Farewell to Summer

For this rustic dinner party I teamed up with my friends from Cooking is Personal to create a Farewell to Summer event to highlight their entry into the professional culinary world. Patricia Kalember and Becca Gerroll have created a series called Cooking is Personal where they share some of their favorite dishes and the stories that inspired them. Our Farewell to Summer feast was inspired by farmers market finds and the gathering of family and friends. I loved creating the look for this event because I have always found myself so recharged after having visited the farmers market. I love that all of your senses are stimulated, the abundance of produce and wild flowers, and the community that is created between farmers and shoppers. I have gone to the Hollywood Farmers Market for over a decade and often refer to it as my church. For this event I decorated using the ingredients found in the recipes and created my own ‘farmers market’ table scape.

For the menu Patricia and Becca greeted guests with a glass of prosecco and a slice of parmesan. They offered bruschetta two ways, heirloom tomato or fruit of the forrest, followed by grilled langoustine over a bed of pasta pomodoro with a simple green salad and a shallot vinaigrette. For dessert we enjoyed light as air pavlovas with a mixed berry compote and a summers end blueberry pie. TO DIE FOR!

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Barrette Prendergast from Valley Brink Road (a chef herself) created the beautiful blooms using fresh herbs, garden roses, and raspberry stems to create a freshly gathered and wild look for our farmers market inspired event. Fairly Modern Studio created the menu design with layered pages bound together with a binder clip for a casually chic look.

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We kept the table light and elegant adding fresh summer fruit, berries from the pavlova ingredients, as well as fresh sprigs of mint to tickle your nose as you sat to enjoy the meal. I love using these woven baskets (similar here) to keep the table organic, neutral and elevated. I tried to keep most of the decor neutral so that the food and ingredients would be the star of the show.

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We potted fresh herbs in distressed terracotta pots and used large galvanized buckets often found at farmers markets to hold bunches of clover flowers. We even used our farmers market baskets as part of the design, filling them with stemmed carrots, leafy greens and more of the beautiful florals to give the look of freshly farmed abundance.

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Hands down my favorite part of this design was the stacked wooden crates I filled with fresh loaves of bread. I added garlic chive blossoms and a large potted rosemary plant to the vignette so the smell of fresh bread and herbs filled the air.

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Here are some photos of the beautiful meal Particia and Becca prepared

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Come on with that menu! The afternoon was so lovely reminiscing with old friends and getting to know new ones. We definitely created some stories with this meal! Thank you so much to Particia and Becca for sharing your love of cooking and story telling with us! Looking forward to seeing what Cooking is Personal cooks up!

never not hungry,

xo

-S.

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