About Alison Roman and a Ball of Twine

This weekend, my friend Jess (hi, Jess!) and I decided to follow our morbid curiosity to Hester Street for Alison Roman's First Bloom pop-up. First Bloom is Roman's bespoke grocery store in upstate New York; for the month of November, it's also here in the city. (Does Alison Roman really need an introduction at this point? If so, see here. [I edited this story and remain proud of it.])

Before I met Jess I went to a nearby vintage store. The last time I'd visited, I tried on a $13,000 Dolce & Gabbana wedding dress just to see like what it would feel like to wear $13,000 worth of clothing. (It felt great.) This time, I found a silk Chloé dress. When the clerk told me it cost $1,298 I nodded like this wasn't alarming and tried it on. I had no intention of buying it; like the last time, I just wanted to play pretend.

Alison Roman's pop-up is in a small space attached to a wine bar. When we arrived it was very crowded, like a rush hour subway car if the subway car was a simulation of a country store that sells purposely misshapen ceramics, French wooden spoons, and $22 balls of twine. There was a wall of tinned fish, a long table styled like a Renaissance still life, a bucket of Maldon salt, nice pasta, and Roman's own jarred tomato sauce — goods, in short, that have become synonymous with the Roman brand.

During the five minutes we were there, I rode a carousel of feelings. There was the desire to buy several beautifully designed tins of fish, and a degree of admiration for Roman, who, after being canceled*, came back strong enough to get away with charging $22 for a ball of twine. There was annoyance at the crowd and myself for being a part of it.

And there was nostalgia for a time when it was my job to visit a place like First Bloom, and when a place like First Bloom felt new and and audacious enough to provoke a think piece and/or productive snark. When I began writing about food over a decade ago, the artisan food movement was in full, well, bloom. There was a lot to make fun of but also a lot to admire.

And now? Making fun of Alison Roman for selling $30 tomato sauce is like making fun of a dog for licking its butt. It's just what they do, what their situation demands of them. And what Alison Roman is selling isn't even all that synonymous with her brand anymore — it's the same stuff every shoppy shop sells.

That sameness made me sad, this idea that the natural evolution of something new and usual is to become so co-opted by the mainstream that it loses its power to entrance or provoke. If anyone at First Bloom was provoked, it was to buy a jar of tomato sauce.

But given our current socio-economic-political-AI-hellhole landscape, being affronted by a $30 jar of tomato sauce feels a bit luxurious. If my trip that day showed me anything, it's that a great many people want to play pretend now. Some of us do it in a changing room, some of us in an ersatz country store. The fantasy is delectable — even if, more often than not, it leaves us hungry for something real.

*My friend Gautam insists that she wasn't really canceled, that she just went away for a bit and came back. That's also true, but believe me, in the food world she was very much persona non grata for the better part of 2020 and arguably 2021.