Written by fellow intern Ana P.
Isabel Blooston is cool and collected. Talking with her, one wouldn’t think that she grew up on the East Coast—there’s none of that loud scary meanness that’s supposed to be the region’s trademark. She’s undertaken her STYLE internship while she prepares for her last year of college—and in fact, you’ve probably already heard from her: In addition to her contributions to the magazine, she has become known for her great cooking and baking posts on the website as well.
“[Cooking] is a simple way of adding enjoyment to your life,” Isabel told me. She says she’ll try her hand at preparing anything from sweet to savory…as long as it is vegetarian. When I asked her about how her vegetarianism came about, Isabel admitted that “it was a 12-year old’s whim that turned permanent.” As a vegetarian, she’s never been attracted to substitutes that have been prepared to have the taste or texture of meat, although she does use tofu in her cooking sometimes. Her go-to meal is a stir-fry, or pasta and veggies, and she is used to working around missing ingredients and adapting the recipes creatively to fit what’s in her fridge.
As for other passions? Isabel enjoys reading and is partial to fiction. (Currently on her shelf: The Secret History by Donna Tartt.) She told me that she finds writing papers the most interesting way of processing thought, and said she is most interested in the ways the author uses language to put a book together, as opposed to merely caring about the narrative—in her opinion, talking about narrative is too much like discussing a soap opera. And while Isabel obviously had her senior thesis on her mind when we talked, but she remained noncommittal when asked about possible topics. For now, she’ll be bringing that literary love to STYLE.
