A food-world star’s method and mess.  Photograph by Caroline Tompkins for The New Yorker Alison Roman was a darling of the food world who had a knack, as Lauren Collins writes in a new Profile, for “visually enticing recipes that brought a sense of youthful glamour to the staid domain of weeknight cooking.” Then, early in the pandemic, Roman gave an interview in which she criticized Marie Kondo and Chrissy Teigen for being crass marketers, and the Internet pounced. Roman became a symbol of the structural racism that pervades food media—another entrant in the line of white chefs who cherry-pick techniques and ingredients from other cultures and yet somehow receive all the credit. Collins spends time with Roman as she works to rebuild her brand with a YouTube channel and a newsletter. Roman is still prickly, still raw, still sorting through the criticism. At one point, she tells Collins about the negative comments that she received in response to a lentils recipe: “It just goes to show that food is very sensitive for people, and they feel underrepresented if they see someone with a large platform not taking it seriously. But there’s also a part of me that’s, like, Can we all just lighten up? Can I make a pot of lentils? Call it whatever the fuck you want, I don’t care.” —Michael Agger, culture editor, newyorker.com Read “Alison Roman Just Can’t Help Herself.” | 
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