out of Grand Rapids, Michigan (below left). I just ordered a box of smooth and crunchy jars. What’s so fantastic about this?
Alison Roman: “It’s well-emulsified, it’s perfectly salted, it’s deeply roasted, it’s the right texture, it’s not too expensive, it’s just good. And it doesn’t claim to be anything. It’s not, like, pushing a story or narrative on you. It’s just, ‘We’re peanut butter.’”
Blackbird Spyplane: The labels are appealing, too. They speak to that “we’re just peanut butter” attitude.
Alison Roman: “Not everything needs to innovate or evolve. It kind of broke my heart when I saw the Manischewitz matzoh rebrand (above). The box used to be perfect. It was ugly, who cares. Now it has this ‘Hello, Fellow Young People’ energy. Why do we have to do that? It’s a weird time.”
Blackbird Spyplane: Another peanut-butter question. I have this new afternoon snack I’ve been running, where I put a couple spoonfuls of peanut butter in a ramekin with a spoonful of honey and I mix in a bunch of raw oats, to give it a kind of oatmeal-cookie-batter / deconstructed-energy-bar vibe. Is that disgusting to you, or do I have good instincts?
Alison Roman: “No, you have great instincts. I don’t even use a ramekin, I just scoop it out of the jar and put it on an apple. Or an English muffin — that’s the perfect vessel.”
Blackbird Spyplane: Tell me, have you exported swag from kitchen life into regular life? I’m thinking of how chefs started wearing Crocs before everyone else, or how they drink water out of plastic quart containers. Something you picked up in the kitchen context that improves your everyday life.
Alison Roman: “Absolutely. My friends and I say, once you’ve worked in a restaurant, you’ve always worked in a restaurant. It’s difficult to shake. It’s why I work too much, it’s why I have no boundaries and an unhealthy relationship to my profession. But I care a lot, and working in a restaurant teaches you that. You can’t lower your standards, because everyone can see it and everyone’s affected by it. What you do makes their lives better or harder. I miss that energy. I do drink water out of a quart container, not because it’s cool but because it holds a lot of water and makes it easy. I eat standing up if I’m alone. I have a weird tolerance for direct, honest feedback, both giving and receiving it, and I don’t take it personally unless it’s personal.”
Blackbird Spyplane: A little emotional armor you picked up in the trenches.
Alison Roman: “It doesn’t mean it’s always healthy. But I was lucky I never experienced direct abuse or anything hyper-traumatic. It was just really f**king hard, and a grind, and I felt invigorated by that.”
Blackbird Spyplane: All right, finally, please tell us about these special cherished items you chose to share with Spy Nation.
Alison Roman: “I was looking around my house and all I have is tiny cherished objects. The first thing I wanted to show you is this perfume spray diffuser (above top left) — I got it in Paris at a flea market, and it wasn’t expensive, but it makes me feel rich and Parisian and old to have this on my dresser. And when I bought it, I said, I’ll fill it with something, but I’ve never been able to figure out how to open it. So it’s never to be used — only to be looked at. Just a pure gorgeous objet I love.”
Blackbird Spyplane: Salute the pure gorgeous objet.
Alison Roman: “There’s also this other thing (above right) which is functional: My favorite candleholder ever. It’s beautiful, and no one else can ever buy it, because it was made by an old Italian man in Cetara on the Amalfi coast. I want so many things in my life to look like this, and nothing does.”
Blackbird Spyplane: That’s great. So your place is full of things like this?
Alison Roman: “Yeah, basically a lot of stuff with similar energy. When I’m traveling, I like to bring back one thing where I say, This could only exist here. As unattainable as it may seem, I want to have things in my life where I say, ‘I can’t link to this. I came upon it by chance, it’s imperfect, it has a soul, and probably no one else has it.’”
Blackbird Spyplane: The unlinked thing with a soul. It can feel like an endangered species these days.
Alison Roman: “It’s increasingly tough. But it’s a cool thing to strive for.”
Alison’s newsletter is here, her site is here, and she’s on IG here. We own & love her cookbooks Dining In and Nothing Fancy. We don’t own her dessert cookbook, Sweet Enough, but we should. She’s on YouTube here.
🤌🤌🤌 Don’t miss Thursday’s sletter, where Alison is debuting a new dish we’re proud to name The Spyplane Recipe of the Summer — a “BBSP Gourmand Gang” World Exclusive Event.
Our profound essays & “unbeatably spicy takes” are collected here.
The Coolest Museum Shops are here.
Our roundup of the Best Pants Out is here.
I hazard to recommend this, because I've seen it more places, but if you like Michigan good like Koeze, you should most definitely check out American Spoon. They make my favorite grain mustard (available at BiRite in SF). Their HQ is in my in-laws hometown, and good grief they make good jam. The other all-star from Michigan is Zingerman's Deli. The proprietor wrote some essential books on management with a strong Socialist / Anarchist tilt.
Fantastic write up. 2 paragraphs in I was sharing with multiple friends. wholly Roman empire made me laugh so hard I almost woke up the baby