Mama Mia! Where to even begin with Dinner No. 14?
It’s Kate here. Hello, it’s been a while!
When I moved from Los Angeles to Brooklyn at the end of December 2019, I thought I would get here, establish myself a bit, and host Dinner No. 14 in the spring. As anyone reading this knows, spring had other plans for the entire world. COVID not only impacted Create Dinners and our in person events, it affected the lives of everyone. Gathering with others became a memory, friends and family were separated for painful amounts of time, there was devastating loss, loneliness, and heartache. It was and still is something we will be working through on so many levels for a very long time. But even with darkest days of 2020 and 2021, I think many could find a few silver linings throughout the last year and a half. We learned to slow down. People came together on a human level unlike anything I’ve ever seen before in my lifetime. There has been a swell of generosity, kindness, gratitude, resilience, creativity, and hope. We were reminded of the things that really matter in life — things like relationships and health and community and the promise of hope. I hoped for this dinner for such a long time and am enormously grateful it actually happened.
The theme of Dinner No. 14 was STORIES, so I must first start with a story and talk about the weather on July 17th because there is not a better metaphor for everything I just said about COVID and the bright spot Dinner No. 14 was after such a long period of isolation and darkness. The entire week leading up to Dinner No. 14, I knew there was a strong possibility it would be raining. The day of the event, things were not looking promising. As I was unloading the car at our host Victoria’s house, I was caught in a terrential downpour. She had thankfully put a pavilion up over the table where we were planning on eating outside, so everything under it stayed dry. I made the call to move our drinks and appetizers and jewelry making station indoors, but asked the stylists to go ahead and set up the dinner table outside under the pavilion, praying the rain would pause for us. As we were putting some final touches on the table, I stuck my hand out from under the pavilion. Sure enough it had stopped raining.
Like synchronized swimmers we each took a leg and lifted the pavilion up and over to the other side of the yard in case we needed it later. The rain subsided until the very end of our time together, allowing us to capture beautiful portraits of the tablescape and each attendee. It would have been a wonderful event if it had been raining, but it felt like an added gift to our long-anticipated gathering under the sun.
Let’s get into the event details. I’ll first introduce the team of talent stylists who worked in tandem to create our impeccable 1980s Call Me By Your Name / Italian Grandma inspired tablescape. Lindsay Jones, Diana Farberov, and Kirsten Gottbrecht made up our styling dream team. Each of them curated various pieces of it, working off of a mood board I created for everyone to reference. Throughout the weeks leading up to the event, they’d drop images into a shared document and we slowly watched things come together, but seeing it in real life on Saturday was even more glorious than I could have imagined.
All those flowering blooms down the table? Molly Ford of Flowers By Ford was responsible for those. She coins her work as arrangements that exaggerate nature and I couldn’t love her work (or her for that matter) any more. She always knows exactly how to take a space from good to whoooa. That gorgeous white tablecloth you see in all these photos? That was sewn by Joan Daly, who oozes creativity and can do anything from writing to sewing to styling to painting. A Joan of All Trades, if you will.
When everyone arrived to our host Victoria Storm’s immaculately preserved 1970s home, they were greeted by an impressive table filled with appetizers and a custom cocktail.
One of our event chefs Andrea Francisco runs Farm to Feelings and made Fresh Crudités Platters with White Bean Dip, Tomato Confit Crostinis with Burrata, and thoughtfully placed a medley of olives in a few rooms. I am pretty sure I consumed at least 50% of the bowl of white bean dip. Kylie Cohu was our in-house mixologist for the night. She made everyone a classic summery Aperol Spritz, garnished with buzz buttons. This edible flower, when consumed, creates a sensation in your mouth somewhere between a pop rock and the numb feeling you get at the dentist for about five minutes. It was wild. Everyone loved it, I thought I was dying, but SPOILER ALERT somehow I made it to the other side and survived and now I know a cool party trick.
You’ll notice that the cocktails are in beautiful aqua and sage tumblers in the photos below. Those vessels were an offering from another dinner attendee, Emily Bradley. She recently launched her own dinnerware rental company Soluca Collections, specializing in plates and glassware to create one-of-a-kind tablescapes for intimate events.
Everyone grazed and sipped.
Then we all made our way into Victoria’s epic mirror lined living room where founder of Don’t Let Disco, Ashley Harris led everyone through a meditative beading exercise. Keeping in theme with STORIES, she encouraged everyone to choose beads and words that represented them or helped tell a story. Everyone’s bracelet or necklace creation was unique to them, making their individual pieces special.
Then it was portrait time.
With adorned wrists and necks, we all made our way outside where I snapped photos of everyone. As always, documenting the night was my role and contribution. When I started doing these dinners, I knew I wanted to include time where everyone would have their portrait taken. I’ve found that it’s rare to be in a beautiful environment where someone can capture a photo of me that I actually like. Sometimes there’s a “booth” at an event or work brings someone in to take generic headshots for LinkedIn, but it’s not often you get a heads up and can wear something or pose in a way that’s truly you. The purpose of this time is to capture the essence of everyone and to get a photo they’ll actually love and feel proud to use. Thank you to Kirsten for snapping mine!
After portraits, we all took our respective places around the dinner table, did a collective “cheers!” and dove into dinner.
Wines were provided by Josh and Tiffany Prenot, a husband and wife team who run a winery in CA called Locale. With dinner we had their 2020 Rosé of Pinot Noir Nº2, Mendocino Ridge. With dessert we had their 2020 Carignan Nº1, Mendocino Ridge. Both were light, delicious, and made for a perfect pairing.
Our dinner menu was crafted by Andrea, mentioned above, Nikki Krecicki, who runs Provisions NYC, and Shadey Laguna. Andrea handled the salads, Nikki tackled the main course, and Shadey made our scrumptious dessert as well as take home favors that everyone grabbed on their way out the door. To start, we had Peach Panzanella and Citrus Fennel Salads. Our entrée consisted of several different pizza pies: Pepperoni and Hot Honey with Basil, Goat Cheese White Pie with Peaches, Proscuitto and Honey, Farmer’s Market Pesto Pie, and Cherry Tomato, Arugula and Pecorino. We ended on a sweet note with Tiramisu Truffles and Olive Oil Cake and everyone took home cookies that had a citrus glaze, pistachio and edible flowers on them… ridiculous, really.
At every single Create Dinners events, intentional questions play a vital role.
These gentle prompts take the event from an every day pretty gathering to one that connects everyone on a deeper level. One of our attendees, Jennie Putvin, is a designer and runs her own letterpress company called Nane Press. For Dinner No. 14, she made accordian style menus held together by a belly band, tying in the light blue from our color palette. They were chef’s kiss perfection! On the last page of the menu, she included the questions. Once everyone had finished most of their meal, everyone chose two questions to answer and we went around the table sharing. There were laughs, tears, fears and truths shared about how real impostor syndrome can feel sometimes, support, and friendships forged. This is always my favorite part of any dinner.
As the end of our time together started to near, we were gifted with spoken word by one of our attendees.
Brielle Webb read The Woman Who Turned Down A Date With A Cherry Farmer. Brielle is a talented actor and content creator and her reading was the best way we could end our night! Perfectly on theme too, as we were literally surrounded by cherries and tomatoes.
If this recap was not enough for you to feel like you were there with us, you’re in luck because our final attendee and founder of Joy Soldier, Sarah Wood ran our Instagram for the night and created a thoughtful Instagram Story that we can watch over and over to be reminded of this night. You can check it out on our Create Dinners IG in the No. 14 Highlight.
Thank you again and again to the amazing women who made this dinner comeback so wonderful. We’ve got another dinner coming up in Rhode Island in just over a month and I’m so excited to do it all over. If you have any interested in joining that dinner, you can apply HERE. Until then, I’ll be living off this Italian high… cheers, friends!