My hair has been really feeling really um, mineral driven these past few weeks, which is an elegant way of saying dry and brittle and dull.

Like most of Paris, we have extremely calcium-rich, hard water in our shower. I told my guy at the beauty supply store, Paris’ answer to Sally’s, and he tried to upsell me several curl activators and a straightener. I told this to my hairdresser and asked if she had any solutions. She looked at me in confusion and said “The solution, come to my salon!” I thanked her and continued to do my own research.

This hard water has its benefits, and its impact on the culture significant seem more clear to me with each day I spend here. Calcium-rich water is byproduct of calcium-rich soil, the conditions for the world’s best sparkling wine in the nearby region of Champagne. It makes for great drinking water — the reason behind the crispness of Evian — and great bread. (Anecdotally, Japan has the world’s naturally softest water, a requirement for making great Saké). And, I have no sources, but it is my new theory for the Italian hairdresser stereotype, the region’s outsized acceptance of horse girls and horsey hair maintenance, and one of the reasons for the most popular hair color in France, chatain.

Chatain is a dirty brown-blonde, a hair color that’s beaten down by the throes of life but with natural highlights still fighting to peak through. I suspect it’s a core reason there’s gaggles of women on TikTok who “don’t know they have curls”. And it also provides some context for the popularity of what they were calling “old money blonde,” or “Champange blonde,” a couple seasons ago — favoring mousey, low maintenance locks as a status symbol. (The status being that you vacation in places with plumbing from the 18th century… I just report the news, guys…)

You didn’t ask, but I was a very curly, strawberry blonde child, who, like my father grew up to be an auburn or a cowboy copper most of the time. But right now I look r - i - c- h, baby. My curls are giving assimilation! They are giving quiet luxury — aka they have completely lost their luster and body and they look sad and brown and mild-mannered. None of which is very me.

So between salon appointments, I found a Diana Vreeland’s article, a historic It-Girl and beauty influencer, and found my answer: “Why don’t you rinse it your [blond child’s] hair in dead champagne, as they do in France?”

I had leftover Champagne. After two birthdays and a recent Champagne tasting, I needed an excuse for the dead wine in my fridge I felt too sentimental to flush. (It wasn’t all sentiment. Flushing, I have learned can also be an issue for sensitive plumbing). Flat, vinegarized wine can be used in most of the same ways white vinegar can, useful for cooking and cleaning and all sorts of experiments.

So, if you, like me feel guilty disposing of your bubbles and don’t want to pay out the ass to decalcify your hair, here are my top recommendations:

1. Add a splash in your eggs to make them fluffy. 10/10 - feels fancy, and costs very little.

2. A half cup of dead champagne in your Buerre Blanc. 7.5/10 — Sidenote. I have never meet a fussier more annoying, frencher sauce than this. It is mostly a butter vinegar emulsification, but you need to whisk it CONTINUALLY or it will burn or break (de-emulsify) and you will have to start all over. Do not stop cooking until you are ready to eat it, as it instantly turns to butter paste, which is weird and not appealing. Do not let your husband pour it down the sink when you are done.

3. Champagne Rinse. 9/10. I have quite a bit of hair, so a cup of champagne1 did the trick — bringing back the body and softness on the first try. 5 minutes to let the bubbles do their work, then rinse and condition generously, as alcohol can also dry out the cuticle. It was painless, it was fizzy, and I smelled like brioche and grapefruit.

It’s the constant refrain lobbed at me in the grocery as my husband follows me around with the basket. I, an independent woman who has been doing her own grocery shopping for over 20 years, scowls stubbornly.

“August 18th!” I show him. I’m defensive; it’s still July and I’m not sure why he’s always on my case about this, “This will not last us two days.” But his head is already inside the refrigerator, foraging for a better, later expiration date. He re-emerges, triumphant: “August 22nd!” and he’s off and zooming to the next station. “If you’re going to pay the same price, wouldn’t you want something fresher?”

This makes sense to me, if you’re considering fresh fruit, but I won’t admit this. He’s two meters ahead of me, continue on about how much the taste and texture mozzarella changes in a week. I did not know this, and if I’m honest, checking the expiration dates on cheese has not occurred to me in years. I’m no chef, I rarely enjoy homecooking, but I know well enough to take my time selecting good produce… It dawns on me, with a creeping guilt, that I don’t think of my processed foods as expirable at all. If it’s outlived its welcome on my shelves at home, of course it needs to be binned. But if it’s in the refridgerated goods section of a major store? I assume it hasn’t been their long. I’m certainly not in the habit of looking for something that’s been there… less long…

The corrective — I mean, ahem, collective shopping experience is one I will come to understand is the norm around here. Necks crane around me so much they might snap as I weigh my various produce selections to a chorus of small, nosy murmurs of approval. I’m reassured that it’s not just me: when a young man cannot find the correct label for his white nectarines, three people jump to his aide. When the sticker that spits out the appropriate barcode needs refilling, the line reforms patiently, in the same order in front of a second machine. It reminds me of the way people sought help, information, guidance from their peers instinctively before ever considering going to a professor in my French graduate program. An instinct I’m not accustomed to. Perhaps this nosy hovering was as much about policing peer shopping behaviors as it was about learning how to do things without ever having to appear ignorant…

There is something I can’t quite put my finger on in the knowing and the selecting and the handling of food here. I realize it is done in a way that feels, from my perspective, somehow masculine-coded. Far from the flights of whimsy and impulse buys that typically overtake me in a supermarket, this is a competitive, serious undertaken, to be handled with the utmost precision. Here, it is “correct” to select seasonal items, whereas a basket including frozen foods and fatty potato chips is pitiable. The Monoprix shopping follows a pattern I have noticed in French culture, where cooking, and curator, and being an arbiter of taste is a male-dominated field. Just another sphere, among countless these days, where I feel that I, a young foreign woman, am expected to take notes. But it’s not all bad.

I grow confident in the grocery to tell the poissoniere conspiratorially that this is my first time buying fish in France. He grins ear to ear, and does not give me the fish I have pointed to or acknowledge my fluent request for portions, for reasons that baffle me. (What gives? I converted to metric! I used the correct and polite verb tense!) He gives me what he thinks is best, and when the salmon turns out perfect that evening, I recognize it is as much his doing as my own. I’m simply the vessel.

And who cares, because dinner WAS delicious. When I return a few days later to thank him, and offer credit where it’s due, a sign announces he is gone for the summer. “Ha! Gone Fishing,” I joke. My husband does not laugh; vacation is important. And there are expiration dates to check.

Taylor Sheridan’s hit series Yellowstone follows the powerful landowning mafia -- I mean family -- the Duttons, and their ranch in Montana. John Dutton’s control over his family, local politics, and a massive cattle ranch paint a beautiful picture of life in the American west. But what looks like beauty from a distance is, up close, a series of decisions about survival and legacy.

“When you look at that calf what do you see?

“I see a life I gotta defend until it grows up and feeds me.”

“That’s exactly what a cowboy should see. But a cattleman sees a $293 investment worth $1100 in seven months, whether it feeds anyone or not.” - James Dutton, Yellowstone

And in much the same ways, Napa Valley landowners conceive of, protect, defend, and strategize about their own land. Recent natural disasters, like the Glass fires in 2020, or the ongoing Pickett Fire Case reflect the huge investments in the wine country and the stakes of managing vineyards, and the big business behind every painstakingly pruned vine, every drop that makes up a precious bottle. But what happens when we start to conflate “survival” and “living off the fat of the land” with our rights to grow our property-assets? And why do we travel over middle America in hopes that we will get to see our favorite winemaker in overalls?

Yellowstone centers on a cattle ranch in Montana, but it could just as easily be a story about land ownership in Texas, where Sheridan grew up, or wine country. Others have made the wine-oil-cattle ranch connection. In a listing for stunning Napa Valley ranch called Glendale Ranch, listing agent Erin Lail of Coldwall Banker Brokers of the Valley highlights its strategic positioning: “It’s arguably the crown jewel of Napa Valley. This is not just a property; it’s an opportunity to invest in a legacy that can be cherished for generations to come in the heart of Napa Valley.” The listing describes the property as “sublime” and “incomparable” with 40 acres of vineyards.

Current owners of Glendale Ranch conceive of themselves as stewards of the land, much like the Duttons do:

Raw land, wild land, free land can never be owned. Some men pay dearly for the privilege of its stewardship... - Elsa Dutton, 1883

“With hundreds of plantable acres, secured water rights and a canvas that extends from the private valley floor to the ridge lines, their decisions will influence this landscape for generations to come.” - Glendale Ranch owners Lindsey Wiseman, Andrew Green

The listing also details the establishment of the ranch by Daniel Fasker, Texas oil magnate, in 1938, using the refreshingly honest term, holdings. It also cites farming development for use of the George Yount family in the early 1800s, and acknowledges the long stewardship of the land by the Onasatis people.

It’s interesting that, despite its current, active management, we must go back 1880s to really give credence to this idyllic vision of the gentleman farmer. It’s equally interesting that this period marks reconstruction: a tumultuous period focused on reintegrating former Confederate states, reconstructing the Southern economy, and establishing the rights of four million African Americans who had never before been allowed to own property.

After 140 years of continued “stewardship”, what has changed? What would it really take to hold onto this land for another century? After closing, what are the continued maintenance costs of owning and protecting something considered this valuable, fertile, and potentially exploitable? What unseemly behavior is written off as the cost of doing business of any mega landowner? And if this valuable land is preserved, would we still package it for re-sale by touting its’ potential for extraction?

But for those of us that want to enjoy our trip to Napa Wine Valley, we suspend our disbelief and let ourselves be swept away by the myth of the gentleman farmer, a sharp man, rugged and untamed, who shows mastery over the elements and still makes time for family dinner. A man who no longer exists today, and probably never did. Now, If only Sheridan could find a way to bottle that up....

Try Taylor Sheridan’s 1883 Reserve Napa Cab, an messy homage to extractive corporate agriculture, in partnership with Tim McGraw, a man who made his first millions selling tickets to middle class Americans who... for some reason, like songs about people who live off the land.... Yeehaw?

In May, I packed my bags to move to a new city. We had months to prepare for it, but the knowing didn’t stop the messy feelings — the anger, the shock, and frustration that comes with having familiar patterns shift.

I have not historically been big on routines. But a big move felt different than moves in my twenties. In that decade, among the messy fits and starts of extended adolescence, we felt the familiar tide of friends leaving the city but never the GroupChat for the dream career. Like a theater kid, in an opening number and a backpack, the world was our audience and our stage. We were stepping into our destinies! So, when I returned to North Carolina a few years later, with the same bags I’d left with, confused to find my “destiny” looked rather like my old life, no one seemed too surprised. But things were different. The moves seemed more destabilizing, the weekends earlier. My friends all had something (mortgages, lawns, dogs, children, parents to care for.) The changes, big and small, were starting to feel permanent.

And so the specific pairings required for big changes grew more significant, too.

1. For the Friend Who Bought a Place in the Suburbs. Something sparkling. The one who once knew every bouncer in town is soon to be checking the baby monitor and regularly referencing early morning appointments. You’re not going to finish the bottle. So go for a glass or something expensive, like a champagne and cheers to the time you could steal away to bask in each other’s presence.

2. For the Friend Moving to a New City. A low tannin red. Regardless of what the wine tastes like, more time will pass than either of you hope until the next time you see her. Choose something with soft tannins to and a ripe fruit, something sweet to balance the bitterness of a goodbye. Snap a photo to savor the memory, beautiful and blurry.

3. For a Friend that has Drifted Apart. Bring two — one to drink now, and one to cellar. Honor your friendship with a loose connection to the past or an old favorite (Duck Cellar? Barefoot?) Honor her future with something exciting — gorgeous label art, or a crowd pleasing bottle. You don’t have to be close to wish someone well.

4. For Chronic Conditions & Medical Emergencies. Something zero proof. For the one with the ovarian cyst, endometriosis, a tumor, an autoimmune disease, preparing for a marathon or more the wine is for the guests. For her, leave a sparkling water, offer to make a cocktail, or a lemonade made from a simple syrup. If she’s on a journey, we are too, to find small ways to become more inclusive and supportive.

5. For the Anniversary of a Friend’s Passing. Anything. September marks a friend who grows further away with each year she stays the same age, and I’m swept away by time and compelled to grow older. For loved ones who are no longer with us, we crack open whatever we have in the fridge, grateful for more time on earth, and a friend to share it with.