{"id":2514142,"date":"2026-07-23T15:22:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T15:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2514142"},"modified":"2026-07-23T15:22:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T15:22:32","slug":"carla-lalli-on-bon-appetit-divorce-and-her-new-cookbook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/carla-lalli-on-bon-appetit-divorce-and-her-new-cookbook\/","title":{"rendered":"Carla Lalli on \u2018Bon App\u00e9tit,\u2019 Divorce, and Her New Cookbook"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"grubstreet-zephr-anchor\" data-editable=\"content\">\n<div class=\"lede-image-wrapper special-feature vertical\">\n<div class=\"image-wrapper\">\n            <picture><source media=\"(min-resolution: 192dpi) and (min-width: 1180px), (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2) and (min-width: 1180px)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pyxis.nymag.com\/v1\/imgs\/e30\/3af\/fc1642deb38ea20451b2fad8f56a881417-FIAF-carla-lalli-photo-lucia-bell-epstei.2x.rvertical.w570.jpg 2x\" width=\"570\" height=\"712\"\/><source media=\"(min-width: 1180px) \" srcset=\"https:\/\/pyxis.nymag.com\/v1\/imgs\/e30\/3af\/fc1642deb38ea20451b2fad8f56a881417-FIAF-carla-lalli-photo-lucia-bell-epstei.rvertical.w570.jpg\" width=\"570\" height=\"712\"\/><source media=\"(min-resolution: 192dpi) and (min-width: 768px), (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2) and (min-width: 768px)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pyxis.nymag.com\/v1\/imgs\/e30\/3af\/fc1642deb38ea20451b2fad8f56a881417-FIAF-carla-lalli-photo-lucia-bell-epstei.2x.rvertical.w570.jpg 2x\" width=\"570\" height=\"712\"\/><source media=\"(min-width: 768px)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pyxis.nymag.com\/v1\/imgs\/e30\/3af\/fc1642deb38ea20451b2fad8f56a881417-FIAF-carla-lalli-photo-lucia-bell-epstei.rvertical.w570.jpg\" width=\"570\" height=\"712\"\/><source media=\"(min-resolution: 192dpi), (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pyxis.nymag.com\/v1\/imgs\/e30\/3af\/fc1642deb38ea20451b2fad8f56a881417-FIAF-carla-lalli-photo-lucia-bell-epstei.2x.rvertical.w570.jpg\" width=\"570\" height=\"712\"\/> <\/picture>\n          <\/div>\n<div class=\"lede-image-data\">\n<p>\n                  <span class=\"credit\">Photo: Lucia Bell-Epstein<\/span>\n              <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<div data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/audio-embed\/instances\/cmrxhgmbh00093b7d0qerblt8@published\" class=\"audio-embed\" data-editable=\"settings\">\n    <iframe loading=\"lazy\" data-src=\"https:\/\/embed-player.newsoveraudio.com\/v5?key=Vb6ITy58Y6jd0iuG22F0UnS1XB9ZH4dV&amp;id=https:\/\/www.grubstreet.com\/_pages\/cmrwlb9rz000l0ijcdngns93o.html\" width=\"100%\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write *;\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" class=\"audio-embed-frame optanon-category-C0004\"><br \/>\n    <\/iframe><\/p>\n<div class=\"consent-placeholder onetrust-placeholder-C0004\">\n<p class=\"consent-placeholder-title\">This content can&#8217;t be displayed right now.<\/p>\n<p class=\"consent-placeholder-body\">\n          To view this embed, please accept targeting cookies. It&#8217;s loaded from a third party and requires that permission to appear.\n        <\/p>\n<p>        <button type=\"button\" class=\"consent-placeholder-button\"><br \/>\n          Manage cookie preferences<br \/>\n        <\/button>\n      <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph_drop-cap\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwlb9tm00130ijch09yhy4f@published\" data-word-count=\"60\">It\u2019s a gray summer Tuesday \u2014 the most unremarkable kind of day \u2014 and Carla Lalli has been missing out. Namely, on summer produce, which has been arriving in droves, ripe, to the Brooklyn Borough Hall Greenmarket. But Lalli has only gotten to the market once so far this season. So we are going to make up for lost time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0f6w001d3b863mq7w23f@published\" data-word-count=\"240\">We are both late, which feels fitting, because I am 35 weeks pregnant and she is busy reinventing herself. She no longer goes by Carla Lalli Music. It\u2019s the third summer since she ended her 24-year marriage, and we\u2019re meeting because I want the scoop on the next hot parasocial divorce memoir. Technically, though, we\u2019re meeting to look for tomatoes because Lalli writes so viscerally about them in her memoir-slash-cookbook, <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinrandomhouse.com\/books\/774568\/food-is-a-feeling-by-carla-lalli\/\"><em>Food Is a Feeling<\/em><\/a><em>,<\/em> that I\u2019ve become desperate to eat them with her. (Her ex did not like tomatoes; over time, she internalized that and began to see them as \u201csaggy, gaggy fruit blimps,\u201d until divorce freed her to slurp \u201cthe warm juices right from their fruit cenote.\u201d) This is a book, by the way, that everyone dissuaded her from writing; she was told over and over again that no one would want to read a book about divorce, and her publisher offered her $100,000 less for the manuscript than her previous advance. While I wait \u2014 she texts frantically that she is parking but is stuck behind an ambulette \u2014 I wonder if this was misguided. Not only did I read it cover to cover twice in two days, but I have to imagine you will too, after having lapped up everything you could these past few months in and about Belle Burden\u2019s <em>Strangers<\/em>, the Amanda-Kyle-West-Ciara clusterfuck, Margaret Qualley and Jack Antonoff, and God knows who else\u2019s crumbling marriages.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0f8c001e3b86y0w2wvv9@published\" data-word-count=\"63\">So <em>Food Is a Feeling<\/em> is not a traditional cookbook at all. It is a book of personal essays about the dissolution of Lalli\u2019s relationship with deft recipes (like the salt-and-pepper pork chops she made the night she told her kids about the split), and more than that it is a poignant and honest meditation on the power of cooking in transitional periods.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0fbs001f3b86lmh98qay@published\" data-word-count=\"119\">Lalli didn\u2019t invent cooking on-camera, of course, but there was a time when so many people wanted to watch her do it that it felt like she might have. As the food director for <em>Bon App\u00e9tit<\/em> during its boom times, Lalli \u2014 along with her Test Kitchen colleagues \u2014\u00a0made food psychotically cool. Suddenly, fluency in \u201cbrothy bean\u201d culture was a more important marker of one\u2019s cultural know-how than being up-to-date with the \u201cStyles\u201d section, and watching someone spatchcock and roast a chicken beneath a second cast-iron pan felt more compelling than the latest episode of <em>Stranger Thing<\/em>s. Former staffers like Alison Roman caught the headwinds (at one point, Taylor Swift was reaching out to say she loved her stuff).<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0fdh001g3b86gc9k27nw@published\" data-word-count=\"75\">Lalli\u2019s role was a sort of modern Ina-Nigella hybrid for millennials, a little older than us but youthful in spirit: mischievous, opinionated, authoritative. As <em>Bon App\u00e9tit<\/em>\u2019s fun aunt, she racked up view counts as high as 4.6 million (\u201cMolly and Carla Try to Make the Perfect Mashed Potatoes and Gravy\u201d) on the illustrious YouTube channel. She seemed to give fewer fucks than someone else might have in her shoes, and it made her wildly likable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0fec001h3b86c2j8jslv@published\" data-word-count=\"84\">When it all <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.grubstreet.com\/2020\/06\/matt-duckor-bon-appetit.html\">imploded<\/a>, Lalli didn\u2019t escape totally unscathed \u2014\u00a0but she did make it out with a fervent fan base. She had already published her first cookbook, <em>Where Cooking Begins<\/em>, and she <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/lallimusic\/status\/1293566520476471296\">left<\/a> the magazine and began to produce her own videos and recipes, poised for pandemic-era success. Her second cookbook, <em>That Sounds So Good<\/em>, was published in October 2021, and <em>Carla\u2019s Cooking Show<\/em> debuted on YouTube that same month with \u201cBacon, Egg and Cheese on a Biscuit.\u201d The video racked up 444,000 views.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0ffp001i3b86b5zugi2c@published\" data-word-count=\"63\">It worked until it didn\u2019t. In a 2025 Substack post, Lalli <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/carlalalli.substack.com\/p\/the-true-costs-of-being-on-youtube\">detailed<\/a> \u201cthe true cost\u201d of maintaining a YouTube presence without institutional backing. She was taking sponsorships to subsidize a portion of production and bleeding money on the videos she actually wanted to make. She wrote about the person she had become, as opposed to the performer she showed the rest of us:<\/p>\n<blockquote data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/blockquote\/instances\/cmrwmgay6000c3b872v04q9c0@published\" class=\"blockquote\" data-editable=\"text\" data-word-count=\"87\">\n<p>I\u2019ve been doing this a long time, and as a high-summer Leo, my ego is robust, but there were plenty of times when I truly could not stand myself or my performance \u2026 In 2023, when my marriage broke up and I had to stay in (goofy, upbeat) character for the sake of my and my family\u2019s privacy \u2014 that was brutal. I was living a lie, projecting an inauthentic version of myself. The conflict between the person in reality and the performer ate away at me.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0fiv001k3b867vsyyroi@published\" data-word-count=\"105\">She is unapologetically transparent now as she walks toward me at the Greenmarket in a white linen blouse and barrel-legged pants, her green jelly sandals clacking against the ground, grinning. There\u2019s a vulnerability to her, or maybe just an acceptance. Her curls, with beautifully harsh streaks of gray, are still wet, and they frame a trove of gold hoops and studs. She doesn\u2019t mess around with small talk; immediately, she tells me that to begin writing <em>Food Is a Feeling<\/em>, she had to start with the most painful part: reliving the worst summer of her life. \u201cIt felt insane to be doing it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0fkh001l3b865kchr2ay@published\" data-word-count=\"126\">As she describes the small battles she had to wage every step of the way to write the sort of divorce memoir she wanted to, she moves with that recognizable authority, picking up a pea from a vendor\u2019s bin and snapping off the stem end. She tastes it for sweetness. \u201c<em>We need to have a conversation about what this book is,<\/em>\u201d she remembers thinking after filing an early version of the recipe for a \u201cconceptually flawed\u201d tuna melt that comes after an essay on relapsing on pot and buying a house in the final throes of a failing marriage. The tuna-melt recipe ends with a cheeky message: \u201cLife is booby-trapped with things we need to figure out on our own; this sandwich is one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0fml001m3b86lhwdeg4x@published\" data-word-count=\"81\">Naturally, Lalli\u2019s publisher questioned the logic of including a recipe for an underwhelming sandwich. \u201c<em>How weird would it be to give a recipe for a perfect tuna melt after that essay?<\/em>\u201d she thought. She studies a few heirloom tomatoes, hefting them one at a time to assess their give, before taking a deep sniff. \u201cIt felt like the question was \u2018Are you <em>sure<\/em> you want to make a book about a messy transitional period in your life? And learning from mistakes?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0foe001n3b8630pkj170@published\" data-word-count=\"51\">She was sure. After years of writing flexible, service-forward recipes, Lalli had had a revelation: She wanted to flip the order of operations and focus on the emotional connection anyone can have to food with service as a secondary output. And she was especially sure that readers were ready for it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0fqa001o3b86t3dfh4qz@published\" data-word-count=\"80\">To make it happen, though, she had to state her case. She remembers compiling links and arguments \u2014\u00a0<em>Look how much everyone cared about Reese Witherspoon\u2019s divorce!!!<\/em> \u2014 and combating misconceptions about what the book would be. \u201cI\u2019m not sad, but people do go through sad stuff,\u201d she says, stuffing beefsteak and heirloom tomatoes into an Archestratus tote before moving on to the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shewolfbakery.com\/\">She Wolf<\/a> stand for a baguette. \u201cWhat I didn\u2019t want was for it to be pathetic, too maudlin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0frf001p3b8617ltfvdy@published\" data-word-count=\"65\">I have a hard time imagining anything she produced could be pathetic or maudlin as we climb into her SUV and the touchscreen display lights up with her username, \u201cCutiE.\u201d Jazz sputters back to life mid-track. (Driving, Lalli says, is her \u201ctoxic trait.\u201d When a person is finally alone after decades of existing in opposition to other people\u2019s needs, every bit of personal space counts.)<\/p>\n<div data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/image\/instances\/cmrwm4zjv002a3b86j8a2zq9c@published\" class=\"nym-image vertical inline original-vertical image\" data-editable=\"settings\">\n<div class=\"image-container vertical inline \">\n<div class=\"img-figure\">\n<div class=\"image-wrapper hidden\">\n<picture><source media=\"(min-resolution: 192dpi) and (min-width: 1180px), (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2) and (min-width: 1180px)\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/pyxis.nymag.com\/v1\/imgs\/430\/235\/69e4529009d3994e91ee02b9c5b2797b4c-10---.2x.rvertical.w570.jpg 2x\" width=\"570\" height=\"712\"\/><source media=\"(min-width: 1180px) \" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/pyxis.nymag.com\/v1\/imgs\/430\/235\/69e4529009d3994e91ee02b9c5b2797b4c-10---.rvertical.w570.jpg\" width=\"570\" height=\"712\"\/><source media=\"(min-resolution: 192dpi) and (min-width: 768px), (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2) and (min-width: 768px)\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/pyxis.nymag.com\/v1\/imgs\/430\/235\/69e4529009d3994e91ee02b9c5b2797b4c-10---.2x.rvertical.w570.jpg 2x\" width=\"570\" height=\"712\"\/><source media=\"(min-width: 768px)\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/pyxis.nymag.com\/v1\/imgs\/430\/235\/69e4529009d3994e91ee02b9c5b2797b4c-10---.rvertical.w570.jpg\" width=\"570\" height=\"712\"\/><source media=\"(min-resolution: 192dpi), (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2)\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/pyxis.nymag.com\/v1\/imgs\/430\/235\/69e4529009d3994e91ee02b9c5b2797b4c-10---.2x.rvertical.w570.jpg\" width=\"570\" height=\"712\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pyxis.nymag.com\/v1\/imgs\/430\/235\/69e4529009d3994e91ee02b9c5b2797b4c-10---.rvertical.w570.jpg\" class=\"img-data\" data-content-img=\"\" width=\"570\" height=\"712\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;\"\/> <\/picture>\n          <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<p>      <span class=\"credit\">Photo: Lucia Bell-Epstein<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0fso001q3b86jehciq9k@published\" data-word-count=\"121\">Her narrow kitchen is spectacular and soothing, not just because of the honed marble and dark woodwork, but because it reveals what \u2014 and who \u2014 is important to Lalli. A wall by the window holds pots on pegs, some especially well worn, and one shares its peg with a bunch of overripe bananas; someone has broken off the most accessible one. Two spider skimmers sit in a utensil jar, and it is clear which one Lalli favors. A sheet of paper on the counter bears her last name dozens of times over, evidence that her son Cosmo has been practicing his calligraphy to create a logo for her new apron line. Her dog, Sergeant Margaret, bounds through begging to play.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0g21001r3b86n32uoeyv@published\" data-word-count=\"188\">Stepping inside feels like wandering into one of the collages that appear throughout <em>Food Is a Feeling<\/em>, which her sister Nina assembled from a stack of stuff Lalli had saved: a photograph of a young Carla balancing what looks to be a burrito on her baby bump; an old menu from a restaurant where Lalli worked as an entremetier; an image of her father, who died this spring, with his glasses balanced on his forehead, reading the paper. A rejected title for <em>Food Is a Feeling<\/em>, she tells me, was <em>Buttered Rice,<\/em> which happens to be <em>my<\/em> favorite recipe in the book. The night she moved into a sublet with the desultory collection of odds and ends she\u2019d taken with her, she cooked rice in melted butter before adding water and salt and topped it with some kale. Her sister, who was there to keep her company, pointed out that her mom always used to cook rice in butter. People obviously change, but that they also stay the same in rote and tiny ways, often by accident, is among the more resonant truths brought home by the book.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0g3k001s3b867kweq0af@published\" data-word-count=\"152\">Lalli ties her hair into a bun and starts to make what she\u2019s calling L.E.T.s: lettuce-eggplant-tomato sandwiches, which in her estimation will be \u201cherby and smushy, with a spicy mayo situ-aish.\u201d We start to talk about memory \u2014\u00a0are people encoding new ones anymore? She tells me about meeting her ex-husband (early in her career, when she worked in publishing); and a fortuitous phone call with her dad (he encouraged her to go back to school, and she chose culinary studies, thanks to a financial gift from an aunt in her 80s); and her time working at Drew Nieporent\u2019s restaurant Montrachet, which she followed with a job at Rocco DiSpirito\u2019s Union Pacific that she tried to leave (the lifestyle was punishing) before DiSpirito offered her a gig as kitchen manager. It was in that role she made her first onscreen appearance, in the early-aughts reality-television series <em>The Restaurant. <\/em>\u201cIt\u2019s so cringe,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0g53001t3b86k2im85a8@published\" data-word-count=\"68\">Then an alarm goes off. \u201cThat\u2019s my reminder to eat lunch,\u201d she says as she uses a Japanese knife to slice a careful slit down the stalk of a spring onion. She scores slabs of eggplant, then slices both types of tomatoes and salts little chunks, handing them to me across the counter to compare. The heirloom is good, but the beefsteak is better, firmer, and more floral.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0g6k001u3b86ijbz60iu@published\" data-word-count=\"150\">I ask her about that post she wrote \u2014 on the difference between being a <em>person<\/em> and being a <em>performer<\/em> \u2014 and whether putting the kibosh on YouTube videos helped to resolve that tension. She sprinkles MSG on the tomato slices and begins to shallow-fry the eggplant. It soon becomes deeply burnished and smells like onion rings. She needed a break \u2014\u00a0\u201cI just couldn\u2019t do it any more economically, and sitting in my house hearing myself, looking at myself, I was so fucking sick of myself\u201d \u2014 but actually, she says, she would kill to be on video again if someone were footing the bill. She loves to perform, and her resentment about having to shroud herself behind a fake smile is now gone. She is single, and she is happy, and she has thoughts about the limitations of long-term monogamy, and she is telling us about all of it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0g7x001v3b86p02v406m@published\" data-word-count=\"142\">But what about the audience and the parasocial nature of this work? Lalli is offering to teach her followers to make a\u00efoli, not filming confessional vlogs of her darkest hours; I wonder if she thinks we ever overreach or if she worries that, by giving us the story of her divorce, we will want even more from her. But Lalli says she adores her relationship with her fans, and she still gets recognized almost every day. Just a few weekends ago, she went out dancing by herself at <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/thesultanroom.com\/\">the Sultan Room<\/a>. A 20-something kid danced up to her in the wee hours and said, sort of shocked, \u201cCarla? You taught me to cook! I made your shrimp with kimchee last night! What are you doing here?\u201d and they moved together to the music for a while. She stayed out until 2 a.m.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0g97001w3b86alc7hj2s@published\" data-word-count=\"74\">\u201cWhat is the point of suffering? I used to think it was important to your moral vigor,\u201d she says. Now she is less professionally competitive than ever, and \u201cmore interested in my own comfort and pleasure,\u201d she tells me. \u201cAnd I no longer have the instinct to take a picture of my food.\u201d She is dating, but she never wants to live with someone again. She has, however, rediscovered the delightfulness of a crush.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0gac001x3b86ihjk931t@published\" data-word-count=\"86\">I look up from a copy of her book to see that suddenly, Lalli is assembling the L.E.T.s. She is ten steps ahead of where I last left her. At some point, the onions were fried into frizzled strips, the spicy-herby mayonnaise was mixed, the baguette was lightly toasted, and her dog was mollified. That, I realize, is her gift. She made it look so easy, and she made me want to listen to what she was saying more than I wanted to do it myself.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0gbi001y3b86alg6yiin@published\" data-word-count=\"121\">She knows her legacy at <em>Bon App\u00e9tit<\/em> is alive in almost everything she does, not just because it was there that she learned how to make food stylish and commercial, but because of the aftermath. \u201cThe criticism made me more thoughtful, and aware of unconscious bias, and how I came off,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd it made me more comfortable now saying what I want online.\u201d Doing so has impacted her viability for brand deals, she says, but \u201cat the end of the day, I asked myself, \u2018Would you rather make money or speak out about something so horrific it\u2019s insane <em>not <\/em>to say something about?\u2019\u201d Lalli is at a point in her life at which she\u2019s firmly okay with being disliked.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0gct001z3b86nzjfn7bw@published\" data-word-count=\"80\">The book is a risk. The divorce itself was a risk. But if her story gives even one person \u201ca language\u201d for what they\u2019re feeling, she\u2019ll consider it a success. I open my mouth as wide as possible to bite into the baguette L.E.T. she has plated and served beside a floor-to-ceiling mirror with a Post-it stuck to it that says \u201cmay all your beans be tender.\u201d The eggplant is insanely creamy and, impossibly, smokier than bacon would have been.<\/p>\n<p class=\"clay-paragraph\" data-editable=\"text\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/clay-paragraph\/instances\/cmrwm0ge900203b8653vph1aw@published\" data-word-count=\"49\">If what Lalli says is to be taken at face value \u2014 if she is to be followed, again, with that same sort of fervency she attracted in the Test Kitchen \u2014 then joy and reinvention are timeless, ageless pursuits. And what could be more worth believing than that?<\/p>\n<aside class=\"related multi related-count-2\" data-uri=\"www.grubstreet.com\/_components\/related\/instances\/cmrwlb9tm00140ijcwfd0ss0g@published\" data-track-type=\"article-list\">\n<h3 class=\"related-title\" data-editable=\"title\">Related<\/h3>\n<\/aside><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.grubstreet.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo: Lucia Bell-Epstein This content can&#8217;t be displayed right now. To view this embed, please accept targeting cookies. It&#8217;s loaded from a third party and requires that permission to appear. Manage cookie preferences It\u2019s a gray summer Tuesday \u2014 the most unremarkable kind of day \u2014 and Carla Lalli has been missing out. Namely, on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2514143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[474915,496167,496166,391828,496165,345946],"class_list":["post-2514142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-audio-article","tag-bon-appetit","tag-carla-lalli","tag-cookbooks","tag-encounter","tag-top-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Carla-Lalli-on-\u2018Bon-Appetit-Divorce-and-Her-New-Cookbook.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2514142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2514142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2514142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2514144,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2514142\/revisions\/2514144"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2514143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2514142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2514142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2514142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}