L’esprit de la mer, the spirit of the sea. In a field in Tennessee. For this Kinfolk dinner myself and my co-host Rebekka Seale along with our amazing partners & crew of helpers channeled the wind, salt, and laissez faire of the sea for the May Kinfolk dinner here in Nashville, TN. I’d only just flew in from Lisbon a few days prior, and I couldn’t have even begun to pull this together without the amazing family of creatives I’ve found in Nashville. You are all amazing, and this was by far one of my favorite events I’ve ever styled & hosted. Click through to see the final product in all it’s simplicity & beauty.
After putting our heads together to come up with a menu that both invoked the fruits of the Gulf and the verdant bounty of spring in Tennessee, Evie of Twelve at the Table along with Hannah of Nothing but Delicious cooked the brilliant meal that graced the table that night.
A meal of everything from fragrant bass en papillote from Boone and Sons to West Indies crab salad with homemade saltines to buttermilk chamomile panna cotta with salted Swedish dream cookies alongside craft cocktails made with the infused spirits of Art in the Age. And plenty of oysters on the half shell. Rebekka (who aside from doing a million other things, also handmade & dyed the grey linens for our table) and I wouldn’t have it any other way; we both possess that special brand of religiosity that oyster lovers have.
They catered the dinner with an ease I think you could taste in the food. We served it all on beautiful ceramics that echoed the shells of the sea made by Handmade Studio TN & wood boards from Board and Bread around a low table built specially for us by Handy Dandy Productions and surrounded with sheepskins and globe lights from prop mavens The House Nashville. Everyone worked so hard.
Tara Hurst designed our menus; they were so beautiful I about lost my breath when I opened them. I saved them. The girls from Consider the Wildflowers created beautiful bouquets that dripped like seaweed from an old barn ladder and spindly silver dollar eucalyptus for our table & garlands. All of it came together in front of the barn at The Farm on Eastland (an amazing space you can rent on Air BnB), and I couldn’t ever forget the men & women who always show up and work doing anything and everything: The Solution Girl, Lisa, Ruthie, Manley, and Stephen. Thank you, you were the backbone of this dinner.
A million thank you’s. And other than my profuse thanks & urging you to check out the work of each of these amazing humans, I’m going thank the reason for it all: our guests. It was so great to meet you all, and I hope our paths have reason to cross again. Now I’m going to let the photos of this event speak for me. I hope you find inspiration for your next gathering, big or small. And again, agian: Thank you Nashville family & Kinfolk family. So happy to know you all.
The next Kinfolk dinner we’ll be hosting in Nashville will be in October, and tickets will go on sale a month in advance, so keep your ear to the ground if you missed this one!
