Writing from the Table

Writing about the table: what we pour, what we cook, what we inherit, and who we become when we finally sit down.

This is the place for all of it. The wine with a history nobody taught you. The recipe in handwriting you’d recognize anywhere. The meal that lasted longer than it should have, because no one wanted to be the first to leave.

Think of it as a ledger, not of transactions, but of moments. The pour that surprised you. The dish that brought someone back. The conversation that outlasted the bottle.

What lives here

Essays about living, with food and wine. California wine history that goes further back than most people think to look, currently deep into 257 years of Southern California vines, from the Mission grape forward. Recipes that show up when the season calls for them, with the stories still attached. And the occasional observation about what it means to pay attention at the table.

Everything is free. It always will be. Occasional drinks posts show up here, too, when the season calls for them.

What paid subscribers get

Paid subscribers get the drinks. Wine pairings, cocktails, and mocktails written with a real point of view, plus the reading series launching July 2026 and a dedicated chat. Some drinks appear free when they’re in service of the story. The rest live here. An annual subscription is $60. That’s a decent bottle of wine and considerably more entertaining.

Founding members get everything above, plus a permanent place in the Founding Readers list on this page. First to know about future events, collaborations, and gatherings. $150 a year.

About me

I’ve been reading since before I could properly hold a book, and writing almost as long. Literature in college, screenwriting after that, not to become anyone, just because stories were the thing I kept coming back to.

In between, I had a life worth writing about. San Francisco in the nineties, when the internet showed up with browsers, and everyone pretended to know what it meant. Advertising, Ogilvy, Ketchum, Euro RSCG, and others, writing campaigns for Pacific Bell, Microsoft, Intel, and more. Lunch mattered. Travel was expected. The work was genuinely fun for a long time, and then it wasn’t.

At Ketchum, there was a working kitchen in the basement for food clients, Orville Redenbacher among them. I wasn’t on those accounts, but I found reasons to wander down regularly. Ten years ago, I took a proper culinary class, chef whites, toque, the full mise en place ritual, and learned that cleaning before cooking is not optional. Both of these things matter more than they sound.

The wine came in sideways, the way the best things do. My great-grandfather worked the Cucamonga vineyards in 1942. I’ve spent years chasing wine country, Napa, Sonoma, Willamette, Temecula, Baja, and I’m a WSET Diploma candidate who finds the science interesting but loves the fruit of the vine considerably more than the chemistry behind it. The research is ongoing and frankly delicious.

Now I’m writing the things I always meant to write. I live in the desert with a German Shepherd named Archie, who has opinions about the kitchen, strong feelings about tennis balls, and an uncanny ability to appear whenever cheese is involved. He is, technically, a German Shepherd. He does not always act like it.

Stories still give people joy, purpose, direction, connection. Even now, maybe especially now. I have a lot of them. This is where they live.

Pull up a chair.

Dolce far niente.