After years of immersing herself in various aspects of the food industry, Allison Lohman accomplished one of her biggest career goals last year: opening a grocery store.

Cook and best-selling author Allison Lohman opened First Bloom Corner Store, a marketplace of her favorite products in Bloomville, New York, on this week's episode of Marie Claire's Nice Talk podcast. episode, she revealed.

“It's always been my dream to open a grocery store,” she said on the podcast. 'I love shopping at the grocery store. I love the experience.”

Roman, who worked in restaurants for years before transitioning to food media, explains that she had savings to put into the project, but learned to be agile in dealing with unexpected expenses.

She says she chose to open in the Catskills because of “practicality” and because there were few grocery stores in the area she was interested in. She needed “new ceilings and custom-built shelving. And there were start-up costs that we never anticipated, such as licensing, accounting, plumbing, and installation for certain sanitation standards.”

The writer and chef believed his vision was worth the investment. According to Roman, “I was like, 'If I'm going to do this, I'm going to fund it myself and see what happens. I didn't want to be tied to anybody's vision. I didn't want to borrow money from anyone. But funding it out of my own savings also meant that I had less money.”

She added, “But it was a dream ... I wanted to spend money on it,” she added.

The author of Sweet Enough, Nothing Fancy, and Dining In, she explains that the First Bloom Corner Store will open in 2023 and launched its online store this fall, but she has more goals for the store She explains. She said, “I have goals and ambitions for the store and the brand that go beyond that space, but I want it to be authentic and solid before that. It's very important to me that it works as a solid, great business, even if it doesn't have my name on it."

In ‘Nice Talk,’ Roman also shares his secrets to being a great host and guest.

Depending on who she is cooking for, Roman revealed on the podcast that when she cooks dinner for others, she tends to elevate simple dishes in favor of “deliciousness over flair.” Some of her examples include a chicken and potato casserole cooked in such a way that guests would say, “I didn't know potatoes could taste this good.”

“When you want to impress someone, people either cook too many dishes ...... or they feel they have to pull something out and bake a dessert as well,” Roman said, ”Not everything needs a hat. Just like a well-dressed person talks about fashion, I'll talk about cooking, and you need five great items, and you need a lot of them, and you need a lot of them, and you need a lot of them, and you need a lot of them, and you need a lot of them. It's like how you cook, it's not what you cook.”

To impress as a guest, the author suggests drinks that can't be consumed in one sitting, like a bottle of amaro.

In this week's “Nice Talk,” Roman talks more about career changes over the years, brand partnerships, and how to handle feedback from followers. This episode is available to podcast listeners everywhere.