The first recipe I bookmarked in Alison Roman’s new book, Old-Fashioned Strawberry Cake, would not, by her own admission, “win any showstopper or architectural awards.” My husband deemed it downright ugly.
Granted, the photograph of the manly bare-chested model in the micro shorts might have caused me to give a closer look to the craggy-edged fruit-studded disc on the platter he was holding. But it was Roman’s vivid comparison of its “crumbly-yet-compact interior” to that of a donut —achieved without the mess of a deep-fryer — that ultimately seduced me into making it. My skeptical husband can verify that my homely replica lived up to the pitch.
Roman’s rustic, relaxed approach to cooking and gathering (she eschews the term “entertaining”) in her modest Brooklyn abode made her an internet sensation, a New York Times columnist, and bestselling author of two previous books, “Dining In” and “Nothing Fancy.” The reliable deliciousness of her recipes — which stems from years of working as a pastry chef, magazine food editor, and home recipe developer — helped her survive a very public and painful Twitter-mob cancellation in 2020 (due to a critical remark she made about Chrissy Teigen).
Despite profuse apologies, she lost major gigs and friends in the fallout. Eventually she rebuilt her following via her own chatty and frequently self-deprecating Substack newsletter and YouTube cooking series called Home Movies. The recipes and aesthetics she shares in “Sweet Enough” (Potter, $35) follow in the proudly unkempt and rule-bending spirit of all of those endeavors.
Strong opinions abound: carrot cake tastes better cold, bananas foster need not be set aflame, shortbread is superior to all other cookies. And despite the book’s title, offerings aren’t confined to only sweet stuff. A recipe for Caramelized Onion and Anchovy Tart comfortably resides in a chapter with a Peaches and Cream Galette.
The cover photo of a bowl of crushed raspberries swirled with sour cream encapsulates her general feeling about dessert. What makes that simple combination so sexy, she writes, is how “its casualness gives way to something very desirable, almost by accident. That’s hot.”
Susan Puckett is a cookbook author and former food editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Follow her at susanpuckett.com.
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