Have fun, even if it's not the same kind of fun you are used to otherwise.
A breakdown of our first curated dinner experience, celebrating uncertainty
Sabah and I, aren't strangers when it comes to hosting gatherings and throwing dinner parties. Especially in the last few years, living through a pandemic, made us realize celebrating small moments with our close ones is precious, which incidentally led us to host many more intimate gatherings.
That made us want to evolve these evenings; for them to be beyond celebrating good food, decor, and company. We wanted to curate an experience and blend many more forms of art in one gathering, which led to our first curated dinner experience with my dear friend and talented chef, Sofia Gnabasik. Here goes the beautiful journey.
The Theme :
We wanted the theme to be personal and true to our lives and personalities. The more we pondered, spoke, and debated about the common grounds for the theme, we realized that 'living through uncertainty was not a concept that only we resonated with, but everyone could relate to.
As unfortunate as it is, uncertainty has been the most impartial phenomenon in the last few years. Living through a long-lasting pandemic, every single human being has been forced to face it and cope with it on different scales and volumes. With the number of changes and adjustments that we have had to make that cater to a lifestyle suitable for Covid-19, having a knot of uncertainty in our stomaches is normalized exuberantly.
But have we once taken a moment to pat our backs for doing our best to tackle the last three years, for constantly adapting, and in some cases kicking uncertainty's ass? Not really. And that's exactly what we wanted this dinner to be about, to celebrate our courage, and to celebrate how we dealt or are still dealing with this fragile concept of uncertainty.
We translated the above theme into the dining experience, the art direction of the evening, and the menu for the evening.
The Experience :
The invite was decently vague, not giving out the many except the necessary details of the evening. The seating arrangement was intentional, where strangers(later friends) were expected to be seated next to each other.
Upon being seated, the guests were informed that every individual had a set menu of 5 courses. We then surprised them by informing them that no one would get the same order of the courses. Each person had a personalized order of courses, in simpler words, Person A could be having dessert as the first course whereas Person B would be starting with the salad for the first course.
This random and personalized order of courses for us represented our uncertain life patterns at the moment. Traditionally in every culture, a meal starts with something small, goes on to something more substantial, and then eventually ends with something sweet. The pandemic broke all traditional patterns of functioning and living and provided strange patterns to us, in subjective and personal ways.
It further got more interesting when we informed our guests that not only would they not know what were they being served next, but also that they had the choice of asking anyone at the table to exchange dishes, at the expense of this offer being accepted or rejected.
This transaction for us continued to translate how we as individuals have been constantly expected to go out of our comfort zone to try new things or seek our old and comfortable patterns, with no guarantee of the outcome.
The exchanges of dishes and the whole experience prompted multiple laughs and conversations that were light, personal, beautifully exuberating, and celebratory.
The Art direction :
Bubblewrap played the role of the main protagonist, found in abundance as the table cloth and wrapping material for all the seats. Bubble wrap for me has multiple metaphorical meanings, significant to the theme, the first being that it provides temporary protection.
When you wrap something, let's say a glass with bubble wrap, you provide it with temporary protection, meaning if you roll the wrapped glass on the floor, it will stay intact without scratches, but if you take the same wrapped glass and throw it against the wall, there is no guarantee that it won't break. This resonates with us coping with a pandemic. Consciously or subconsciously we all have bubble-wrapped ourselves, with the hope of providing temporary protection from the constant life-altering changes that have been thrown at us.
Bubble wrap is also equivalent to a stress ball to some extent, aimlessly bursting bubbles only provides some form of relief. The evening was full of surprises and unexpected patterns, we wanted to provide our guests with something that would be unconsciously a stress buster.
The theme further was artistically translated in making the entrance, which was a pleasant but uncomfortable narrow path to the dinner table. The candles and the flowers made it a warm welcoming, but the narrowness of walking to the dinner table, not knowing what the evening had in store, the emotion of walking on eggshells was intended to be evoked, something that has been normalized in our daily lives for the last 3 years.
The main stationery provided for the evening read, "I don't know how to cope with uncertainty" which was personally scratched and written over with "I am learning to cope with uncertainty" and "I can cope with uncertainty" showing multiple phases of us dealing with this concept.
In the smaller details of the evening, from the broken eggs in egg crates as candle holders, to the wilted flowers and fragile packing paper, every element used to set the table represented fragility in different spectrums.
The Menu :
The menu consisted of five courses each of which representing the theme of uncertainty in its own way. From the ingredients, the preparation, to the plating, every aspect of the menu translated the theme by putting fragility in the limelight.
The first course was a layered beet, blood orange and goat cheese salad which immediately collapsed upon being eaten to transmit a sense of fragility and instability. The salad was then followed by a celery root and cauliflower purée served with a poached egg and pickled fennel. This plate combined several contrasting flavors, namely the richness of the purée with the tanginess of the fennel, which all blended together with the runny egg yolk to create an unexpected combination in the mouth. The following course, a burst cherry tomato tarte tatin, represented uncertainty throughout the cooking process which involves baking the dish upside down and flipping it over when ready to serve. There is no way to predict exactly how this dish will come out and one must trust in the unknown that everything will turn out ok. To conclude the savory menu, Sofia prepared a pesto patitsio to represent the illusion of holding it all together on the surface when underneath is a tangled mess of loose ends. Finally for dessert, we served a matcha dark chocolate coulant which when pierced with the fork oozed runny matcha ganache to represent the fluidity of the moment.
In conclusion :
Take a moment to pat your back because the last three years haven’t been easy regardless of the scale of uncertainty you dealt with. Celebrate your efforts and bravery
Concept, Art direction and Story telling : Two Odd, Akshita Garud
Chef : Sofia Gnabasik
Words : Akshita Garud