I love having dinner parties, but I have a bad habit of planning them at the very last minute. It’ll be around 2 P.M. on a Saturday, and all of a sudden I’ll decide that I need to have people over, like, now. I start texting folks (we’re talking ten to twelve people, usually) before I realize that my house is a total disaster and I have zero food to feed them. Luckily, I am a fast cleaner, a whiz in the grocery store, and—most important—I’m inviting my friends. They already know I’m disorganized and insane.
I finally hosted my first official “supper club” last year, which is essentially a pop-up restaurant. It was in my friend James Tucker’s letterpress shop in San Francisco’s Mission District, surrounded by three-thousand-pound German Heidelberg presses. It was a five-course raw vegan dinner for fifty people. I had helpers that day, but I did all the prep myself—the decorations, the photo booth props (cardboard cutouts shaped like pieces of fruit), and, of course, all the food.
I made a wall installation out of dahlias from my parents’ garden, and put more on the tables. I made a rose water face spray that said “spray on your neighbor,” which we put on the tables to encourage conversation. (In hindsight, that was super weird, but so fun.) Both of my older sisters, my parents, and my grandma came (my grandma took a photo with her head in the grapes cardboard cutout!).
It was insane, but amazing. And just like my parties, my party food is fun, colorful, and able to roll with the punches. Just ask Grandma!
