Alison Roman Is in Her Advice Hotline Era. We Got Her Portland Tips.
Alison Roman has her own way of doing things. “I’m like, annoyingly pragmatic—even more so the older I get,” she says over Zoom. “Less is more, you know?” She’s calling from the set of her YouTube cooking show, Home Movies, which is also the kitchen of her Brooklyn apartment. There’s a cat tree behind her.
Roman is the internet’s de facto troubleshooter of kitchen squabbles, but her podcast, Solicited Advice (a live version of which comes to the Aladdin Theater Friday, May 3) expands the scope of her counseling. It’s an advice hotline. Callers seek help with their food-adjacent struggles, but also their difficult septuagenarian neighbors, their feuding extended family members, even more vulnerable topics, like trying to make friends as an adult. She and a famous friend—influencers Delaney Rowe and Tinx, writers Allison P. Davis and Raven Smith, to name some prior guests—chat with callers to get a 360-degree view of their troubles before weighing in. It’s not terribly dissimilar from a Sex and the City brunch.
Roman’s disregard for culinary conventions is famous. Her recipes supplant their fussy predecessors with jabbing definite articles: the cookie, the stew, the pasta. The New Yorker called her “home cooking’s most relentless polemicist.” The mode is as candid as can be; there’s no fourth wall to speak of, much less to break. Her three best-selling cookbooks came after stints at Bon Appétit and New York Times Cooking, and gave way to a newsletter and the aforementioned cooking show. A million people watched her cook Thanksgiving dinner during COVID. And while she’s very good at making the content she puts out feel like a conversation, she craved a genuine exchange. Enter podcast.
Caller questions that prompt more questions work best. The back and forth of this medium allows for nuance. “I can get further in there—to better assess,” she says. The setup is the same for the live show, though it won’t be recorded (“what happens in that room stays in that room”). Audience members will submit questions in writing in the lobby before the show and Roman will invite the askers with the meatiest queries on stage to unpack them. “So hopefully these people are feeling brave,” she says.
Is this new grasp for connection working? Roman thinks so: “It makes people feel less alone.” She thinks listeners might feel, Oh, I have that problem, too. Or, Oh, that sounds like my sister. She went on. “You’re definitely gonna glean like, one-to-six things from a conversation”—a new perspective, relationship advice; you may even stop trimming the ends of your garlic cloves—“or maybe you disagree.” She’s fine if you have your own way of doing things, too.
Selfishly, we wanted to solicit some of our own advice, to gain a fresh perspective on our own city, which is a regular stop on Roman’s tours. So, where does Alison Roman like to go in Portland?
Heavenly Creatures
When Roman dropped by this little wine bar on a visit a few months ago, friends kept showing up. “What was two people became four people became seven people,” she says. Giving a characteristically straightforward compliment, she describes the tiny spot as a “wine bar with wine bar food,” which it is, in the best possible way. The wine list is one of the city’s most impressive, and the Camembert with Tim’s potato chips have yet to let us down. “I love small, intimate little places,” Roman says, “where like two people are working there.”
Nong’s Khao Man Gai
The best thing about Nong’s is that nothing changes. You wait in line, get your chicken, and smile at the beautifully pedestrian experience. Apparently that’s not true for Alison Roman. “They were out of the chicken when I went,” she says. “But I walked in and Gracie Abrams [the singer-songwriter and Taylor Swift opener] was eating in there. It was really sweet, because we were the only people in the restaurant. I was like, Oh, we all have really good taste.” She got the tofu and broccoli version instead (worth a shot if you haven’t had it). “I was having that kind of day, too. Nothing was going well for me. And I was like, I went to the chicken restaurant and they’re out of chicken” [laughs].
Powell’s
Naturally, any touring author is going to have a Powell’s event or three under their belt. “They’re an incredible institution,” Roman says. “I think any bookstore that’s a defining cornerstone of a city is remarkable, and reminds me that people still like books.” Powell’s size works for her larger-scale events, but she’s also keen to involve smaller local shops. Broadway Books is supplying the books for this event, and Roman says they will likely have signed copies to stock afterward.
Frances May
“My friend Pam [Baker-Miller] owns a place called Frances May,” Roman says, referencing the Downtown clothing boutique across the street from the Ritz-Carlton. “That is one place I do go every time I’m in town.” She went on. “Last time I was there, I got my favorite jacket.” She likes the mix of aspirational and somewhat-affordable brands Baker-Miller stocks, and hasn’t found a similar shop in New York: “You’d be surprised, a well curated clothing store like that is actually very difficult to find.”
