Avoiding Overindulgence – My Six Favorite ABG Reads to Help Navigate the Holidays.
It’s already November (!) and many of us may be experiencing both excitement and anxiety as we anticipate the holiday season in all its glory, intensity, and for some, dread.
This holiday season is hopefully a little brighter than 2020, but gatherings, family, travel, and an overabundance can make the burden feel impossible.
So rather than weigh you down even more, this week I want to share my six favorite evergreen ABG stories that are loaded with resources, tips and tricks to help you navigate the start of what will for many, be another Holiday season of opportunities to eat and drink.
For all the attitudes that may be changing in our industry, we still all need the simple hacks and sneaky tricks needed to help us at this time of year, and Surviving The Festive Season When It’s “Your Job” To Drink is a great "101".
If you need support in how to manage conversations about mindful drinking, this story on how to make mindful drinking a priority will hopefully get you on the road to self-care.
And if you are looking for alcohol-free options, but not sure where to start, check out the recommendations from our tasting with Dry Goods Beverage Company for some inspiration that won’t bore your taste buds.
Consumption is not just wine, and Guest contributor Wendy Narby, offers simple tips to help manage the creep of extra kilos possible during the Holiday season.
As for the dilemma of how to manage the food when you’ve just had enough? Northern California food writer, and guest contributor, Sara Kay shares simple tips on navigating smart menu options when you just can’t face another plate of restaurant abundance.
Periods of high stress, anxiety and less than disciplined eating regimes means our digestion can take a beating, so here is a quick-guide on the five supplements I swear by to help to help manage digestion and stress.
Let’s face it, this time of years is stressful.
So it’s critical to be able to know and communicate your boundaries as it relates to eating and drinking. And the good news? Everyone else is also trying to work it out right now, so we are all in this “re-entry” phase together.
To that end, now presents a great opportunity to reshape your own attitudes, set clear boundaries and speak clear intentions of how you want to show up and close out the year. We are right here to support you, and please lean on this community to help get you through this season.
Namaste,
Beck
What We're Reading:
Here's what has piqued our interest this week in the world of wine and mindfulness.
All Our Relations: Four Indigenous Lessons on Mindfulness - Mindful.com
There’s healing in acknowledging our interconnectedness. Four Indigenous wisdom keepers share how their practice helps them remember.
What You Need To Know About 'Gray Area' Drinking – HuffPost.com
Many people's alcohol habits exist in a fuzzy space between two extremes. So when is it a problem?
Don’t Let Hybrid Work Set Back Your DEI Efforts – Harvard Business Review
Ask these five questions to make sure employees are being treated equitably.
How Ayurveda Helps Relationships – Chopra.com
Ayurveda is a complete wellness approach that extends much farther than a healthy body. Once you understand your dosha, or mind-body type, and the constitutions of your loved one, Ayurveda can improve your relationship in unique ways.
Meet the Community:
Here we meet some of the talented folks who make our profession so dynamic.
Valerie Kathawala, Wine Writer, Co-Founder and Co-Editor of TRINK Magazine (New York City, USA)
Years in the Industry:
Six years. After more than a decade of full-time parenting, in 2016 my youngest child went off to kindergarten, giving me six glorious hours a day to dig into the intellectual challenges I had been missing.
My background was as a writer, editor, and translator. I had zero formal wine education or work experience. What I did have was bottomless curiosity. I religiously listened to podcasts like Levi Dalton’s I’ll Drink to That. At first, 90% of it went over my head. But I looked up every term I didn’t understand — canopy management, blocked malo, lieu dit, DTC — and taught myself.
With literally everything to learn, I started out writing marketing copy for a prominent New York fine wine retailer. I quickly realized the air was too rare there and jumped at an opportunity to write for Grape Collective, a wine shop in my neighborhood that combined journalism and bottle slinging years before that became such a popular intersection. It was a terrific place to learn: the whole team both wrote for the website and took turns working the floor a few shifts a week. Having to sell the wines I idealized was also a powerful reality check.
In late 2019, I connected with a fellow alum of Bates College, Paula Redes Sidore, and we quickly realized we shared bizarrely parallel lives, including an obsession with “German-speaking wines.” One thing led to another and in October 2020, we launched TRINK magazine, which we now co-edit from opposite sides of the Atlantic, she near Bonn, Germany, I in New York. In addition to that project, I have the great privilege of getting to explore the topics I’m most passionate about — the intersection of wine with ecology, social justice, history, and culture — through my freelance work for a variety of publications.
My Top Three Challenges to Wellness:
1. Juggling Skillfully
Family, freelance writing, my role in managing and editing TRINK, feeding the social media beast, and even just managing the incredible array of opportunities New York City presents on a daily basis takes planning and prioritization that are themselves time consuming.
2. Finding Solo Time
As an introvert, this is indispensable to recharging my batteries.
3. Creating and Sticking with Routines that Support Physical Activity
As an obliger, I'm hardwired to meet others' needs and wants before my own. This can easily leave me feeling depleted unless I set boundaries and prioritize.
How I Keep It Together to Stay Well:
I’m up before dawn, pretty much every day. Mornings are sacred! I make time for a single mug of excellent black coffee, plenty of water, silence, yoga, reading in another language — all before I switch anything on. With that foundation in place, I’m ready to meet the morning swirl, get out the door for my (equally essential) daily run, and tackle the workday with energy and élan.
What Inspires Me:
My family, nature, fresh challenges, opportunities to learn, and visualizing a job well done.
A Quote I Love:
"Be the change." As commonplace as this quote has become, it works at every level, from parenting, to community, to planet. The impact of our individual actions never fails to amaze me.
You can connect with Valerie on Instagram and Twitter, and on her website.
