Time stands still at Keens.

In 2014, I would go with my friends Julia and Lily at least once a month.

We were like, Oh, were ladies who Keens, Roman tells me.

For Alison Roman, shallot pasta and chickpea stew made her a household name. Her new cookbook,  ‘Swe…

Nearly a decade later, she says, the habit has become a less frequent, more special tradition.

Strong preferences are Romans signature, whether shespraising sardinesorlambasting sandwiches.

According to Romans friends, hot takes are not just her brand; theyre her essence.

For Alison Roman, chickpea stew and shallot pasta made her famous. Her new cookbook,  ‘Sweet Enough,…

Youre like, What do you mean you dont like sandwiches?

Sandwiches as a category?

says her friend and food stylist Lauren Stanek.

Alison Roman, cookbook author and chef, became famous for recipes like shallot pasta, chickpea stew,…

Sometimes people think Alisons controversial for the sake of being controversial when thats just not the case at all.

Shes passionate about what shes passionate about, and I find it delightful.

[Its] been positioned as a pejorative, but Im unabashedly myself and honest.

Alison Roman’s new cookbook, ‘Sweet Enough,’ adds dessert recipes to her already-famous repertoire o…

Much in Romans life has changed since she first became a Keens devotee.

I just started crying.

Im like, There are all these people!

Our waiter politely interrupts to say that he was the one who booked Romans shoot at Keens.

I got paid even though they didnt use it, he says, so thanks.

Oh my god, Roman says.

I got paid even though they didnt use it either!

But what are you in between?

Its very difficult for people to assume anything in between.

A lot of that comes with just the acceptance of my body, my personality.

They put them in a box and rarely revisit that box.

For a few months,nobody was having a better pandemic than Alison Roman.

Her shallot pasta recipe was so popular that it may or may not have led to abucatini shortage.

I was feeling so good about the work I was doing.

I was donating all this money to charity and helping people get fed, Roman recalls.

I was saying yes to everything because I was feeling this generosity of spirit.

I was like, I have a service that Im providing and that people are liking.

Though Romanpublicly apologized, she became a stand-in for overlapping crises.

Everyone was like, Youre a fcking dumb, ugly cnt.

Youre a white supremacist.

You hate Asian women, Roman says of the social media fallout.

I was just like, Did you not learn anything from my f*cking saga?

Dont be rude to people.

Dont talk about people you dont know.

Dont be needlessly bitter about something you dont have, and projecting onto somebody else.

Imagine that happening on the absolute largest f*cking scale, she says.

She lost some friends in the process, and many others kept their support private.

I was getting constant text messages like, Are you OK?

But very few people would publicly say, I believe in this person, she says.

Im so proud of the people I know that love me, she says.

Theyre so blissfully free of bullshit and are unabashedly themselves that I feel in very good company.

As much asSweet Enoughis a low-key dessert manual, its also a celebration of those people.

[Theres a] sundae party spread [we shot at] 12:30, maybe 1 in the morning.

Romans friends-as-family storytelling offers a natural evolution of millennial domesticity as millennials enter middle age.

If her fans dont have kids, their friends do.

Theyre freezing their eggs, as Roman has, or caring for sick parents.

They got high-needs rescue dogs during the pandemic.

Hospitality, in this life phase, involves making things easier for your friends so they can have fun.

I was like, I need more peppercorns.

Literally the next day peppercorns were delivered.

I had some dried mango she ate the last of, then three more bags arrived a week later.

Stanek saw the gesture as an effort to take something off her plate.

She and I really bond over the idea of chosen family and committing to each other.

Those two things work together where its like everything is intense caring, he says.

The friend chose the unphotogenic tacos.

I was like, Do I hate this?

Am I missing an opportunity to recipe develop?

But I was just like, No, Im taking care of somebody right now, she says.

It wasnt for content.

The tacos didnt show up on TikTok, either, because Romans not on it.

Because, as her biggest fans put it, shes now mother.