Hello, My Name is Sarah

An Origin Story Part 1

WOW! I have to say I am completely overwhelmed and touched by the flood of support for my fledgling newsletter: Grape to Table. Thank you from the bottom of my heart! 

Most of you have found me via my role as manager/wine director of The Exchange at Edmund’s Oast, a beloved (but soon-to-close) bottle shop/wine bar in downtown Charleston, SC. Many of you I know quite well, others just a touch, and still others I might not know at all. 

So, I thought I would start with a proper introduction. But first, please know that the Grape to Table newsletter will be a slow roll-out as I wind down my duties at The Exchange over the next two months. After our finale party on August 12 and subsequent liquidation sale, I look forward to having more time to devote to truly rich content centered around wine, cooking, and some travel. (Basically all the lovely things!)

In the meantime, let’s get to know each other. I included a brief intro in my welcome email, but here’s a bit more detail (without being a memoir – I’ll save that for later!).

Contrary to the popular rumor that I am from New Orleans, I am actually from Columbus, GA –  a mid-sized city in west central Georgia right on the Alabama line. I was born in 1976 (I am a proud 47!), and at that time Columbus felt almost smaller than its size. My father loved to call it, a” one horse town!” 

I grew up in the country (but not on a farm – unless you count horses and dogs to be a farm). I rode horses, played in the woods, and led a somewhat idyllic childhood. (I will spare you the southern gothic middle years!)

Little Me, A Successful Day Fishing, Midland, GA

 Both my grandparents had large gardens, and my paternal grandfather truly came from a farming family. I now understand just how much all those fresh vegetables molded me. 

But the reality was my mother did not cook much. Supposedly she had a brief foray in French cooking before I was born, and I have a dim memory of some baguettes. However, most home cooking memories come from my grandparents. With my parents I mostly remember spending a lot of time in restaurants (nothing fancy), but this also molded me.

In fact, it was this lack of knowledge around cooking that inspired me to buy The Joy of Cooking while in college and simply dive into it during my senior year. I was pursuing a double major in French and Magazine Writing at the University of Georgia, and I had gotten some vague idea that I could write about food. I even found a job at a local cooking store (RIP: The Rolling Pin in Athens, GA). 

I still remember some of the first recipes I tried from The Joy of Cooking in our tiny little bungalow on the west side of Athens: Blue Cheese Dressing, Gumbo, and Fried Chicken. (I was certainly not intimidated!) 

Like many nearing college graduation who have only loose aspirations, I decided to apply to graduate school. I wound up at Northwestern University in Chicago with a major in Magazine Publishing. I truly loved magazines, and it makes me sad now to think they probably don’t even offer this as a major anymore??? 

I continued my near obsession with food while at Northwestern (egged on by a short course I completed at the Cordon Bleu before moving to Chicago). So while my classmates tackled more noble subjects, I wrote about farmers markets and even wrote a very lengthy profile of this super cool guy Charles Stanfield who defied the stereotype of growing up on the west side of Chicago to become the Champagne buyer at a very large bottle shop close to my apartment. I suppose this was when a bit of the veil lifted regarding wine and all its intricacies for me. 

We also had a sweet, little wine shop around the corner that I remember frequenting and chatting with the nice lady who ran it. But in all honesty I also remember buying an inexpensive Italian white that came in fish shaped bottles (that of course would make perfect candle holders)! (I now know that the wine was Frascati, and yes, you can still buy these bottles on ebay!)

But perhaps my most fateful Chicago moment came from dumb luck as we also happened to be around the corner from the iconic restaurant Charlie Trotter’s. It feels strange to now need to explain what was then a landmark.  At the time, Chef Trotter was a key member in the newly minted celebrity chef movement. Yes, this was 1999, and it was still the early days of the Food Network and merely the beginning of stardom for folks like Emeril Lagasse and Chef Trotter. 

I knew of Chef Trotter from my stint at The Rolling Pin as they happened to carry his beautiful, large format cookbooks. I bought all of them and so began my first fan girl moment. Then the sheer serendipity of finding myself walking past the simple, nondescript building and religiously reading the tasting menu day after  day…I could not believe my luck. So, with a good dose of naivety I began insistently contacting Chef Trotter’s assistant to see if I might interview him.

To Be Continued…