Boston Beards, Best Selling Books, Farm Finance, and Kids These Days
This week’s favorite stories about food, wine, and culture
Welcome back to The Salt, my weekly curated collection of essays, articles, and marginalia at the intersection of wine and food. They’re the stories that caught my attention, challenged my thinking, or invited me to sit back, relax, and enjoy the read.
It’s not you, it’s me
When no Boston chef, restaurant, or culinary professional was named Finalist in this year’s James Beard Awards, the Boston food commentariat erupted in a fit of pique. Boston-area food writer Anna Darrow unpacks the reasons her region’s talent often goes unsung. For starters, the Awards’ focus has shifted, so winning projects tend to be, “small, idiosyncratic, and built around a chef/owner’s interests, not a market analysis,” she writes. Given the metro region’s high costs, “Boston makes that restaurant almost impossible to keep alive long enough to build a reputation.” But it’s not merely a matter of economics. “There is also something harder to quantify but impossible to ignore, which is the question of (I’m really sorry to say it)… taste.” In Boston, the classics are rewarded while innovations falter. She partly blames a food media that celebrates sameness and safety. “What’s missing is sharp, honest, independent criticism. Not meanness, but standards.” Her piece is a good example.
Paydirt
It’s not a secret that American farms are failing. According to the USDA, in 2022 fully 57% of farms ended their fiscal year in the red. But that statistic is too coarse to tell the full story, says farmer, illustrator, and former investment analyst Morgan Gold. It lumps the Vermonter’s pumpkin patch with the Nebraskan’s six-thousand acres of corn. Gold follows the money to show how taxpayer subsidies have effectively created a new financial instrument, “a long-duration, low-correlation, inflation-hedged asset class for institutional investors whose connection to the ground is a spreadsheet.” One perverse outcome is that Bill Gates is currently America’s largest individual private farmland owner; “When asked why, he’s said it’s a diversified long-term investment,” writes Gold, adding, “He’s not wrong.” The article is a long, clear-eyed, eye-opening read even for this lifelong rural dweller. Bonus touching graphic comic at the top about the death of a Vermont farm.
Right on the money
Speaking of economics, Andrew Yingst digs into financial and demographic data to pinpoint the reasons younger American’s aren’t choosing wine. He concludes that the issues are structural and macro-economic and not easily fixed by better storytelling. “[T]he wine industry’s ‘young consumer problem’ is not primarily a marketing problem. It’s a purchasing power problem,” he writes. Student debt, housing costs, stagflation, and myriad systemic factors conspire to limit Gen Z’s discretionary spending power. “We say young people prefer RTDs and spirits. A $3 seltzer requires less financial commitment than a $20 bottle of wine. We say they’re health-conscious and sober-curious. But ‘I’m not drinking tonight’ is easier to say than ‘I can’t afford to drink tonight.’” Yingst thinks the solutions fall outside the industry’s control. “The industry keeps asking how to change the consumer’s mind. The better question is what would have to change about the consumer’s economic position before wine becomes a realistic option.”
“Best” “Sellers”
Chef and recipe developer Ham El-Waylly released a new cookbook that swiftly hit No. 1 in the Cooking category of the USA Today Best-seller Booklist. Even so, it did not appear on New York Times Best Sellers, a list that’s arguably more persuasive to readers and markets. Ham’s wife, Sohla El-Waylly, also a chef and cookbook author, took to her Substack to, yes, vent, but also to explain the mechanics and rationale behind the Times’s list, which relies on an unseen cadre of editors who handpick books according to undisclosed criteria. Making the list “is opaque and mysterious,” she writes, adding that the roster is “not a record of what sold. It’s a record of what they decided should be seen as having sold. Not technically a lie. Just a system that benefits from no one knowing how it works.” In a sanguine flourish, Sohla finishes her post with her own list of favorite new cookbooks.
Succession plan
Paul Jaboulet-Aîné’s Domaine de la Chapelle has appointed Chiara de Iulis Pepe as head of viticulture and winemaking. Pepe will also continue to lead production at her family’s estate, Emidio Pepe, in Abruzzo. In Wine Spectator, Kristen Bieler calls the appointment of the thirty-two-year-old winemaker bold and unexpected. For herself, Pepe is circumspect. “I’m arriving with a learning attitude and asking lots of questions,” she said. “Aside from a harvest in Patagonia and one in Burgundy, I’ve spent my whole life in Abruzzo.” Her first focus is to improve vineyard health and introduce ambient fermentations. Northern Rhône vignerons have welcomed the news with warm sangfroid. Michel Chapoutier thinks her “Italian sensibility” will be a plus, because “Italy is among the countries that understands how to let the land speak” (he also cited the Iberian peninsula and, of course, France). Jean-Louis Chave confessed, “We were not expecting this… The Italian touch in Hermitage?” Still: “I wish Chiara all the best and I really hope she will succeed, even if it won’t be easy.” Nothing worth doing ever is.
See you next week.
Images ©2026 Meg Maker
Thanks a ton for the shout out! Always appreciated
I am quite curious about 2026 USDA statistics on agriculture with lots of events.