This past Sunday afternoon we celebrated the MoMA PS1 Salad Garden with a beautiful sunset reception. My goal for the event was to make the majority of the food using herbs and plants from the garden itself, highlighting what is in season right now. This meant an incredible amount of pesto, herb salad and infused honey. My kitchen has still not fully recovered.

For me, the party was as much a celebration of beautiful green space that Camilla Hammer and I have toiled over for the last few months, as it was a celebration of the incredibly generous and talented people in my life who are always willing to lend a hand. This includes old friends like Sean Dinman from Sea2Table  (Sean made killer Salmon Roll sandwiches) and new friends like Nicole Baum from Gotham Greens and Erin Zimmer from Good Eggs Brooklyn who donated extra produce to fill in the menu (recipes to come). Somehow, food and gardening never cease to bring people together and foster new friendships. It’s corny, I know, but really, what more do you want from life?

One of the most exciting parts of the evening was the drink program, ingeniously dreamt up by Arley Marks and Daniel Kent. Using Greenhook Ginsmith Gin and Industry Standard Vodka, Arley and Danny made 12 unique infusions with herbs and botanicals found in the rooftop garden. They included coriander berry, shiso, spilanthes, red veined celery and lemon verbena. Danny mixed these with a bespoke vermouth made from the PS1 herbs as well, and served up the most unique martinis I have ever had. For those who did not partake of straight-up martinis on a Sunday afternoon, my friends Joe and Lauren Grimm of Grimm Ales brought some of their small batch artisinal beer, and Sixpoint generously donated beer as well. Let’s just say nobody was thirsty…

I will be posting my recipe for the Thai pesto I made using our very prolific Thai basil, Thai chilis and peanuts. It was really quite special. Luckily, Aesop donated tiny bottles of mouthwash for the guests to take home on their way out. A practical and welcome party favor indeed.

Special thanks to all the sponsors for the event:

Gotham Greens, Good Eggs Brooklyn, Sixpoint Brewery, Grimm Ales, Aesoop, Sea2Table, Bambu, Sullivan Street Bakery, Brooklyn Brine, Ronnybrook Farms and Zoe Olive Oil

And very special thanks and love to the dear friends without whom this would not have been possible:

Vivan Thi Tang, Katie Akana, Camilla Hammer, Carolina Sontos-Nieves, Anahita Tajmahir, Ashley Palucci, Adam Katz, Bethany Obrecht, Zachary Bowman, Eleanor McKinney, Mia Locks, Nina Damato  and of course MoMA PS1.