The Summer I Ate At Home
Conrad Caviar, Cousins' Lemon Chicken, and Broken-Heart Cookies. Plus, a printable invite for your end-of-summer party!
Summer is my very favorite season, and I hold on to it as long as I can. I can cozy up for fall, I can enjoy a foamy cup of tea over some classic Christmas songs, but I feel like myself most when the sun is out and a body of water is nearby.
Alas, the New York air has become cooler, and I finally had to admit that summer is ending. But I wanted to do something summer-y one more time before the wool jackets come out. So I invited friends over for a dinner party as a last-ditch effort to mark the end of my first summer in the city.
When I plan a menu for a dinner party, I like to theme it. Even if I am the only one who knows the theme, I like to draw ideas from something that has inspired me. I feel like choosing a story, theme, or color helps me craft a dinner narrative. Like…how and why do certain dishes go together? I’m confident that in culinary school they teach you the science of it. But for my much more design-forward brain, I use cooking and hosting as a creative outlet foremost. So I approach a dinner menu with the same mind I do a color palette…what story am I telling?
I landed on Cousins Beach, the fictional New England setting from the dramatic show about high schoolers that has us all in some grip, The Summer I Turned Pretty. It just feels like summer, and that was my goal.
I used key food moments from the show, like Conrad making plain chicken or the scene at a peach stand, to craft my own menu inspired by the narrative. After I identified the food I noticed throughout the story, I made my own creative decisions on how to best prepare them to pair together. When I say you can be the creative director of your home, this is the exact kind of project I’m talking about!
You can choose any story, movie, or book that has inspired you, and blend that inspiration into something like a meal. You don’t have to wait for a dinner party either; you could just do this for whoever you live with on a random Tuesday. You have to eat anyway, might as well make it an opportunity to exercise creativity!
I loved how this menu came out, and wanted to share it this week for two purposes:
The season finale of the show is out on Wednesday, and this could be a spectacular creative help to anyone hosting a watch party. So we’ve made an invite template you can use to type in your own info and send to friends to invite them over! (The design is based on the wallpaper in Belly’s room!)
You are trying to have one more summer hoopla and need some delicious recipes that scream summer and pair well together. Boy, do I have a menu for you! Fall is upon us, summer lovers, we must embrace the lemons and peaches one last time!
This guide includes everything a host would need: an invite template you can completely customize and recipes for the following:
Conrad Caviar: A summer-forward take on cowboy caviar
Cousins’ Lemon Chicken: my favorite way to serve chicken
Peach & Spinach Salad: a crunchy and bright seasonal taste
Broken Heart Cookies: sugar cookies that feel like a hug
First, here is the custom-designed invite template for supporting subscribers! All you need is a free Canva account, and you can type in your own info and save the image. It’s easy to print or just send the image via text to your invite list.
You could also use the design as a menu, if you wanted to print it out and have it on plates for your guests! As always, if you use it at your party, tag me in the picture! I want to see and share with Feeling! readers.