Victoria James, WINE GIRL
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zivioums, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast.
[0:11]Moms don't have time to read books.
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[2:08]listen to this episode. Today's sponsor is Violets are Blue, which is an organic small-batch
[2:13]skincare company that gives back to women and treatment for breast cancer started by a breast
[2:17]cancer survivor herself. 10% of the Violets are blue earnings, go toward skincare packages
[2:23]that they donated to women on their first day of treatment at Mount Sinai in New York City.
[2:27]For 20% off, use code Zibi20ZIBBY20. Victoria James is the author of Wine Girl,
[2:34]the obstacles, humiliations, and triumphs of America's youngest Samalei. Victoria has worked in
[2:40]restaurants since she was 13 and was certified as a Samalei when she was 21. She was food
[2:45]in wine, Samalei of the year in 2018 and has appeared on both Forbes and Seghats 30 under 30 lists.
[2:51]She's worked at some of the most prestigious restaurants in New York City,
[2:54]including Mariah and Oriel. Currently, she's a partner and beverage director at Cote,
[2:58]or maybe Cote, of Michelin starred a hotspot in the Flatiron District of New York City
[3:03]and is co-founder of Wine Empowered, a 501c3 nonprofit that aims to diversify the hospitality industry
[3:09]by offering tuition-free wine classes to women and minorities. She's also the author of Drink Pink,
[3:14]the celebration of Rosé, which Harper Design published in 2017. Hi, how are you?
[3:21]Hi, Zibi. So who is this? Wait, I know who this is because you thank your husband. We're taking
[3:26]care of him. So what's this guy's name? This is Rocco. Hi, Rocco. Look at you with like the old
[3:32]fashion fire and the dog and the stones. Yeah, we're at a place upstate just for the, you know,
[3:39]this bit of quarantine to try and take a deep breath from Manhattan. Yes, I understand that.
[3:45]Now one of my first things on my to-do list, if and when I ever get back to the city is going to
[3:50]your restaurant. I have so many questions and things I want to talk to you about regarding the book,
[3:58]but I just want to start because obviously the restaurant industry has been hit so hard by COVID-19.
[4:04]So I wanted to just get your point of view on that because I haven't talked to that many people
[4:08]in the restaurant industry. How are you coping and what are your sort of general thoughts? Sorry
[4:13]to pick you on the spot here, but no, no, no, no. Yeah. So first and foremost, it's really important.
[4:18]If, you know, anyone watching is able to do so to please support their local restaurants that are
[4:22]doing delivery or takeout right now. In addition, you can buy gift cards. I know a lot of restaurants
[4:28]have started sort of a go fund me for their staff. They had to furlough or lay off for the time being
[4:33]at our restaurant, which is a coke Korean steakhouse in New York City. We are a skeleton crew
[4:39]now. We're doing takeout and delivery. It's very intense, but we do this in order to be able to send
[4:44]weekly stipend to the staff members we had to lay off and to be able to keep them afloat during
[4:50]these times. So it's definitely not what we imagined our restaurant would look like, all the
[4:56]booths and, you know, tables that used to host all these fabulous guests are now filled with
[5:02]takeout containers and such. So but no complaints. We are so grateful that we're beyond surviving.
[5:09]It's it's really, really wonderful. And a lot of our friends have that opportunity.
[5:15]I just never envisioned a world in which like every restaurant would would simultaneously close
[5:21]or it's really unbelievable. Like I want to somebody must have written a book imagining this
[5:26]because everybody has their own fears about I have to like go find that book, but I haven't yet.
[5:31]Yeah, it makes one also realize how important restaurants are to our community and culture.
[5:36]You know, there are a place we go to celebrate special events to feel restored to have that
[5:41]sense of kinship and friendship and without it, it's not the same. It's not. It's you're absolutely
[5:47]right. It's very sad. Yeah. Okay. So your book was so good. I mean, I just even she was like,
[5:54]oh my gosh, I even emailed your agent. I was like, oh my gosh, this book is so good, which I'm
[5:59]and I've had it since I could it first came out. I got it through a book shop or again,
[6:03]so it's considered here. And now I feel terrible. I haven't read it yet. It was on my list
[6:07]all along, but I'm so glad I got the chance to finally read it because it's really one of my
[6:12]recent favorites. So can you tell everybody how you decided to write this memoir and basically
[6:19]the journey that you described in it? What's what it's about? Yeah. So the book is sort of like
[6:25]coming of age story, starting and hi, Allison, my understanding is amazing. And so Allison
[6:31]can attest, you know, I first met Allison prior on five years ago and I said, you know, I have
[6:35]this idea of to write this book about my coming of age story in the wine world. And you know,
[6:40]at the time, it wasn't quite, it wasn't quite right. The need to movement hadn't happened yet.
[6:45]And you know, so I continued to work on the book and it's sort of chronicles my journey from
[6:50]13 year old greasy spoon diner waitress to bartender. And then working and falling in love with wine,
[6:58]but feeling as if I was too young for sure I was 19, definitely too poor. I didn't come from a lot
[7:04]of money. And the wrong gender also for this wine world, but I really loved what wine symbolized.
[7:10]You know, of course, any profession, what you can drink for a living is how to vary of dealing
[7:14]to a 19 year old. But more so than that, it's, you know, combined all of these things, I love this
[7:20]community serving others, restaurants, travel, history. And so when I became 21, I took my
[7:27]assembly exam and became certified and also was working out as assembly at a mission started
[7:32]restaurant here in New York. And I thought if I kept working in better places that the environment
[7:37]would become better, but I just found that it seemed almost the fancier, the restaurant, the more
[7:41]toxic the culture. And you know, for a while, I was writing just as my own sort of therapy to work
[7:47]through a lot of, you know, the sexism and misogyny I faced. And then after a while, I was like,
[7:52]I think that maybe this could be a book. And so there's a difference between writing for yourself
[7:58]and putting all of your, you know, embarrassing moments out there. But what really kind of inspired
[8:04]me to do so was that I became a, you know, a leader partner at Coatt and, you know, this restaurant.
[8:10]And I saw how many young women looked up to me for guidance and just to be this sort of role
[8:16]model. And I realized that I was one of a few women in wine that was in a position to write this
[8:23]book. Because unfortunately, a lot of women in wine and restaurants still face a lot of pushback.
[8:30]And they don't have the luxury of writing a book like this because they need to get a job.
[8:36]So I figured if I didn't write it too good. So it's not just my story. It's so many women's
[8:42]stories. And it's a narrative. I think a lot of women, anyone who's ever worked in a restaurant
[8:46]or public service can definitely relate to. Well, I just want to read one quote, which of course,
[8:53]now I'm not going to be able to find, but it described why well, okay, I can't find that quote.
[8:58]So let me, let me start this again. Hold on. It was so good. But it was essentially about why you
[9:03]found yourself as a someone, yeah, because it combined sort of your mother and your father's
[9:08]backgrounds that your mother came from a background. She was a countess and came from this very
[9:13]you know, story traditional, you know, cream of the crop type family. And your father was more
[9:20]came from poverty. And that you felt like being a sommelier was like being a glorified servant.
[9:26]And so in that way, it married both of their experiences. So I just want to do the comment on
[9:31]sort of that being the product of those two very different people. And of course, your book goes
[9:36]into what happens with both of your parents along the way. But I just want to do to speak to that
[9:40]quote for a minute. Yeah, absolutely. So it's interesting because I think that, you know,
[9:45]a smelly is essentially a high brow service servant. But it was my background of like blue collar
[9:51]meets blue blood combined. But I think even that's the quote. That was the quote. That was it.
[9:56]That gave me kind of empathy for both positions.
[10:00]you know my grandmother on my mother's side was Contessa and she always kind of grew up telling
[10:05]me that one social class does not define one's character and I think that working in these fancy
[10:11]restaurants a lot of people can become intimidated by all of these celebrities and politicians
[10:17]and kings and such that you wait on and but that doesn't make them who they are and so by having
[10:24]that I think in my family it gave me that background and that experience and also empathy and
[10:29]and then my father's mother was also fabulous and she was a cotton picker in Tennessee and
[10:35]you know she didn't even own a pair of shoes until she was 12 and you know but these two women
[10:41]even though they came from such different backgrounds were just really you know lovely people
[10:46]and by having a foot in both of their worlds I think allowed me to be eventually a better
[10:52]small man. You write a lot about your mother in this book and well your father as well
[10:57]but you write about her depression and the effects of having a mother who was basically non-functional
[11:02]and how that affected you and your siblings and your mother said of those times I'm going to quote
[11:08]the depression had marched across my brain to the point that weep and sleep and weep and sleep was
[11:13]the way I spent my days alone in the bedroom behind closed doors and then you as the child had
[11:18]to basically take care of yourself eating cell teens and trying to feed your siblings what was that
[11:23]life for you. Yeah it was certainly not easy this was like probably one of the first things I wrote
[11:28]it was an evolution of a lot of short stories I had written as a child and old diary entries and
[11:34]it was something I hadn't thought about for a while I think whenever you go through any sort of
[11:38]trauma or painful experience you in order to survive maybe don't think about it for quite some time
[11:44]and so when I was writing this book going to you know my storage unit and digging through these
[11:49]old diaries it really brought up a lot of this pain that was so visceral and I felt so strongly as
[11:54]a child but I think also it gave me a sort of resilience and you know mental illness is very
[12:02]a difficult thing to see as a child but again I think it gave me you know a better perspective
[12:08]on the suffering and pain it can cause not only to the persons involved like myself and my siblings
[12:14]but also the person experiencing it and my mom was extremely helpful with this book and you know
[12:21]it wasn't easy for her to read and a lot of parts were very difficult but you know she really felt
[12:26]that it was very important to talk about these things and this part in depression and you know
[12:33]if we don't talk about these things as women you know they become something to be ashamed of
[12:37]and I don't think we should be so it was actually a very a healthy experience to work through I
[12:42]know I noticed in your acknowledgements how you thanked her for providing so much source material
[12:46]for you and core documents and I was thinking wow like what would that have been like for your mom
[12:51]to have to go back and relive some of those like the what she must have felt having to see what
[12:56]happened from a different vantage point anyway yeah just part of the intensity of the story
[13:03]moving on the scene when you the scene and I can't even like smile while we talk about it
[13:09]because this is such an upsetting disturbing scene and the first of many upsetting disturbing
[13:14]scenes that you write about so pointedly and beautifully and honestly about the sexual abuse
[13:19]and how he followed you home and I don't know if you're even comfortable talking about this
[13:23]or if you do this and all your book things just like open and let him give you a ride home and
[13:27]then ends up raping you and it's awful and I'm so sorry that that happened to you in such
[13:32]young age like how do you feel even about talking about it like have you made peace with this
[13:37]in some way or is this book sort of another way to do that and then all the ones that followed
[13:43]I was just thinking oh my gosh I have to like hug this girl I cannot believe what you've been
[13:48]through uh yeah I still not easy to talk about but I think that that you know again unfortunately
[13:56]these things are very common one in three women in North America throughout their lifetime at some
[14:01]point is raped I mean that's just the reality and unfortunately I don't I mean it does get
[14:08]easier to talk about for me personally with writing these experiences but it I think is just really
[14:13]important the society does something about this and you know especially in restaurants we put
[14:18]our women in these positions where there are very vulnerable and we want them to be the cute cocktail
[14:24]waitresses or hosts bartenders suddenly is in my case but we don't do anything to protect them
[14:30]and it was really important to me that when I finally had a position of power and kind of my own
[14:37]place in a restaurant to do so and you know this is one of the reasons at coat that we established
[14:42]a zero tolerance policy for any sort of harassment or sexual assault from within the restaurant
[14:49]colleagues but also customers because I think that's a big issue and I was really sick of
[14:54]growing up in these restaurants diners and fine dining places where the customer is always right
[15:00]and the customer is not always right especially when it comes to assault and harassment and if we
[15:07]do not protect our women they cannot build their careers in restaurants and in wine and if we don't
[15:13]have a diversified industry that means less innovation that can occur that means less ideas less
[15:20]growth and the wine world is still an old voice club and unless that changes soon and we don't
[15:26]have more women and you know minorities in positions of power I just don't think it will be
[15:32]or continue to be safe honestly and you know a place where a lot of innovation can occur
[15:38]well it's amazing that you took your experience and turned it into something that can help
[15:42]so many other people I mean the book details some of the many situations in which people really
[15:48]took advantage of you and locked sellers and I mean it was like one thing after another and you
[15:54]just got through it and you had so much just grit and resilience and it's really an inspiring story
[16:01]that not only could you get through it and continue your upward trajectory professionally
[16:08]that you chronicled it and now have written a beautiful book about it and started this non-profit
[16:14]looking you not do this is like really impressive how does it feel now to have this book out there
[16:20]how does it feel is there it's really personal are you okay how does it feel to have it out there
[16:26]I mean you know it's interesting because the book came out during this pandemic and in quarantine
[16:32]so I don't think it really has really sunk in yet because I've gotten so many wonderful letters
[16:38]and you know have opportunities like this with uzibi where I can chat with people but
[16:42]you know unfortunately my book tour had to get canceled and things so when you don't see people
[16:46]face to face it just doesn't feel very real still but you know the most important thing I want to
[16:51]out of this book was I wanted women to not feel alone in any industry and right after the book
[16:58]came out that very week I received over now close to 600 emails from women all around the world
[17:05]saying you know this was your story but I found it's so similar to my own narrative and I really
[17:12]hope that together we can you know band together for social justice and actually change things
[17:17]and so the fact that this book has brought so many women comfort is was was the whole point and
[17:24]that is more important to me than anything else so are you going to do something like a Facebook
[17:29]group or like how are you going to keep this community together of all these emailing women
[17:33]you'll get you need to start some sort of a collective experience something great
[17:38]yeah well I mean you know I think that you know wine empowered our non-profit is kind of what I'm
[17:44]really passionate about and it bands together not only women but also minorities and the reason
[17:48]for that being is that it's found it with two other females muys who are both from China originally
[17:54]and they felt also on the margins of the wine world and so you know the community I want to
[18:00]create is one that's inclusive where everyone feels heard and listened to and so I think that's
[18:06]like my little group but I always welcome whoever's watching or anyone you know wants to please send
[18:11]me a message and oh wait when this is all over we can do some events together I didn't mean
[18:17]to imply that you should start an exclusive group I hope that's not how you took that like
[18:21]okay all right yeah you go start like a really uh you know anyway yeah wow well that's that's
[18:29]really impressive and also just going back to mental illness the experience you had with your
[18:34]older brother and how your father essentially sent him away and he had to get through that and how
[18:41]the mantra you keep repeating to yourself is just getting through it based on like how he
[18:46]internalized his own experience was also just so beyond powerful like what is your relationship
[18:51]with him like now yeah well Tim's amazing and he's an incredible human being and I'm so grateful
[18:58]that I had him in my life and also my little sister lard to get me through all these times
[19:03]because I couldn't have done it alone yet Tim's mantra was kind of you know what's two years we
[19:08]can do anything for two years and kind of put your head down and get to a much better place far away
[19:14]but you know and that was kind of my mantra just you know get through it just survive
[19:18]because so many survivors of trauma or difficult experiences that's kind of all they have but
[19:23]it wasn't until later that my brother said that wasn't his that wasn't his only realization it was
[19:28]also that you know for better or for worse you know some part of him was lost when he was forced
[19:36]to go into the institution and the person that came out is not the same so you know we do also have
[19:42]to accept the fact that he's experienced has changed us and you know it kind of work on kind of
[19:48]embracing that change and and channeling it for the good and had that quote dog year two and now
[19:53]I can't find any of my quotes but I love that quote that he said that he's not that he that some of
[19:58]of you is left behind and
[20:00]I feel like this is so true of so many traumas like this
[20:03]harkens back to like the people and the victims of the
[20:07]Holocaust and like just all these other situations where
[20:11]you get through it, but what form do you come out it in?
[20:14]What is loss and what is still there and I don't know.
[20:17]I just found it, it's just like super super powerful.
[20:21]So yeah, it's incredible.
[20:24]And then all of this stuff is going on in your own
[20:26]family and then your ability to forgive and it's just
[20:30]amazing. So now that this book is out there and you're
[20:34]surviving pandemic promotion, like what do you what's next
[20:39]for you? You have you're so young and you've already done
[20:41]so much and made your way through it. I feel like you can do
[20:44]anything you want. So like what are some of your blue sky
[20:47]dreams or hopes or are you just started getting through the
[20:50]next phase of life and seeing what happened?
[20:52]Well, you know this, I'm sure for so many people watching as well
[20:55]this quarantine has been great for a reflection.
[20:58]And so with the restaurant, we're opening a Miami property,
[21:02]this fall and continuing to, you know, open up more coats, but also
[21:07]growing the nonprofit wine empowered and really empowering
[21:10]more women and minorities to kind of feel included in the hospitality world
[21:15]and help mentor them. Those are my two biggest goals right now.
[21:18]And then the third one right now, also turning,
[21:21]fortunately, working on a lot is a third book a novel.
[21:24]So that's that's the next blue sky. That's great.
[21:27]You know, we're almost out of time, but do you have any advice for aspiring
[21:31]authors? I don't know. I think everyone's journey is so different and
[21:35]everyone writes differently. I think that you should write what makes you happy
[21:40]and what brings you joy. And for me, what brings me joy is writing
[21:43]something that will resonate with other people and empower
[21:46]them to, you know, take hold of their own lives. So,
[21:50]yeah, right, what makes, you know, what brings you joy?
[21:53]That's great. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for
[21:56]wine, girl. Thank you for just opening up
[21:58]all your deepest darkest secrets so that we can all feel your pain
[22:02]and be inspired to change the environments that created some of the
[22:06]things that caught that were done to you in the past. So
[22:09]it's really important and such a good book and you're such a good writer.
[22:12]So I'm really excited for your novel and keep it up.
[22:16]Thank you, Zippy. Chase your time. Thanks. Bye-bye.
[22:19]Thanks again for listening to my podcast. Moms don't have time to read books.
[22:22]If you liked this episode, please follow me on Instagram at Zippy Owens
[22:27]and at Moms don't have time to read books and sign up for my mailing list
[22:31]at zippyowens.com so you can always hear about the latest things I'm up to.
[22:35]Thanks a lot. Today's episode has been sponsored by
[22:38]Bylitzer Blue, the organic small batch skincare company that's giving back
[22:42]to women and treatment for breast cancer. Use code Zippy20 for 20% off
[22:46]by Litzer Blue skincare.com. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at
[22:50]Texture Sound for the Sound Editing and thank you to Morning Moon
[22:54]Productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.
[22:57]Thanks for listening. You can always email me at Zippy at zippyowens.com.