Jordan Wright is an accomplished writer on food, spirits, travel, and theatre. Her clients have included the tony Georgetowner and hip sister publication the Downtowner, the Washington Examiner and San Francisco Examiner, as well as LocalKicks.com, DC Metro Magazine, Washington Life Magazine, Washingtonian Magazine, MDTheatreGuide.com, Indian Country Today On-Line and Print Publications, The Alexandria Times, Hartkeisonline.com, and now DCMetroTheaterArts. Her articles feature restaurant openings, food and wine events, food-oriented film reviews, food trends, restaurant reviews, food memories, new food products, hotels, spas, resorts and interviews with the country’s leading chefs – from Jose Andres and Top Chef’s Carla Hall, to CakeLove’s Warren Brown and Top Chef’s Spike Mendelsohn. She has also interviewed famed chef and TV star, Anthony Bourdain, Eric Ripert, cookbook author Joan Nathan, and director Robert Kenner for an in-depth article about his film Food, Inc.
Photographs by Wright accompany many of her articles and NBCNews.com has picked up and used several of her stories. Jordan Wright hails from three generations of show business. Her grandmother, Betty Morton, was a Ziegfeld Follies girl; her step-grandmother Corinne Griffith, a noted author and silent screen star wrote Hail to the Redskins; her father, Georgie Price, an entertainer and founder of The Lamb’s Club in New York, as well as a CBS radio show host, songwriter and vaudevillian; her sister, Penny Larsen Vine, a theatre critic both on radio and in print for Variety, a former longtime member of the Outer Critics Circle, and a lead performer in countless national touring companies; one brother, Peter Price, appeared in leading roles in over 16 major motion pictures for MGM; while her other brother, Marshall Price performed at Carnegie Hall. Niece, Stephanie Vine, was the final Annie in the original production of Annie on Broadway, and niece, Liz Larsen, has received two Tony nominations and a Helen Hayes award for lead actress in Sunday in the Park with George. Wright sang with Columbia Records in New York and Barclay Records in France. In the sports world her grandfather was the original owner and founder of the Washington Redskins football team. Wright has traveled throughout four continents and currently resides in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia.
LOCAL LEADERS
Jordan Wright – A home cooked meal, via private chef
Jordan Wright, Publisher/Writer on Food/Spirits/Travel/Theatre Whisk and Quill, LLC
Kiki Obadal
August 2008
Special to LocalKicks.com
On a hot afternoon, in her stylish townhouse on Old Town’s swank south end, private chef Jordan Wright welcomes a sweaty writer into her sitting room and serves a cooling goblet of hyssop-infused, honeyed iced tea.
Then in her soft cultured voice, she begins to hold forth about her favorite subject: cooking. In her case, as quickly becomes clear, we are not really talking about cooking, however: we are in fact talking about cuisine. We are talking about a dying part of life: culture. The fact that Wright is the granddaughter of Redskins football team founder and thirty-year owner George Preston Marshall, would leave a dyed-in-the-wool fan reeling and begging for tales of reminiscence about the “Hogs”. Even so, her passion for cooking seems to easily outdo her fondness for the team.
Indeed, it is clear that Wright could easily spend her days on the golf course with a very well heeled set; but as a woman of culture and passion for life, she rolls out of bed at a working man’s hour to provide home-cooked meals to a number of local families who comprise her growing clientèle. Wright grew up in a home with a full-time French chef, and has analyzed food and culinary traditions across the globe during her travels through Europe and Asia. Wright is self-taught, as many successful chefs seem to be (Food network stars Paula Deen and Rachel Ray spring to mind). She builds her menus around what is fresh in the market—namely, Whole Foods and Balducci’s—eschewing heavy sauces for dishes with a clean finish. Wright’s assurance o f quality stems, she says, from her reliance on organic local ingredients and her eye for balanced nutrition. Wright also swears by fresh herbs, which she says make her dishes “sing to the food heart of my clients.” Off the record, of course, and just between you and me, let’s just mention that one certain presidential candidate’s mother is addicted to Wright’s unique recipe for meatloaf.
Wright’s clients palates never become bored, either, thanks to the broad diversity of her menus. They include a repertory of hundreds of dishes from France, the Mediterranean, Asian, and of course American regions. A number of families in the Metro area pay Wright a set fee for visiting their kitchens on a weekly basis. During an average week, Wright visits McLean, Georgetown, Potomac, and Alexandria to cater to the needs of her clients. Unlike some full time chefs, Wright does not travel with her clients, although some have requested that her creations be vacuum sealed and sent via airmail to their vacation homes.
Contrary to intuition, employing a private chef such as Wright is not an exorbitant expense or even an unnecessary luxury for many families. The pressures of time can make having a private chef a very feasible option for busy people who still understand the value of sitting down as a family to a home cooked meal in the evening. In fact, comments Wright, the quality of ingredients that a private chef will use is higher than what most restaurants use.
In addition to expanding upon her eight years of experience as a private chef, Wright is working on a forthcoming book about food and wine pairings.
Kiki Obadal is an Alexandria-based writer, and is available at kirstenobadal@hotmail.com.
