I don’t really seek out the coolest, hippest cooks or chefs. I’ve always loved watching people cook – it relaxes me. But I just watch the Food Network or the Cooking Channel and that’s as far as I go. I don’t seek out Instagram Live cooking events or online cooking content. All of which to say, I had no idea who Alison Roman was. According to her interview with New Consumer, she’s sort of a hipster woman who airs a social media cooking show out of her Brooklyn apartment. She’s on Instagram, and she’s also written a somewhat popular cookbook (Nothing Fancy). The point is that she’s on the verge of a bigger breakthrough, and she could be the latest home-cook-turned-food-celebrity. On Friday, her name was trending because of this New Consumer interview, where she trashed Chrissy Teigen and Marie Kondo and Gwyneth Paltrow a little bit too (there are lots of references to a Goop-like empire). There are several pieces to this, but let’s start with Roman’s interview. Here are the “shady” parts:
Her ambitions: “I sold a TV show, but I was supposed to be filming it right now, and I’m not. So when this is over, we will start production on it. And I do sort of have ambitions to figure out how to channel everything into a site. But I’m really sensitive to oversaturation, again. And does the world need another Goop? It also requires so much money that I would have to take from people that I don’t know. I would also have to let go of so much control. I run my own social media, my own Instagram. I run my own Twitter. The idea that I would ever not do that — and that I would somehow lend my brand to someone else who’s going to approximate me — horrifies me. I’d rather stay small and always be myself. But at the same time, I do need to figure out how to turn this into money. Straight up.
On the idea of making her own line of cooking utensils/kitchen products: “I have a collaboration coming out with [the cookware startup] Material, a capsule collection. It’s limited edition, a few tools that I designed that are based on tools that I use that aren’t in production anywhere — vintage spoons and very specific things that are one-offs that I found at antique markets that they have made for me…That would have to be done in such a specific way under very intense standards. And I would not ever want to put anything out into the world that I wouldn’t be so excited to use myself.
She doesn’t want to just make sh-t for the sake of consumption: “I think that’s why I really enjoy what I do. Because you’re making something, but it goes away. Like the idea that when Marie Kondo decided to capitalize on her fame and make stuff that you can buy, that is completely antithetical to everything she’s ever taught you… I’m like, damn, bitch, you f–king just sold out immediately! Someone’s like “you should make stuff,” and she’s like, “okay, slap my name on it, I don’t give a sh-t!” That’s the thing — you don’t need a ton of equipment in your kitchen to make great food. “For the low, low price of $19.99, please to buy my cutting board!” Like, no. Find the stuff that you love and buy it. Support businesses and makers. It feels greedy. Unless something just simply didn’t exist that I wish existed, but that would make an inventor, which I’m not.
On over-consumption: “There’s just too much stuff in the world. I want so much less stuff in my life, and I don’t want to contribute to that. And maybe that’s a poor business decision, because I’m sure one day I could make money off it. But I’m more interested in finding a cool glassblower or ceramicist that I love and doing a collaboration. Like, what Chrissy Teigen has done is so crazy to me. She had a successful cookbook. And then it was like: Boom, line at Target. Boom, now she has an Instagram page that has over a million followers where it’s just, like, people running a content farm for her. That horrifies me and it’s not something that I ever want to do. I don’t aspire to that. But like, who’s laughing now? Because she’s making a ton of f–king money.
When I first read the Marie Kondo and Chrissy Teigen quotes, I was like “shady but she has a point there.” Like, the heart of Roman’s point is solid: not every chef needs to be a brand, and not every lifestyle guru needs to come out with a line of pots, pans, stuff, etc. In Kondo’s case, how can her brand be “toss out everything” AND “buy my sh-t”? But of course nothing is that simple, and of course Alison Roman is choosing to use two women of color as examples on purpose. It’s a sort of white-woman-hipster gatekeeping: she’s saying that Teigen and Kondo don’t really “fit in” to the white hipster-aspirational lifestyle Roman WANTS to sell and would sell if she wasn’t also very concerned about selling out (a concern Teigen and Kondo apparently don’t share, according to Roman).
So, because Chrissy is extremely online (that’s her brand), she responded on Twitter with a lengthy thread, which I won’t embed. Here’s what she said (as she linked to Roman’s interview):
this is a huge bummer and hit me hard. I have made her recipes for years now, bought the cookbooks, supported her on social and praised her in interviews. I even signed on to executive produce the very show she talks about doing in this article.
I started cravings because I wanted something for myself. I wanted something John didn’t buy, I wanted something to do that calmed me, made me happy and made others happy, too. Cravings isn’t a “machine” or “farmed content” – it’s me and 2 other women. I didn’t “sell out” by making my dreams come true. To have a cookware line, to get to be a part of that process start to finish, to see something go from sketch to in my hands, I love that.
to see that thing in my hand being used by people around the world makes me so happy. Watching a company grow makes me happy. I get joy from it and lots of people do. I genuinely loved everything about Alison. Was jealous she got to have a book with food on the cover instead of a face!! I’ve made countless NYT recipes she’s created, posting along the way. I don’t think I’ve ever been so bummed out by the words of a fellow food-lover. I just had no idea I was perceived that way, by her especially. And Marie, too. Marie is awesome.
It has been crappy to deal with this all day but I couldn’t not say something. I know the actual tears I put into the work I do and it’s really hard to see someone try to completely invalidate it. Someone I really liked. there are many days I cry very hard because cravings, the site, is our baby we love to pump content onto. we do this work ourselves, and there is NO monetary gain yet. it is just work work work and the reward is you liking it. so to be called a sellout….hooooo it hurts. this “farm” you think of doesn’t exist. I am the farm. I am the cows the horses the pigs
[From Chrissy Teigen’s Twitter]
Her feelings were hurt and I appreciate the fact that she didn’t lash out at Roman personally or anything. Teigen has every right to do her own thing, to run her cooking/lifestyle empire however she wants. As I said, what Roman was doing was a bullsh-t form of gatekeeping and it sucks. Roman’s response to Chrissy’s tweets (and the general backlash online) wasn’t great either. From her Twitter:
I want to clarify, I am not coming for anyone who’s successful, especially not women. I was trying to clarify that my business model does not include a product line, which work very well for some, but I don’t see working for me.
Hi @chrissyteigen! I sent an email but also wanted to say here that I’m genuinely sorry I caused you pain with what I said. I shouldn’t have used you /your business (or Marie’s!) as an example to show what I wanted for my own career- it was flippant, careless and I’m so sorry. Being a woman who takes down other women is absolutely not my thing and don’t think it’s yours, either (I obviously failed to effectively communicate that). I hope we can meet one day, I think we’d probably get along.
“I’m sorry I caused you pain” will always be a terrible apology. Mostly, I’m struck by the fact that Alison Roman is terrible at all of this – she’s being an a–hole about a woman who was going to produce her show, she refused to acknowledge that she chose two women of color for Karen-esque reasons, and she gave a terrible apology when she was appropriately called out. Mess. Maybe Marie Kondo can toss her in the trash.
Photos courtesy of Getty, Instagram.
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