We threw a party at LA's historic Grand Central Market last night to celebrate the publication of cookbook author Kevin West's Saving the Season: A Cook's Guide to Home Canning, Pickling, and Preserving
Bon Appetit editor-in-chief Adam Rapoport with Band of Outsiders VP of Marketing and Communications Nicole Cari and designer Scott Sternberg and West
Pabst Blue Ribbon beer on tap came in--what else?--Mason jars
Stylist Ezra Woods (second from left) with friends Grant Sharp, Laurence Goldberg and Nina Miner
Art collector Rosette Delug and the Hammer Museum's David Morehouse get their tie-dye on
Actress and model China Chow plays tough with Sternberg
And she gives West a smooch
Clover Clubs made with apricot jelly
Producer Alan Hergott and Thomas Keller's wife Laura Cunningham
Actress Nathalie Love looking lovely
Conserv Fuel CEO Kris Moller and Vogue's West Coast Fashion Editor at Lawren Howell
We had to include this closeup of Howell's shoes...
No party is complete until someone pulls out an instrument
West and filmmaker Liz Goldwyn
Artist Doug Aitken and writer Bret Easton Ellis
Filmmaker Zoe Cassavetes and actor Philip Pavel
Place cards and pickles
Florist Louesa Roebuck made large-scale installations of wild and foraged plant material
Toasts with shaved Benton's country ham, stewed wild greens and pickled ramps
Deviled eggs
Rapoport and Sternberg address the crowd
Stylist Jessica De Ruiter
Actress Aly Michalka talks with director Stephen Ringer
Dinner was family-style BBQ
Sternberg and Lisa Love, Senior West Coast Editor of Vogue get down with BBQ sauce
Dessert: buttermilk biscuits straight from the oven
The biscuits were served with homemade cultured butter and pint jars of Blenheim apricot jam and blackberry jam with Bandol
Chef Scott Peacock, the man behind the biscuits, traveled from Alabama just for the event
Hammer Museum's Ann Philbin and interior designer Paul Fortune have a chat
Guests left with tote bags filled with West's jam and his book
(Credit: Stefanie Keenan Photography)
Two years ago, Kevin West hosted a preservation party in the Hollywood Hills for Bon Appetit. With his friends and fellow pickle partisans, he showed us the skills he'd picked up in his years-long quest to perfect the preservative arts, as chronicled in his long-running blog, Saving the Season.
And last night, his Saving the Season cookbook (which could also qualify as an essay collection, or a photo portfolio, and is, per John Jeremiah Sullivan, "literate and lyrical and fanatically well researched") finally came out. And we, of course, returned his favor from two years back, and threw him a party ourselves.
The setting was L.A.'s historic Grand Central Market, the food was by Horse Thief BBQ, a spot that's opening up at the GCM in the next couple of weeks, and the drinks came courtesy of Bulleit Bourbon. Scott Peacock, the world-class Southern chef and author, jetted in from Alabama just to make his own hot, fresh biscuits for the party (and then turned right back around to catch a redeye home!). And Band of Outsiders, whose Scott Sternberg is a buddy of both West's and Bon Appetit's, supplied the custom tote bags--perfect for carrying home a copy of Saving the Season, the newest issue of BA, and a jar of West's best marmalade.
Check out the photos from the night above--and West's book, too!
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