Adam Roberts has mined his time working in the food blog and entertainment industries in order to produce his first tasty and humorous debut novel, “Food Person” (Knopf, 2025), out in late May.

The book is a deliciously campy insiders’ look at celebrity cookbooks and the folks who toil behind the scenes to create them. What, you thought Snoop Dogg and Chrissy Teigen actually slogged through the kitchen? Adam graciously took some time from his own kitchen duties to talk to us about “Food Person.”

“Food Person” is your first novel, but certainly not your first book. As someone who has written several cookbooks, what inspired your passion for food and cooking?

I grew up in a family that loved food — my mom’s love language was making reservations — but nobody in my family cooked, so when I was in my early 20s (and a miserable law school student), I became obsessed with The Food Network (back in the Sarah Moulton days) and began my experiments in the kitchen. At the time, food blogs weren’t really a thing, so I started one (“The Amateur Gourmet”) to document my adventures/failures in the kitchen and the blog fed the cooking and the cooking fed the blog as I fed myself.

Do you still watch the Food Network? 

To be honest, Food Network is no longer my jam; I much prefer PBS cooking shows. I obsessively watch “America’s Test Kitchen” (if I met Bridget or Julia on the street, I’d faint), “Cook’s Country” (love the addition of cookbook legend Toni Tipton-Martin), “Lidia’s Kitchen” (Lidia was an early champion of my last cookbook), Diana Kochilas, Patti Jinich. They’re all rock stars to me and they embody the traditional “stand and stir” format that you really don’t see on Food Network anymore, Ina notwithstanding. I watch Food Network for Ina exclusively.

You share a background with your main character Isabella in working in food journalism. Have you met many Isabellas?

Oh yes: in fact, I was one [laughs]! It was really funny, I was at a dinner with my husband, Craig, and some friends, and I was talking about how proud I was of myself for inventing a character out of thin air like Isabella. And Craig was like: “What are you talking about, Isabella is you.” I mean, yes and no: I’m not as shy as Isabella or as self-defeating. But the world of cooking is full of introverts; people who’d rather hide out in the kitchen than be at the dinner party — I bet 90% of food journalists would recognize something of themselves in that.

Cookbook shops are a favorite haunt of Isabella's and yours. Why do you find them such enjoyable places?

I could spend years in a cookbook shop and never get bored. Where do I begin? I love the weirdness of cookbooks; how they capture the larger culture of a specific time-period and tell the tale through the prism of food. Take, for example, one of my cookbook treasures: “The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous Cookbook” by Robin Leach. It’s a time capsule of the eighties — glass block, Dynasty-style hairdos, Brooke Shields — and the food is as awful as the fashion. Or another favorite: “A Treasury of Great Recipes” by Vincent and Mary Price, a collection of all the menus that the famous horror maestro and his wife collected over their world travels in the ‘40s and ‘50s and the meals that they hosted for their friends in their exquisite Hollywood home. If I could jump into the pages of a cookbook, it might be that one.

Owen is Isabella’s gay roommate. What are the challenges and rewards of creating a queer character?

I was more worried about Owen being a talent manager than being queer [laughs]! As a gay man myself who lived in L.A. for 12 years, I was trying to capture a certain kind of person that I met there: a young, ambitious gay man, who loves Hollywood and celebrity and cares about status but who’s still tethered to a friend, in this case Isabella, who reminds them of their capacity for empathy and humanity. The biggest challenge was keeping Owen likable even when he behaves terribly; the rewards were that he gets to be the funniest person in the book.

How much, if any, of Adam is in Owen?

Owen and I are pretty different — I’m much more of an Isabella — but I do relate to being a gay man with a female best friend from college and the awkwardness/inevitability of growing apart.

You've worked as a script editor for television, and “Food Person” certainly has a cinematic feel to it. Do you write with a vision of a specific actor playing each character?

I have certain “types” that I think of, but I try not to write towards a specific actor so that the characters can be a bit more dynamic and hopefully original.

Who do you envision in the roles of Isabella, Owen, and Molly, if “Food Person” were made into a movie or mini-series?

I’m actually in the process of working with producers on the movie version, so I better keep mum on who I see in the parts in case they go to someone else. That said, Bowen Yang would make an excellent Owen.

Do you foresee a sequel with one of Isabella's other ghost-writing gigs?

I don’t (at least not right now) but I am working on my next novel and it’s adjacent to this story, though the main character isn’t as shy as Isabella. It’s about a recent law school graduate – sound familiar? [laughs] – who realizes that she’s made a terrible mistake and wants to become a chef.

You spent some of your formative years in Boca Raton. Do you have any favorite restaurants in South Florida that you’d like to share with the readers?

My parents always took us to New York Prime for birthdays, and it’s where we still go when I visit, and so I’d put that at the top of the list. Also, I have a special place in my heart for Houston’s, which isn’t exclusive to Boca Raton, but it has one of my favorite burgers in the world.

Will you be embarking on a book tour? If so, are you planning anything food-related for the readings?

I am! So far, I’ll be heading to L.A., San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Bellingham (where my in-laws live), Atlanta, and South Florida. Nothing food-related yet, but if someone bakes me brownies, I won’t be mad.