Life in California is full of vexing questions. Will the anti-Elon Tesla sticker trend ever go away? How many farmers’ markets does one town need? And why does my weather app promise rain when it’s obviously not raining?
Alta Journal has enlisted two experts to answer all of your questions: Stacey Grenrock Woods and Gustavo Arellano, both of whom bring decades of hard-won knowledge and laser-sharp insights into the Golden State.
Have a question of your own? Ask a Californian!
This has got to be the most Californian question you’ve ever received: How do I survive my sister-in-law’s gluten-free Thanksgiving?
—Pass the Rolls
Stacey: Actually, the most Californian question I’ve ever received is, How do I survive my manifestation and abundance coach’s fruitarian Friendsgiving? Your question is downright Great Plains. (Assuming those plains aren’t covered in amber waves of grain.)
Unless she has celiac disease—which is rare and completely exempts one from hosting family dinners—I’ll assume your sister-in-law has joined the herd in scapegoating dear, sweet, delicious gluten, which never did anything to hurt anyone and just wants bread to be good.
Thanksgiving is no time for alternative flours. Its star players, stuffing and gravy, go all gluey without our old friend—the one for whom we should be truly thankful—wheat. I don’t suggest you bring your own, properly glutinous dish because in California, that would be akin to a hate crime. Here’s what you should do instead: Eat before you go, and once you’re there, fill your plate with foods your sister-in-law is unlikely to have screwed up because they don’t have gluten to begin with (turkey, various mashed tubers, and cranberries) while loudly complimenting “the spread.” Then use the rest of the long weekend to throw yourself an intimate stuffing-and-gravy soirée (to which you can invite me).
Gustavo: While I despise Thanksgiving—and I’m not even talking about the whole thing about the Pilgrims killing the Wampanoags in the years and decades that followed the first one—I think you’re being too judgmental here. I mean, isn’t most of a traditional Thanksgiving meal gluten-free? The dry turkey, the pointless cranberry sauce, the over-buttered veggies and potatoes, the too-glazed ham? The only gluten I associate with Turkey Day is gravy (which you should skip anyway because it’s vile), stuffing (which you should never eat to begin with because it should be illegal to consume something stuffed into the tuchus of a carcass), and the dinner rolls and pies, which you can easily replace with tortillas and ice cream. Don’t cry if your sister-in-law ain’t serving pumpkin pie, the Visalia of the dessert world.
But you want to be that guy or gal, so fine. Show up with French rolls as big as your average Butterball gobbler. Wear a Wichita State sweatshirt with the school’s logo of an anthropomorphic wheat bundle just to really rub it in. Congrats! You just got kicked out of Thanksgiving dinner faster than an outsider trying to get into the Bohemian Club.
Is it fall yet? Other than a standard calendar, how is a Golden Stater supposed to get any sense of the seasons?
—All the Leaves Aren’t Brown
Stacey: It’s fall! Just as I was reading your question, it turned fall. The sun went behind the cloud, and there was a raindrop. It’s back to summer now, but man, that was refreshing.
Deciding what constitutes seasonal change is something California leaves to the individual. Big Bear–ians who look out the window and see snow will know it’s time to fire up the eagle-nest cam, and city dwellers will reflexively unearth their sweaters as soon as Trader Joe’s puts out the first cinnamon broom. But those of us for whom the signs aren’t so obvious have to decide for ourselves what time of year it is. If you pay attention, you’ll start to notice these seasons in your own life, and even come to anticipate them as eagerly as I do Morning Heater and Nighttime Air Conditioner. It does take a lot of mindful practice, of course, and I’m certain there are few among us who haven’t, after what seems like a season-length amount of time, looked up from our devices and wailed, “What even is this?” But then we’ll note the angle at which the sun hits the devices of everyone else at Erewhon and decide, with a knowing grin, it’s finally endless summer.
Gustavo: We SoCalers used to know it was fall when the Santa Ana winds would descend upon us—but thanks to climate change, they’re now a year-round annoyance à la Prince Harry and his Meghan. But my Lord, you’re making out the third-largest state in this country to be a perpetual Hermosa Beach of sun and no seasons when we’re totally not. Tamarack up in the Sierras holds the record for the deepest-ever recorded snowpack in the United States, which proves that California has a winter; Death Valley recorded one of the hottest temperatures in earth’s history—134 degrees. And while Stacey judges spring and fall on similar temperature changes, I go with baseball. The time of bunnies and flowers starts when the Dodgers, Angels, Giants, A’s, and Padres are on equal footing, while autumn happens when the Dodgers win it all while their California cousins are crying all the way to training in—you guessed it!—spring. Cue Joni’s “The Circle Game.”
The holiday invites are filling up my inbox. What’s a quintessentially Californian host or hostess gift that’s sure to please?
—Never Empty-Handed
Stacey: Definitely not a scented candle; those will kill you.
Like you, Empty, I consider it anathema to show up anywhere empty-handed. But I’d also rather die than bring the wrong thing, which is why I generally stay home. Have you considered that? Or do you still harbor some tiny hope that this time, this party, will be different?
I thought you might say that, which is why I’ve compiled a list of things you shouldn’t bring and suggest one thing you can feel confident to present in person, since you insist on attending. Do not bring alcohol: No one drinks anymore, and you don’t want to be around people who do. Don’t bring the aforementioned candle or anything scented because your host/hostess will both hate the smell and wonder why you want to poison them. Don’t bring anything edible—everyone’s on Ozempic—and don’t bring a game. No one wants to play games, and if they do, you’re at the wrong party.
The only acceptable thing to bring is flowers: nice ones, not grocery store ones. Flowers are pretty, liked by most people, and show that you made an effort, and before anyone gets sick of them, they’re dead. They’re the kind of friend we should all strive to be.
Gustavo: Um, Stacey, flowers can kill as well! So I suggest a California book. If you need ideas, check out all the wonderful tomes Alta’s own California Book Club has highlighted over the years. But this is where you should challenge your host by giving them something that’s from a diametrically opposite part of the Golden State than where they’re from so they can read how the other half lives. So if the hosts are Angelenos, buy them the entire set of Tales of the City so they can understand how lacking L.A. is in whimsy and cattiness compared to San Francisco. If they’re a wine country one-percenter, reward them with any number of wrenching memoirs and novels about the people who pick California’s bounty—The Grapes of Wrath and Under the Feet of Jesus (a previous book club selection) never fail to shock readers out of their privilege. Buying California-themed books is educational, it’s affordable, and it’s low-key shade, almost like saying, “Here, try and learn a little bit more about where you live—like a good Californian.” Not like those bad ones trying to harsh someone’s Thanksgiving, you know?•
Stacey Grenrock Woods is a regular contributor to Esquire and a former correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. She writes and consults on various TV shows, and has a recurring role as Tricia Thoon on Fox’s Arrested Development. Her first book is I, California.
Gustavo Arellano is the author of Orange County: A Personal History and Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. In 2025, Arellano was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his work as a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. He was formerly editor of OC Weekly, an alternative newspaper in Orange County, California, and penned the award-winning ¡Ask a Mexican!, a nationally syndicated column in which he answered any and all questions about America’s spiciest and largest minority. Arellano is the recipient of awards ranging from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Best Columnist to the Los Angeles Press Club President’s Award to an Impact Award from the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and he was recognized by the California Latino Legislative Caucus with a 2008 Spirit Award for his “exceptional vision, creativity, and work ethic.” Arellano is a lifelong resident of Orange County and is the proud son of two Mexican immigrants, one of whom came to this country in the trunk of a Chevy.
