Gwendolyn Elliott

>>>>>Featured image, custom poster art for Die Hard-themed wine tasting, Planet Wine Shop, Del Ray, Alexandria, VA<<<<<

In between the busy pace of the holidays and keeping up with deadlines, I’ve found it difficult to find the time to sit down and write something just for me.

Today, I find myself with some time and now it feels like I don’t know where to begin, or what to say. I get anxious during the holidays and lose sleep over my never ending to-do list. This month in particular, I’m worried about the new year and the changes to come. As I enter my late 40s, I’m wondering about the weird aches and pains I’m having (is it COVID-related, perimenopause, aging, cancer?) and dreading the approach of the “big dark.” My eyesight is changing, my hip hurts (I’m getting it checked out). Toby and I have come to jokingly call our home, “Woodruff Residence, House of Ointments.”

Just lobbing this happy little ball of neuroticism your way to ping pong in your brain. (OK, that’s not fair—here’s something to jostle it out.)

But, now that the engine’s on, let’s crack the hood open:

What I’m working on: I’m launching a wine column for the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin‘s monthly magazine, Lifestyles. I’m calling it: Wine Is a Food Group (there will be a full intro in the January issue), and it launched softly this month with a short feature titled, “The Season of Light.” In it, I ask local sommelier Kaleigh Brook (who I previously wrote about here) of the Thief Bottle Shop for some local wines on the lighter side—lower- to no alcohol, natural, white, and sparkling styles—and she offered up some terrific (and to coin her spot-on wine speak, “tasty”) selects.

At her advice, a few immediately made their way to our Thanksgiving lineup.

Thanksgiving was delightfully mellow—we did most of the cooking and hosted at home. The annual R2D2 cashew roast was served again (accompanied by his gluten-free loaf pan wing man), and there were roasted Brussels sprouts, sweet potato streusel, smoked shiitake stuffing, and more—so much. Of course photos were mostly an after thought (I tend to live in the moment—have you seen my Instagram?).

The gallery below is mostly thanks to my mother-in-law Cora, who is not pictured.

Cool connections: Above, days after I filed my story about Brook’s holiday wine picks, I ran into one of her somm study buddies, sommelier Michael Markarian of Elizabeth’s in D.C., while Toby and I were visiting the area to see my sister and her family. Elizabeth’s, a beautiful fine dining vegan restaurant, was an eagerly-awaited experience by us all.

At the end of our meal, Markarian, who we learned was from Buffalo (my sister and I are from upstate New York), treated us to a surprise library riesling from Red Tail Ridge, an excellent producer from the Finger Lakes that we often visit on trips home to our parents’ place outside Geneva. It was such a special night—a celebration of elevated, inspired plant-based cuisine, perfectly paired with wine; lots of laughs with my sister; and a quality of warm, gracious hospitality that is hard to come by these days.

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☝️On. This. Extremely. Rare. Note…☝️

What I’m working out: Why the wine world still pretty much stubbornly refuses to recognize vegetable-based cuisine in any significant way, especially when it comes to suggested food pairings and winemaker’s dinner menus. I’m approaching SCORTCHED EARTH levels of annoyance here.

Somehow I’ve managed, as a home cook, to be almost 47 years old and cultivate a love of wine alongside a vegetarian diet. Not only does wine pair as easily with plant-based food as meat-eaters believe it does with meat (incoming hot take below), I know from being a carrot-crunching wine lover that it can be just as effortless, versatile, and inspiring. You just have to care.

With few notable exceptions (I bow to you, Miyoko Schinner, Daniel Humm, and your ilk)—and a very scant few here in Walla Walla—the professionals aren’t curious or creative, or don’t care enough to offer dishes or menus that are really noteworthy. (It’s always a huge breath of fresh air to encounter venues such as Elizabeth’s where the whole wining, dining, and hospitality experience is so thoughtful.)

Why does this matter? Well, as a frequent, wine-loving, vegetarian diner, my “whys” (outlined below) have never been adequately addressed beyond my own hypothesizing.

1. Why do wine-loving vegans and vegetarians have to settle for one or two token items on the menu (that we know the meat-loving kitchen is not stoked about making), beg to have a meat-based dish without the meat (and pray the request won’t annoy the chef), cobble together a dinner of fries and salad, or ask for something vegan off the menu and cross our fingers it’s actually thoughtful and well-composed enough to be worth the hefty price tag sure to come with it?
   
2. Why is it that so many people, upon discovering I’m vegetarian, reveal they ARE ALSO vegetarian, vegan, or pescatarian? I’m talking restaurant servers, retail folks, wine professionals, fellow writers, my neighbors, new friends, acquaintances. This happens so frequently to me that I’ve come to believe there is a big cover-up going on. Either ALL these people are completely lying to me, or there’s a good chunk of the population that’s interested in vegetarian food and want to see more of it widely available everywhere and are just putting up with “what’s there”—boring and uncreative menus so loaded down with meat you can’t even get a salad without some form of bacon on it.
   
3. Why are award-winning, so-called talented chefs not offering more of these foods? Restaurants say it is because “consumers demand meat-based dishes,” but I think restaurants that claim this have actually never practically tried or tested the opposite (though one example comes to mind—Eleven Madison Park, still holding on to its three Michelin stars). To me, this is simply because even the most “innovative” chefs don’t realize they are “caught in that historical cultural trap,” as vegan chef Miyoko Schinner once told me, of believing that meat signifies wealth and power and when/if it’s available, should naturally be in everything.

Hot take! Vegetarians have superior palates for tasting wine! Their tasting receptors can detect subtle nuances of wine by not being constantly coated in, dulled by, or habituated to flavor-obfuscating animal fat and meat juice.

I once heard a convincing argument about why the Stelvin cap is the superior closure for wine bottles. What if, back when original winemakers needed stoppage for their bottles, they had their choice of tools: the first was a tool that was proven to reduce off flavors and TCA, was easier and cheaper to manufacture, was recyclable, and was proven to produce consistent wine styles. The other tool was labor intensive to produce, made from a material that was difficult to obtain and took decades to grow, hard to recycle, and reliably produced more wine flaws than other closure types? The answer is obvious.

Turning towards food, what if things operated similarly? What if the choice was between a system where food is cheaper to produce, causes less waste, better for the environment, human, and animal welfare, requires fewer natural resources such as water and fuel to bring to market, and was shown to have numerous benefits to human health and longevity? The other system requires vast, declining amounts of natural resources to operate, is proven to have numerous negative impacts on the environment, is exploitative of communities of color, is often deadly for and exploitative of human workers, can contribute to the spread of food borne illnesses, is linked to zoonotic outbreaks, and is the number one driver of domesticated animal abuse?

Plant-based food systems and culinary approaches are already on the table. Chefs and diners just need to reach for them.

What I’m excited about: The new call recording AND voice note transcription feature that popped up with the latest iPhone update. Literally, where has this been all my life? Am I like, an AI fangirl now? I have no idea what’s going on. I just went through the 70 audio recordings I generated on the FAM trip and transcribed them…ALL. I USED TO PAY PEOPLE (and later, apps) TO DO THIS FOR ME. In the old days, I could record a convo from my office land line and send it to my voicemail, BUT I WOULD STILL HAVE TO TRANSCRIBE IT. In the prehistoric world, I used actual tape (and later, digital) recorders. AND I STILL HAD TO TRANSCRIBE EVERYTHING.

Next time you run into a writer you know, mention this. We can sometimes be a grumpy bunch, but I guarantee you’ll make yours smile to be reminded of this long-wished for gift of time (extra, luxurious, glorious time that I know will be used to procrastinate on deadlines, but hey, that’s the creative process…)

Something I’ve learned: How to incorporate the subject of cats into any conversation about wine. Subscribe to learn more as I explore this meaty topic in coming posts…