Alison "reads and piddles" around her office, and has begun serious work on a Haven's Kitchen cookbook, due out in 2017. She keeps her working world as clutter-free as anywhere else, with a white-on-white color scheme and glass desk keeping things clear and airy.
With her days spent between children’s activities, Haven’s Kitchen, board meetings, and teaching and speaking events, Alison’s office becomes a sort of getaway zone. When she embarked on decorating her special space, she was reading Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, and that helped shape her thinking, freeing her to create a dreamy space for working. “Woolf was so ahead of her time in knowing that women really needed things and space,” Alison says. “I realized it’s not being selfish or being a bad mother to have those boundaries — they make for better relationships and happier environments. This house is sleepover central, everyone’s running around. But when my door is closed, everyone’s clear that it’s my time.”
