How to Host a Produce Party
or: the beauty of a tradition you made up for yourself
If you regularly read this blog or follow me on social media, you may have noticed that I have a perennial fascination with the passage of time. Years, seasons, sunlight, flowers, vegetables: I watch the shifts, I rejoice and mourn through various cycles.
No matter what I do or how attentive I’ve been, I find myself grasping. It doesn’t make me feel better to have taken 100 photos of my peonies or that I purchased and ate almost 25 pounds of peaches, because they are gone and now I miss them. I am not happily resigned to the shortening of days simply because I noted most evenings how late the light lingered and how lovely it was. On and on.
Produce Parties are my answer to this: a gathering of friends to celebrate seasons as they come to a close, an annual feast with food as the focus. It started with Summer, with my aforementioned grief at the end of peach season. And, on that magical first evening, I realized I wanted to do this every year forever; all traditions start somewhere, and you can simply decide on yours and proceed as though it’s a given.
My contributions to this year’s produce party: cornmeal cake with peach filling, an apple and caramelized onion galette, a street-corn-inspired pasta salad, and a zucchini and tomato salad with a spicy fish sauce dressing
All traditions start somewhere; you can simply decide on yours and proceed as though it’s a given
Here are the critical ingredients for an excellent produce party as I see it:
Foodie Friends. I don’t mean to be rude, but the invite list is critical. This is not the ideal party for your friend who burns water. You want the guy who is growing tomatoes on his balcony and the lady who is focused on “elevating the every day.” You want adventurous eaters. The food is the point! They need to bring great food! And (this one is a bit squishier): it’s very nice if the group includes people who are as charmed by the idea as you are, not ones that are mostly showing up because they had no better plans
Plenty of Advanced Notice: This is not exclusive to produce parties, but I try to send out invites 4-6 weeks in advance. I am the queen of the Canva invite: cheesy, but easy! I text them out to friends so everyone has the same info and a reminder of what foods are seasonally appropriate
Good Notes: I keep a note on my phone to keep track of who I’ve invited, their response, and ideas for what recipes I might make as they occur to me or I spot them in a cookbook. Also in the note is a drafted reminder text, which I re-use with slight modifications every year: I send a group text a few days before the party to remind everyone of the start time, let them know what we’ll be making, and give people the opportunity to coordinate food items so we don’t end up with 3 burrata and tomato dishes. Keeping these all in one place on my phone makes the annual coordination lift lighter:
Presenting the Dishes: With potlucks, it’s easy to have a rolling start to the party and dishes added to the pile as people arrive. But that is not how I prefer to run these parties, because I truly want us to celebrate the food. So I try to get everyone there at the same time to do what I call The Presenting of the Dishes: everyone introduces themselves and explains in detail what they brought. It adds a bit of ceremony, and it’s also great for accommodating food sensitivities and allergies.
The Host Should be Spectacular: I feel, pretty sincerely, that I should always have several of the best dishes in the spread. Not to be competitive (I’m thrilled when there are better dishes than mine), but because I want to set the tone and elevate everything. I usually make at least 3 or 4 dishes: one dessert, one filling item (pasta salad, usually), and two things that just felt right to me (usually 1 tart/galette and 1 creative salad). The host has the benefit of their food not having to travel, so I try to take advantage of that.
A Source of Inspiration: I always remind people that I have more ideas than I can use and that they should ask me if they need one. Many people love to participate, but don’t have the bandwidth to go digging for a novel way to use zucchini. I’ve been working on building a Pinterest board with inspiration for each party type.
Vibe Curation: I am aiming for a specific vibe: this is not a cookout, but it’s also not a Dinner Party. It’s intentionally elevated just a touch past what would be easiest to execute: there is a flower arrangement, music is playing, the fridge is stocked with sparkling waters and specialty sodas, the dishes are melamine instead of paper, we’re using our normal flatware, my dishes are presented as beautifully as I can manage. You are comfortable and welcome, but you also feel like you’re part of something special and a touch magical. All of this is On Purpose.
Winding Down: I’ve hosted enough now to know that one of my favorite parts is indulging the lingering. When most of the crowd has headed home for the evening, there are using 6-10 friends who remain, often our closest friends. We’ll light a fire, sit in the dark outside, and talk for an hour or two. It’s nice to have a plan and a place for this.
