How Alison Roman Does Thanksgiving

Summary

Radio Atlantic: How Alison Roman Does Thanksgiving

Date: November 27, 2025
Host: Hanna Rosin (The Atlantic)
Guest: Alison Roman (chef, cookbook author)

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Episode Overview

On this Thanksgiving-themed episode, Hanna Rosin sits down with acclaimed chef and cookbook author Alison Roman to discuss holiday traditions, the evolving landscape of food media, cooking inspiration, and the joys (and realities) of making “something from nothing.” Recorded live at 6th & I in Washington, D.C., Alison shares her frank, funny, and approachable take on Thanksgiving meals, food culture, cooking burnout, and audience questions about food, body image, and creativity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Thanksgiving Debate: Traditional vs. Reinvented (2:21–4:30)

• Traditional or Something New?
  • Alison pushes back (with humor) against the idea that you must choose between classic dishes and trendy updates such as “Salmon Wellington.”
    • “Absolutely not. And if anybody here is thinking about doing salmon Wellington, please call me and I'll come over...I want to help you.” (Alison, 2:21)
  • For Alison, Thanksgiving should honor tradition, but with potential for new additions each year. Core items (turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberries) stay the same; vegetables and sides may rotate (3:48).
  • Her approach: “If there's somebody at your table that's like, if I don't have x, y, and Z dish, I'll simply die, then just make it. That's not the time to say no. It's time to say yes.” (Alison, 4:07)
• Potlucks—A Hot Take
  • She finds potlucks chaotic and a recipe for mismatched menus: “Potlucks are the worst thing that’s ever happened to us because that's how you end up with...a menu that does not go. It doesn't go.” (Alison, 5:20)

2. Light & Cozy Meals Post-Holiday (5:36–6:11)

• When asked for light, comforting recipes after heavy holiday eating, Alison’s answer is simple: “Soup is kind of always the answer...you make the broth with the bones from the turkey.” (6:00)

3. Breaking Out in Food Media (6:11–10:25)

• Her “North Star”: Cooking, Not Content
  • Alison’s entry into cooking was rooted in kitchen work—long before the influencer era. “I started cooking before iPhones existed, before Instagram existed...I just wanted to be a cook.” (Alison, 6:31)
  • On standing out in a crowded field: “The answer remains...being yourself, because there’s only one of you...The more you can double down on being yourself and infusing your recipes...I think that is the answer.” (Alison, 7:38)
• Perception vs. Reality of Virality
  • Hanna observes Alison’s uncanny instinct for what people truly want to cook—not just “personal cuisine” (8:05).

4. Is Food Media Dead? (8:45–10:25)

• Alison argues food media is not “dead”—but in a period of flux; she’s “optimistic” that true journalistic storytelling will return, beyond influencer content:
  • “There are people...interested and invested in...regaining what it means to be a journalist in the food space and...tell stories...that aren't just entertainment narratives.” (Alison, 10:01)

5. The Cookbook & Content Creator Divide (10:33–11:14)

• Many in the industry don’t write their own cookbooks; ghostwriters are common. Alison, however, writes her own, with all its imperfections: “You can tell because there’s typos, because things are messed up. That's how you know it's me.” (Alison, 11:06)

6. Institutional Work vs. Independence (11:14–13:31)

• Alison misses the collaborative aspects of working in institutions—editors, colleagues, group problem-solving.
  • “It’s less lonely...I really do miss being edited...making sure something is as well thought out among people as possible.” (Alison, 11:24)
• Freelancing is “lonely” and self-directed, though rewarding.
  • On burnout: “Nobody told me to be busy...nobody’s demanding anything from me...but I’m so stressed out with this job that I just made myself.” (Alison, 12:51)

7. On Making “Baby Food” (13:31–14:32)

• With a new baby, Alison demystifies the process:
  • “I do, but I’m not making baby food. I’m making food that he can eat...I make lentils, and I eat lentils, and so does he.” (Alison, 13:41)
  • She resists the label “baby food”—emphasizing simplicity and overlap with adult meals.

8. The Viral Caramelized Shallot Pasta (14:32–16:38)

• Hanna asks why this dish captured the zeitgeist.
  • Alison attributes it to perfect timing (“A very zeitgeisty moment where...Instagram was just…” 15:21) and actual word of mouth, with genuine simplicity being its magic:
    • “Sometimes paring back and simplicity is the best choice...the easiest or most simple thing is the best.” (Alison, 16:09)

9. The “Something from Nothing” Pantry Challenge (18:05–24:30)

• Live Game: Alison crafts dinner using random pantry items picked blind.

  • First round: Potato, garbanzo beans, sour cream
    • Solution: Potato soup (with sour cream), frizzled chickpea salad (20:33–21:51)
    • Memorable moment: “No blender. We’re not blending. These aren’t...we’re not making baby food.” (Alison, 21:08)
  • Second round: Quinoa, curry paste, black-eyed peas (no salt added)
    • Solution: Black-eyed pea-quinoa salad with garlic, olive oil, lemon, and a curry if coconut milk is around (23:29)
    • Strong take: “Unless it’s for health reasons, I genuinely think you should avoid the no salt added legumes in a can...so hard to season any sort of bean or pea that has not been seasoned from the beginning.” (Alison, 22:56)

• Reading from Cookbook: Alison shares a heartfelt passage about her husband’s admiration for her resourcefulness, making “something from nothing” (18:35–19:02):

  "In his vows, he told me that his favorite nights at home were when we didn't have time to go grocery shopping. And I made something of what we had in the pantry because it was in those thrown together moments that he got to see how my imagination worked."
  (Alison Roman reading, 18:40–19:02)

10. Diet Culture & Body Image (24:30–26:53)

• Audience Q: How does Alison maintain a loving relationship with food/body after growing up with diet culture?
  • Alison is candid about the difficulties, magnified by public scrutiny:
    • “You become really self-judgmental and really hard on yourself...It’s not healthy for anybody’s brain to do it.” (Alison, 24:45)
  • Societal pressures are in conflict: “To be successful, you also have to be hot and young forever. And so you have to love food and love eating, but also look a certain way and never age…” (Alison, 25:40)
  • On solutions: “The work begins in yourself...You can’t wait for the culture to change to make it feel like you’re doing the right thing.” (Alison, 26:14)

11. Why Chicken Tastes Bland (27:06–28:56)

• Alison attributes blandness to industrial farming—better quality (and tastier) chicken is available from local/farmer’s markets; it’s “what we’ve done to the chicken,” not the chicken itself (27:38).

12. Influential Cookbooks & Food Writing (28:56–30:36)

• Alison didn’t grow up with cookbooks; inspiration came later, often from food memoirs and biographies (e.g., Alice Waters, Judith Jones).
  • “I was reading...memoirs…I felt like the recipes I had nailed...but getting the inspiration to figure out, well, how did I want to say it?...those were the most inspirational to me.” (Alison, 29:37)

13. Cooking Burnout & Reclaiming Joy (30:36–32:05)

• Yes, Alison gets cooking burnout. The antidote? Return to simplicity:
  • “To be totally honest, that's like how this book was born...just going more simple and falling back in love with how good it can taste to cook like five ingredients together in a pot...It doesn’t actually need anything else.” (Alison, 30:50)
  • Reframing what you have: “You open up your pantry and you’re like...all I have are a can of tomatoes and like some lentils. And it’s like, well, you can make the best tomato soup of your life with that if you want.” (Alison, 31:36)

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps & Attribution)

• “Absolutely not. And if anybody here is thinking about doing salmon Wellington, please call me and I'll come over...we got to fix that.” (Alison Roman, 2:21)
• “Potlucks are the worst thing that's ever happened to us because that's how you end up with...a menu that does not go.” (Alison Roman, 5:20)
• “The answer remains...being yourself, because there's only one of you...The more you can double down on being yourself...that is the answer.” (Alison Roman, 7:38)
• “A very zeitgeisty moment where Instagram was just...statistically speaking, I looked this up...the way that it’s grown from five years ago, the amount of users on Instagram is just an unfathomable number.” (Alison Roman, 15:21)
• “No blender. We’re not blending. These aren’t...we’re not making baby food. But my baby does like potato soup in a chunky form.” (Alison Roman, 21:08)
• “Unless it's for health reasons, I genuinely think that you should avoid the no salt added legumes in a can...It's so hard to season any sort of bean or pea that has not been seasoned from the beginning.” (Alison Roman, 22:56)
• “To be successful, you also have to be hot and young forever. And so you have to love food and love eating, but also look a certain way and never age...” (Alison Roman, 25:40)
• “You can’t wait for the culture to change to make it feel like you’re doing the right thing.” (Alison Roman, 26:14)
• “When you eat meat or fish especially, you're eating what they're eating. So I think about that a lot when I'm purchasing my protein.” (Alison Roman, 28:36)
• “You open up your pantry and you're like, all I have are like can of tomatoes and like some lentils. And it's like, well, you can make the best tomato soup of your life with that if you want.” (Alison Roman, 31:36)

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Memorable Moments & Audience Engagement

• Pantry Challenge Game: A playful, live demonstration of Alison’s “something from nothing” cooking ethos (18:05–24:30).
• Heartfelt Reading: Alison reads an intimate excerpt about her marriage and resourcefulness (18:35–19:02).
• Candidness on Body Image: Open, vulnerable discussion about internal and external pressures for women and creators (24:30–26:53).
• Witty, Down-to-Earth Advice: Alison’s signature humor and bluntness throughout.

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Important Timestamps

| Time | Segment / Highlight | |----------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 2:21 | Opening on Thanksgiving debate: Classic vs. Creative | | 5:36 | Post-holiday light meals (“Soup is always the answer”) | | 6:31 | How Alison set herself apart in food media | | 8:45 | State of food media and misconceptions | | 11:14 | Institutional work vs. independence | | 13:41 | Making “baby food” without overcomplicating | | 14:51 | Why the caramelized shallot pasta went viral | | 18:05 | Pantry challenge game: “something from nothing” live | | 18:35 | Reading about her marriage and resourcefulness | | 22:56 | Tip: Avoid no-salt-added canned beans | | 24:45 | Discussion of diet culture and body image | | 27:38 | Why chicken tastes bland; the importance of sourcing | | 29:05 | Influential cookbooks and writing inspiration | | 30:36 | Addressing cooking burnout and finding inspiration |

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Tone & Style

Alison Roman’s tone is candid, witty, self-aware, and empowering. She is unpretentious, encouraging home cooks to embrace simplicity, imperfection, and authenticity. Host Hanna Rosin creates a supportive, thoughtful, sometimes playful atmosphere, guiding the conversation to both practical tips and deeper reflections on food, culture, and identity.

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For listeners seeking both practical cooking advice and a thoughtful take on food culture—this episode delivers plenty of laughs, wisdom, and inspiration, just in time for the holidays.

Transcript

[A]

You're cut from a different cloth and with bank of America Private bank, you have an entire team tailored to your needs with wealth and business strategies built for the biggest ambitions like yours. Whatever your passion, unlock more powerful [e-mail] what would you like the power to do? Bank of America Official bank of the FIFA World Cup 2026 bank of America Private bank is a division of bank of America, NA Member, FDIC and a wholly owned subsidiary of bank of America Corporation. If we knew more about our sleep, what would we do differently?

[B]

Would we go to bed at a.

[A]

Consistent time or take steps to reduce interruptions to our sleep? With the all new Sleep Score, Apple Watch measures your bedtime consistency, interruptions and sleep duration. Then every morning it combines these factors into an easy to understand score from 1 to 100 so you'll know how to take the quality of your sleep from good to excellent. Introducing the new Sleep Score on Apple Watch iPhone 11 or later required. Hey friends, this is Radio Atlantic. I'm Hanna Rosen and we have a treat for you today. Today being Thanksgiving recently, I interviewed chef and cookbook author Allison Roman on stage in D.C. at 6th and I, and since many of us are thinking about food this week, we decided to share that conversation. Even if you don't know Roman, it's likely you've eaten one of her recipes, especially her mega viral one for caramelized shallot pasta. And one of the reasons that dish was so ubiquitous was because of how few ingredients it called for. Her new book, Something from Nothing, uses that same minimalist approach, relying mostly on pantry staples. I gave Roman a test on stage. I had her pick items from my pantry out of a bag blind and see what dinner she could make up on the spot. I also asked her some questions sent in by you, the listeners, about how food is changing, how food media is changing, and whether you should switch up the Thanksgiving staples. Here's our conversation. The big controversy over the last couple of years is go traditional or go salmon Wellington.

[B]

Absolutely not. And if anybody here is thinking about doing salmon Wellington, please call me and I'll come over. Please. Yeah. No, no. I want to help you. I want to, I want to call you in. I don't want to push you away because we got to fix that. I don't think it's an either or situation. I am a big fan of additive rather than like burn it all down. So because Thanksgiving is also famously not just about you, right? It's about the people that you're eating with and giving thanks. So unless you are doing Thanksgiving for one, which is cool, and then you can do Wellington everything, if you would like.

[A]

So you mean you make a traditional turkey? Yes, traditional pie.

[B]

Pie. I do galette. I have, like, my Thanksgiving menu, which is also the problem with doing Thanksgiving, but publicly is that my personal Thanksgiving preferences don't really change that much. Like, I do one regular classic turkey, full turkey, let's call it. And then I do turkey, the slow cooked legs and the thighs, because it's just. It's so much better tasting than a regular turkey, but without the pomp and circumstance of a beautiful bird in front. Like, I feel like I'm missing something. So I do understand the attachment, at least visually, to the full turkey.

[A]

And what do you add? Like, do you sing? Every year you feel pressure to add something.

[B]

Something new, and in 20 years, it'll be like, 18 things on the table. No, it's more like, you know, I consider it to be like, okay, the stuffing and the turkey and the gravy and the cranberries never really change. For me, it is what it is. And then one year it's green beans, One year it's Brussels sprouts, one year it's squash, one year it's carrots.

[A]

That's still pretty basic.

[B]

Yeah. But, like, it's a vegetable. And then I put a salad. So it's like, you kind of rotate in these things, but if there's somebody at your table that's like, if I don't have x, y, and Z dish, I'll simply die, then just make it. That's not the time to say no. It's time to say yes. Yeah.

[A]

If somebody comes to your house for dinner and they want to make a side or bring something, do you allow it?

[B]

God. Do you mean at Thanksgiving or. Generally speaking, you know, you decide. Here's what I'll say. I think that it's okay if you're like, I made everything and I just need a bowl and a plate to, like, plate it. And I'm like, great. But if they're like, where's your skillet? I'm like, nope, shut it down. Do not cook in my kitchen. Like, bring something. But I feel that way about other people, too. I would never do that to you. You know, I would never come over and cook in your kitchen.

[A]

But what you evaded the easy way out, which is like, what if someone just wants to bring something?

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[A]

Sure. Although probably it doesn't happen to you because people are intimidated.

[B]

People wouldn't dare. Yeah. I also think that potlucks are the worst thing that's ever happened to us because that's how you end up with, like, just a menu that does not go. It doesn't go.

[A]

Okay, we have a question from Meredith. After the holidays, when we're sick of eating, what are some of your go to recipes to get back into eating on the lighter side, but also stay cozy? It's very specific.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna go with that's gotta be soup. It's soup. And soup is kind of always the answer if you're wondering. But I feel like you make the broth with the bones from the turkey. You have some vegetables you can throw in. You can also just like, sip turkey stock. You can do a lot with that. I feel like that is the on ramp to doing it all over again.

[A]

So you people in the audience, people out in the world sent us a lot of questions in a lot of different formats, and I'm going to sprinkle them throughout. From Robin. What enabled you to break free and set yourself apart in the crowded world of food bloggers and cooking shows? Were there distinct things you did or did not do?

[B]

Mm, okay, Robin. I. Yeah, I think that for me, I started cooking in restaurant kitchens and I just wanted to be a cook, and that was my goal. I started cooking before iPhones existed, before Instagram existed. I didn't start cooking with the goal of being like a blogger or on the Internet in any capacity. And so I think that knowing that even as the Internet and Instagram and social media became a part of my life, just as like a product of being a person in the world, it kind of doesn't matter what your profession is. It's something that you kind of partake in. And I think just knowing that the whole time, like, having that be my north star of like, well, I'm a cook and I cook, and that's what I do. And then I think, you know, it's funny because I do. It is crowded. And sometimes even I am like, well, what? How am I different? You know, if, like, you sort of like, okay, you all write recipes and you all have a YouTube channel and you all have a newsletter, and you all. It's like, okay, it does become a bit more of a struggle. And I think that the only answer remains, like, and as cheesy as it is, is like, being yourself, because there's only one of you, and there could be a hundred YouTube channels, but there's only one of you and your personality. And so the more you can double down on being yourself and infusing your recipes. And that means the title of the recipe, the ingredients you use, and the way that you write instructions. Like, the more impersonality and individualism that you can infuse into those things. I think that is the answer.

[A]

Although I do think you also have an uncanny ability to figure out what people actually want to cook as opposed to just like your own, you know, the world of Alison. It's like, what actually translates into people's kitchens. I don't know what that is, but you have, like, a good radar for it.

[B]

Yeah, I don't know. I think it's like an authenticity when it comes to developing, because I'm living in the same timeline where I'm like, oh, the weather is this. And I feel like this. And you all do too, at that time. It's a bit different for a cookbook because obviously you're sort of picking things and investing in recipes that are living as a collection versus, like, this is coming out this week, and you're all gonna make this this week, you know?

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. We have a question from Danny. What do you see as the biggest misconception in food media right now? And. And how do you think creators should respond to it?

[B]

I think that the misconception is. Is that it's dead entirely. Because I do think that it has died, but I do think it will come back.

[A]

What is it? Food Media.

[B]

Media.

[A]

Interesting. Okay.

[B]

Because there's already people doing it. There's already people that I know that are, like, starting up a thing or, you know, kind of returning to. Let's rebuild what was kind of taken away. When I started working at Bon Appetit in, like, 2015 or 2011, there were, I want to say, eight other food magazines, and you could work at any of them. And it was sort of like, which magazine are you at? And you would go to an event and you'd be like, oh, there's so and so from Food and Wine and so and so from Real simple. And, like, there was, like, a community of people that were editors or, you know, writers, people that worked within the concept of food media. And now there is. Not that it is. There's people that work at a magazine. There's magazines that have food sections, newspapers, et cetera. And then there's people that create food on the Internet.

[A]

Right. They're influencers.

[B]

Exactly. It's like a completely all over the place. And I think that there are people that are really interested and invested in kind of regaining what it means to be A journalist in the food space and sort of tell stories of culture and cooking and food that aren't just these sort of entertainment narratives that are like content creators. And so I'm optimistic about it.

[A]

That's so interesting because food. It does take experience, like, to write a cookbook to figure out, okay, now I have a concept big enough for a cookbook.

[B]

You would think it does.

[A]

I don't know how you get from, like, creator to that. You know, like, you have to cook a lot. You have to have experience in kitchens, or at least that's the way it's been.

[B]

You don't is the sad part. But I think it's also because people don't. A lot of people don't write their own cookbooks. Like, what? Which is. I'm not. It's not. I mean. Yeah, but in the same way that a lot of people don't write their own books or like, ghostwriter is an occupation and people do it. I know them. I know people who do it. And, you know, I think that it is a different skill set.

[A]

Who wrote this book? Me.

[B]

I do everything. You can tell because there's typos, because things are messed up. That's how you know it's me. Yeah.

[A]

You started out working in institutions like buzzfeed, the New York Times. Now you're independent. Can you compare pluses and minuses? Like, what's better about one, what's worse about the other?

[B]

Yeah, I think what. You know what I will say I really miss working with other people. I really miss collaboration and I really miss being. Some of my editors would say that this is not true, but I actually really do miss being edited. And I don't mean like my writing specifically or the style of recipes, but I mean the like, push and pull of getting somebody to make the writing tighter to sort of ask you a question that you hadn't maybe explored. Really, like making sure something is as well thought out among people as possible. And that doesn't always make for a better recipe, but it does make, I think, for better writing to have, like a great editor less lonely. It's less lonely, yeah. I think working for yourself can be pretty lonely. I think more recently I've started and during like, book time, there's a lot more collaboration that goes into it. And that's why I love making books, because you get to work with photographers, you get to work with artists and designers, and, you know, then comes like the promotion of it and the tour. It's like, becomes more community based. And when you're not in a book writing season. It is a little bit more like you. And I'd say the hardest part of that is nobody is going to give me an assignment. Like, I am so busy all the time, and nobody told me to be busy. Like, nobody is giving me a deadline. Nobody's demanding anything from me. Nobody's asking me to, like, launch a tomato sauce, but I'm like, I'm gonna do this thing. And then I'm like, I'm so stressed out with, like, this job that I just made myself feel. Yeah. I'm like, oh, maybe I should stop giving myself so much work. But, you know, there is an element of, like, what are we. What am I doing this for? Even though, like, I know the answer to that. But it's so much easier to work with people and be like, oh, I have an assignment. I have an assignment. And that's why I really love things like Thanksgiving, because that, to me, is, like, the ultimate assignment. It's like, you know what you're doing, and this is, you know, you're coloring in the lines a bit. And I don't know, since you wrote.

[A]

Your last book, you had a baby. He's very cute. I'm sure you guys have seen pictures. You told New York magazine that you make your own baby food. Do you actually make your own baby food?

[B]

Yeah, I do, but I'm not making baby food. I'm making food that he can eat, which I feel like there's a distinction there. Like, I make lentils, and I eat lentils and steam. So does he. I make, you know, I'll roast squash and eat some, and then, like, he eats roasted squash. I'm not, like, making a. I don't. I think I have a hard time admitting that I'm making baby food, so I'm really talking around it.

[A]

I'm being silent on purpose just to make you defensive.

[B]

Yeah. I'm like, no, I don't make baby food. I don't.

[A]

I swear, baby, I'm not trying to start a war.

[B]

Yeah, but, yeah, I thought that that would never be me, but. And it won't last forever. It's lasting right now because he eats so little, and the things that he does eat are very simple. When it comes time to be, like, making fish sticks from, like, no, thank you. Pass. I don't think that that's me, but right now it feels doable.

[A]

How many people here made the caramelized shallot pasta? Probably everyone. Did you ever figure out why that one went viral? Like, in all these years of thinking about it. I recently looked back at the recipe. It's so simple. Like, the only complicated ingredient is anchovies. But other than that, it's so basic.

[B]

It'S complicated emotionally for people. But anchovies in and of itself is not a complicated ingredient. I think that it was sort of right time, right place. I don't think recipes can happen in that way anymore. I think that it was, like, very zeitgeisty moment where Instagram was just like. I think there's. Statistically speaking, I looked this up. I forgot the actual numbers, but I wanna say, like, the way that it's grown from five years ago, the amount of users on Instagram is just an.

[A]

Unfathomable number because there's no unified thread of popularity. So it just can't be one thing that goes viral.

[B]

Exactly. So either things aren't going viral or so many things are going viral that we sort of don't notice anymore. But it feels like it was a very special place and time. But I also think that it's really delicious pasta. And every person who made it told five people to make it. And those people told five people to make it. And it wasn't like a product of the Internet. It was a product of people actually cooking it and eating it and being like, oh, my God, like, I have to make this again. I have to have this. And it was also, like, five ingredients. And I think that that in and of itself is fascinating to me anyway. And I find that with music and art and movies and even, like, getting dressed or something, I'm like, oh. Sometimes paring back and simplicity is the best choice. And it's not a result of something being easier or, like, lazy or a consolation prize. Sometimes the easiest or most simple thing is the best. And you can just be like, you know what? That pasta doesn't have cheese on it because it doesn't need it. I'm sure we've all put cheese on it. It's okay. I'm okay with that. But it doesn't need it. And I think that that's really important to, like, remember.

[A]

After the break, we put her new cookbook's approach of making something from nothing to the test.

[B]

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[B]

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[A]

I've never done this on stage, but we're gonna try it. We're gonna play a little game with Alison. But first, I want you to read something in your book, which I thought was.

[B]

I've never done that either. Really?

[A]

It's so lovely. It's the thing I'm sorry, I wrote in your book. I hope that doesn't bother you.

[B]

No, I actually love that it's the.

[A]

That little purple part. This is what Allison wrote about her husband because she also recently got married. And I thought it was really beautiful.

[B]

Just do it all at once, guys. It's honestly great. Okay. I've literally never done this before.

[A]

You can do it.

[B]

And when people say when they hear that I'm going on book tour, they're like, what do you do? Do you just read from your cookbook? And I'm like, no.

[A]

Do you just get on stage and cook?

[B]

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Okay. In his vows, he told me that his favorite nights at home were when.

[A]

We didn't slow down.

[B]

Okay. Fuck. Like, way down. Okay. Well, I'm nervous. Really put me on the spot. Okay. In his vows, he told me that his favorite nights at home were when we didn't have time to go grocery shopping. And I made something of what we had in the pantry because it was in those thrown together moments that he got to see how my imagination worked.

[A]

It was really. I thought that was really lovely.

[B]

Thank you, Max. Thank you.

[A]

This is really weird, but just bear with me. I brought a bag that's made up from the pantry of me and my partner. And Alison has to go in and pick out three things from the bag and then tell us what she would cook from it. And if it works, if it works, we'll do it twice. If it's boring and weird, we'll just do it once.

[B]

This is my fantasy, by the way. I am really into it. Okay? So I'm just Picking it up.

[A]

You just have to pick up three things. And you can't really look, but just go in and pick up three things. This is also merch from the Atlantic. Just.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you have to say what they are because people in the audience can't see one potato.

[B]

Okay, let me ask. Am I only allowed the quantity of which I pick up?

[A]

No, no, no, no.

[B]

This is a conceptual potato.

[A]

It's a conceptual potato.

[B]

Symbolic potato. One symbolic potato.

[A]

And you can add things that normal potatoes would have in their house. You can be additive.

[B]

Garbanzo means organic. And to clarify as well, does everything have to go together?

[A]

They have to. This is your meal.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

They don't have to be, like one dish. You have to make us. This is your husband's concept here. It's like, we didn't go grocery shopping.

[B]

Sour cream. To what do I owe the pleasure?

[A]

Okay, we didn't go grocery shopping. This is what we got. That's the idea here.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Okay. So bring it. What are we making? What are we having for dinner, honey?

[B]

Well, I gotta say, it's gotta be some sort of potato soup. We're going sour cream and potato together. The sour cream doesn't have to go inside of it, but it should go on top of it. Bonus points if you have onion, garlic, leek, shallot. Oh, you don't. No, you do.

[A]

That's fine.

[B]

That's normal stuff. Yeah, we all do.

[A]

Everybody does. Yeah.

[B]

Okay. So, yeah. And the reason that that soup is good or a soup like that is because you don't have to have a shallot if you have an onion. You don't need a leek if you have a shallot. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So allium potato broth. Better than bullion if you don't have broth. That's right. Okay, so potato leek soup or potato soup of some sort with this. No blender. We're not blending. These aren't. This is. No, we're not making baby food. But my baby does like potato soup in a chunky form.

[A]

That is baby food for adults.

[B]

Yeah. And then if we're doing this in the same meal, perhaps there's some sort of, like, chickpea salad situation, but like a frizzled chickpea, because a raw chickpea out of the can is never gonna hit the same. But if you had some greens, you could put it over the greens, like, toss it with that. And, I mean, you could even put a little sour cream in the bottom of that if you want it. But I think just on the soup is good.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

It's a weird meal. I'm not gonna lie. We're doing really. To me, the soup would be the meal. And then I would say, well, I'm gonna put these back for another time. But if we're. If I'm trying to play the game here.

[A]

That's not how the game works. Okay.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Should we do one more?

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Okay, great. Okay. Sorry, Elsa, one more.

[B]

So I can't use any of these anymore. Okay. These are.

[A]

You cannot use those.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

It's like I can tell what the cans are.

[A]

I know, I know. I couldn't fix that.

[B]

Oh, no quinoa. Boo. There's not one quinoa recipe in this book. I'll save you the time. If you're looking. Panning curry paste. Okay. Gluten free. That's good.

[A]

And we're a healthy.

[B]

I'm like, really hoping this is coconut milk. Oh, fuck. Black eyed peas, no salt added. I do want to take this time to say, unless it's for health reasons, I genuinely think that you should avoid the no salt added legumes in a can, because, like cooking pasta in salted water, it's so hard to season any sort of bean or pea that has not been seasoned from the beginning. Like, you can add so much salt to these, and you're always gonna be like, why do they taste like this? And it's because they were not treated with love and care and salinity from the beginning.

[A]

All right, so we're having kind of a crap dinner tonight, but, you know.

[B]

We'Re having an interesting.

[A]

It's raining, so we're not going shopping, so what do we got?

[B]

Oh, fuck. Well, I guess what we'll do is we'll make some. Some sort of like a salad with the black eyed peas and the quinoa. I'm gonna make the quinoa. It's gonna be mid per use, and then. But we're gonna make it taste good with some grated garlic and, you know, olive oil, lemon juice. And we're gonna add the black eyed peas. We're gonna let it sit. If you had something like lots of parsley or like a cucumber, you could do, like a tabbouleh situation with black eyed peas, which, as we know, are high in protein, which we love. Okay. And then if you have curry paste, let's. Let's pray you have a can of coconut milk and, like, one zucchini or whatever. Or like, we're allowed to use more potato. You could kind of make a quick sort of curry with that and call it a day. Thank you. That was hard. Thank you. I'm so brave. Thank you.

[A]

Okay, so this one's a little serious, so we're taking a serious turn. Having grown up, this is from Jordan. Having grown up in a diet obsessed culture, how have you maintained a loving relationship with both your body and with food and cooking?

[B]

Well, Jordan, that is extremely hard. It's hard every day. I don't want to like gender it and say that it's specific to women, but I think that any person in the public eye that where you're looking at photos or videos of yourself at a clip that no human should, it's not healthy for anybody's brain to do it. You become really self judgmental and really hard on yourself. And that's in addition to where we are culturally, where we see photos of what people say, oh, well, that's good. Or that is aspirational. And I don't know, you're like, I see bones. Like, I see your bones. Like, I don't, I don't know that that is aspirational. But we are in a place right now where I think things are so skewed because everybody is looking at themselves constantly.

[A]

And you're supposed to love food. Like you're trying to convey a love of food, a love of making food, a love of eating.

[B]

But. And also to be successful, you also have to be hot and young forever. And so you have to love food and love eating, but also look a certain way and never age and like be a mom but don't talk about it. And like there's all these sort of things that you're supposed to adhere to in order to achieve success that seem completely out of line with actually cooking and eating and living. And I think about it every day and trying to square it and it's really challenging.

[A]

So what do you. I mean, I don't know.

[B]

I think that you, you. I don't know. I don't, I don't know. I don't know the answer. I feel like it's. The work is like, begins in your cell. Like you have to like love yourself and et cetera, et cetera, like platitude. Platitude. But like, it's true. And because no one's like body positivity and like all this stuff that kind of ebbs and flows culturally, it's, it's not like I don't think you can trust it. You can't like wait for the culture to change to make it feel like you're doing the right thing?

[A]

Yeah, Yeah. I was thinking maybe the culture has opened up to a wide variety of people in cooking. Like a lot more maybe than when you started out.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely.

[A]

So that's hopeful.

[B]

Yeah. I think the democratization that the Internet provides, where like, everybody kind of has the opportunity to create their own space and their own niche, is really great. And there is truly something for everybody.

[A]

I'm having a really hard time transitioning to the next question, and you'll understand why after this profound conversation. Okay, here goes from James. I've been distressed for many years at how bland chicken has become.

[B]

That's a you problem, James. I don't think we're having that problem.

[A]

Whoa. 50 years ago, chicken was amazingly flavorful, et cetera, et cetera. What can we do? Is this true or I'm not 50.

[B]

I don't know. But I think that a lot of our foods are not as good in, like, the farming and the this, that, and the other. I think what you can do is you can buy chicken from a farm, and that means going to your farmer's market. I don't suggest you, like, leave your home and go to the farm, but there are ways for the farm to come to you. Almost every city has a farmer's market, and those chickens are almost always significantly better tasting. They have more fat, they have more flavor. When it comes to things like chicken meat or fish and, you know, I would call it like specialty vegetables, I do think that seeking them out from smaller farms makes a huge, huge difference. It's like a tomato. When you get like a beautiful tomato from the market and like in the middle of August, you're like, well, this is delicious. And then you get a tomato at the supermarket in February, you're like, well, this tastes like shit. It's like not the same food, but it is. So it's not really the tomato's fault. It's what we've done to the tomato. And same for the chicken. If you're getting your chicken in a place where they're feeding it, like ground up gravel or whatever, and they're like living in a horrible place, they're not gonna taste very good. And so you have to take that into consideration of, like, when you eat meat or fish especially, you're eating what they're eating. So I think about that a lot when I'm purchasing my protein.

[A]

Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Sarah, what are some of your all time favorite cookbooks? How did they inspire you as you conceptualized your cookbooks?

[B]

H A lot of my all time favorite cookbooks were ones that I started reading after I started writing cookbooks and Intimidating. Yeah, well, I kind of went in pretty blind to writing my first book. I wasn't like a person who consumed a lot of food media or read a lot of cookbooks, and my parents didn't have any cookbooks really. My mom always just cooked from, you know, her brain. It was never like a recipe household. Same with my dad. Like, I never really even saw recipes in my house. And it was a lot of like, oh, this is how your grandmother makes her brisket. It was bad, we didn't need to remember it, but like, it was sort of lore. It was talked about, it was passed down verbally. We weren't like, it wasn't a recipe thing. So I would say that after the first one that I wrote, I started looking to other books just to sort of. Because the books that I was reading were like memoirs and they were sort of longer form, like the Alice Waters biography and Judith Jones the tenth Muse and books like that. That really inspired me to write about food because I felt like the recipes I had nailed in terms of I knew what I was cooking and I knew what I wanted to cook, but getting the inspiration to figure out, well, how did I want to say it? Like Lori Colwyn style, you know, like, okay, we're not writing recipes, but we're talking about food in a way that gets you excited to cook. So I feel like those were the most inspirational to me and have shaped my career more than a book of recipes.

[A]

Okay, last one. This is kind of an ender question. Do you experience cooking burnout and how do you stay inspired or get back in the groove after a rut? I think this is relevant to a lot of people who feel like I'm doing the same thing cooking dinner every night. Like, what do you do?

[B]

Yeah, I experience that also. And I think a lot of people maybe assume that I don't or that I just have, like, if you do it for a living, maybe there's the fantasy that you have this endless spring of inspiration, but I don't. And oftentimes I think, to be totally honest, that's like how this book was born, was just going more simple and falling back in love with how good it can taste to cook like five ingredients together in a pot and be like, wow, this doesn't actually need anything else. And paring back and just kind of reminding yourself that like a chickpea cooked from dried in a bath of olive oil and garlic and herbs and chili for like three and a half hours in the oven is going to blow your mind. And it's when you're always looking for something to excite you, you overlook those things and you kind of think of that as like maybe not as good or consolation prize. Or you open up your pantry and you're like, all I have are like can of tomatoes and like some lentils. And it's like, well, you can make the best tomato soup of your life with that if you want, you know, and kind of reframing and reminding yourself that you don't actually need that much to do something really fabulous is a good way to get out of a rut.

[A]

Well, thank you for sharing that all with us and thank you guys for being amazing audience.

[B]

Thank you so much.

[A]

Thank you to Alison Roman and also thank you to our hosts at 6 and I, a center for Arts, Entertainment, Ideas and Jewish Life in Washington, D.C. this episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Rosie Hughes. It was edited by Kevin Townsend. Rob Smirciak engineered this episode and provided original music. Claudina Baid is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor. Listeners, if you like what you hear on Radio Atlantic, you can support our work and the work of all Atlantic journalists. When you subscribe to the [e-mail] listener or it's holiday Times, you can buy someone a gift subscription. I'm Hanna Rosen. Thank you for listening.

[C]

They say if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. My name is John Dick, and I'm never, ever in the wrong room. So I started a podcast to introduce you to some of the brilliant people I've encountered along the way. But we'll also keep it real. So we'll ask these incredibly successful people to share some of their most embarrassing stories, their dumbest mistakes. Mark and I talked about his inspiration and audacious goals for the business, how he's succeeding without spending a penny on marketing, and how he would fix our broken health care system if he had a magic wand. We also talked about how sports has changed since he walked away from the Mavs, what we're learning from our Gen Z kids, and why eggs are always better when dipped in ketchup. So I hope you'll enjoy the latest quadrennial conversation with Mark Cuban and me, the dumbest guy in the room.