To be sure, the second bowl of vegan chili was as delicious as the first, paired perfectly with loud, increasingly hyperventilative gulps of pinot noir, but the anxiety in my stomach seemed like a bottomless pit. Chili just wouldn’t do anymore. I needed to stress-eat some sweets.
Need? Stress? We were supposed to be toasting a smug triumph over the goblin forces of darkness or something! Instead, this election night party had turned into a caloric intervention.
I returned to the kitchen to seize a handful of chocolate-covered almonds. By the time I went back to the living room, I had this stressy sadface chocolate lipstick circle for a mouth. On the TV, an already suspiciously peppy Wolf Blitzer was starting to twitch and skip like a tea kettle on boil: Something was happening. Something unexpected was happening. History was happening. Another fistful of chocolate almonds, another slosh of wine. Uh, yeah, great election night watch party.
If you watched election-night coverage, whether in elation or despair, relief or grief, odds are you were eating, too. At such moments, food is feelings. I bring up that truism if only to recognize that, given such a wrenchingly divisive election, uh, the fact that we all keep ourselves alive by consuming nutrients through our screamholes is maybe really the only thing we have in common anymore.
But hey, it’s a start. And it’s in that spirit of common ground that I tug the cord to unveil the 2016 Restaurant Awards (p. 60). Once again, we’ve gathered the valley’s most respected critics — John Curtas, Debbie Lee, Jim Begley and Mitchell Wilburn — to dish on their favorite restaurants, dishes and chefs of the past year. And whether the restaurant in question is a hidden Chinatown gem or a Strip fine-dining icon, this year’s honorees were all risk-takers. You’ll read about uncompromising Tokyo-style sushi shrines ensconced in unassuming strip malls; classically trained chefs at iconic eateries gleefully upending tradition; suburban spots elevating our taste with challenging, innovative menus; and high-concept restaurants that still manage to revel in both fun and flavor. And, taking note of a particularly chewy trend that also reigned, Greg Thilmont’s “Year of the Noodle” (p. 72) dives into the valley’s restaurants that craft noodles, pasta and dumplings from scratch.
Our annual Restaurant Awards issue is practically a tradition, fitting for a season filled with them — gift-giving, well-wishing, food-gorging. But generosity and compassion are virtues that are badly needed year-round (yeep, maybe now more than ever), and on p. 55, Heidi Kyser profiles an Opportunity Village program that embodies them. Better yet, OV’s community employment program, which finds jobs for Southern Nevadans with intellectual disabilities, marks a significant shift in the way we think of the mentally disabled. Like Opportunity Village, elsewhere in the magazine, are others shaking things up, too, from downtown casino impresario Derek Stevens to Chinese musicologist Wang Hong — people and organizations with a spirit of generosity that seems increasingly relevant and necessary.