"one cook, one musician, one artist. one dinner. the new guard is a
series to fête the up-and-coming, the rising—not the fleeting, but the
arrival—of a new legion of creators." hopegrocery.com
I had such an amazing time last month at The New Guard's dinner (which took
place October 29th in Capitol Hill, with Eliot Guthrie, Kate Tucker, and Gala Bent) that I wanted to hear all about how
this project had come together from the people behind it, the curators themselves. So I asked local Seattle artist
Joey Veltkamp, photographer Sarah Jurado (who was/still is in Europe with Damien Jurado, on tour)
and fabulous Whitney Ricketts to share impressions about this exciting venture.
How did the idea for The New Guard came about?
Joey: This was Whitney's idea.
ALL Whitney! And if she tries to say otherwise, she's fooling you! I
believe her primary inspiration was Hebb's one pot dinners and also her
desire to throw fantastic parties. At a certain point, she realized
that (for her vision) something was missing - art. So she pulled in
Damien and Sarah to curate music and pulled me in to select artists.
Sarah: Whitney can speak to
how it was FIRST born, but she and I met for lunch more than 6 months
ago at Fresh Bistro and began to talk planning. I immediately jumped
at the chance to have us Jurados participate. We spent ages talking
about our favorite bands + who we'd like to include. As I try to
answer, I realize that Whitney is a MUCH better mouthpiece + source of
info on all these points... care to chime in, sweet Whit?
Whitney:
I have a lot of friends that work in kitchens, both as chefs and as
cooks, and we're blessed with so much talent here -- and a lot of shiny
press coverage of that talent. I became increasingly interested in the
people working behind the scenes -- the kids who will have their own
restaurants and be on those magazine covers in the next five years, if
not three or two or one. The project was born out of a desire to
celebrate the unseen talent, the potential, the undiscovered.
Michael
Hebb, the one pot guy (and
Sorrento, and
Vita... etc), is a big person
in my life. I've worked with him and
one pot and
songs for eating and drinking for the past three years, and I think that's apparent to anyone who hears about the
new guard.
The parallels are certainly not to be downplayed. It's the same basic
idea: food on tables, art, music, gathering. Michael really made me
fall in love with dreaming up ways to put a group of people around a
table and show them weird shit. Some of my favorite memories involve
sitting at a bar, or on a porch, or in a restaurant, plotting with
Michael. we still do that. Michael taught me to dream big and weird and
unabashedly.
I started talking about "the
new guard"
last year, loosely using the term to describe cooks I saw and heard
doing great work. I have no horse in the restaurant race, and arguably
no qualifications for selecting cooks. I just spend a lot of time in
restaurants, and have a lot of friends who work in restaurants -- and
no idea which came first. I started toying with the idea of doing a
dinner series, a practice familiar to me from all my nights setting one
pot tables. I approached Joey and Sarah and Damien, three people I
really consider to be both connectors and very, very talented. Joey and
I often have long Saturday summits over brunch at Smith, and one
morning, I asked him if he'd entertain curating the art side of a
dinner project. Fittingly, I met him two years ago at a one pot with
implied violence; he was sketching the evening. Joey's an amazing
artist; I'm having him design a tattoo for me so I'll have an original Joey Veltkamp piece on me forever, that's how much I love his work and
trust his aesthetic. my favorite thing about Joey is that he's not at
all insular; he wants to include everyone, and he's made a very rich
life doing that. I met
Sarah and Damien Jurado through my dear friend
Jamie Spiess (who plays under the name
Husbands, Love Your Wives) a
while back. Damien's been a mentor to Jamie, and to so many people in
music here, and his wife and manager, Sarah, is the most angelic,
talented person. I grabbed lunch with Sarah on a bright sunny day in
the summer and asked if she and Damien might be interested in doing the
music arm of the dinner project. She said yes and then all of a sudden,
this little bird of a dream took flight.
What is the motivation behind it?
Joey:
The primary idea behind The New Guard is to recognize the talents of
the up-and-comers. Not the current establishment, but folks who are
just emerging to become tomorrow's industry leaders.
Sarah: There's SO MUCH
talent in Seattle, some of which gets a lot of press and attention,
some of which is just waiting to come into view. Our New Guard
dinner/art/music series gives us the chance to bring to light the next
wave of creativity the city has to offer.
Whitney:
The motivation, I think for all of us (Joey, Sarah, Damien and me) is
to expose others to things we're excited about. Joel Cox cooked the
first dinner. He's one of my closest friends, and coincidentally
happens to be a great cook -- he trained with Dario Cecchini in Italy,
works on a farm on Vashon on Sundays, and makes the most beautiful,
delicate pasta by hand. He was the pasta guy for Spinasse for 9 months,
from November of 2008 until he left in July. Joel is an example of what
I wanted to highlight: here is this 25-year-old kid with amazing
discipline, a great attitude, who is very aware of the skills he wants
to acquire before he has his own restaurant. And he's worked in some of
Seattle's best already:
Spinasse,
Lark,
Corson (Building).
Why Hope Grocery? What does it mean?
Joey:
As I understand it, Hope Grocery is the domain name Whit and Michael
selected for a future project. Since it wasn't being used, she co-opted
it for the New Guard dinners.
Sarah: Whitney is the event's heart and sou land visionary. She can probably answer many things even better than I can!
Whitney:
Hope Grocery is the name of my production company. I wanted to give it
a place name, something hokey, but something also having to do with
food. I came up with the name in the car on the way to the coast with
my family, and they ridiculed it the entire trip, but I wouldn't give
it up. It's corny. I'm corny, and sentimental, and gushy. The name
fits. The New Guard is
entirely not for profit -- we lost money on the first one, broke even
on the second. we don't make any money from it, and that's on purpose
to make it affordable; the dinners are zany, warm, frenetic -- like an
evening with your eccentric family.
What can we expect of Hope Grocery/The New Guard in future?
Joey:
It's a pretty loose structure, but I hope this continues for at least a
year. From a curatorial perspective, it's a real fun challenge. The
first focus for me is always, "Who embodies the spirit of New Guard?".
After that I'm curious about the location. If the dinner is going to be
held in an airplane hangar (and we're hoping one will), delicate
drawings won't work. We'll need something loud and big and sculptural!
The next consideration is who are the other collaborators? We don't
want a disparate mishmash. We want to build thoughtful, well-considered
relationships between it all. I really view it as four elements -
music, food, art + space. Also, there's a particular artist I'd like to
show who does beautiful rococo drawings of animal parts (like tongues,
etc) and so we might end up doing an offal dinner (for the adventurous).
Sarah: The show is about to
start here and I'm at a loss for words that do the event justice. We
haven't confirmed November, but we're looking forward to having
Katharine Hepburn's Voice very soon... if not this month, then the next!
Whitney:
We'll be doing dinners every month for the unforeseeable future. The
next chef lined up to cook is
Brian Cartenuto from Cantinetta. He's a
departure, somewhat, from the "behind-the-scenes" mold. Here's this kid
from Florida, by way of a tenure cooking on cruise ships and some time
in NYC and DC, who walked into his own restaurant in Seattle. He's a
friendly, schmaltzy, schmoozer of a guy -- "discovered" in the way that
he has his own restaurant, but he's still the
new
kid in town.
Cantinetta is an Italian restaurant, but Brian's dinner
will be entirely french, something I asked him to do, because his
training has been mostly in French food, and he loves to talk about it,
so I want him to show us what he's got.
Dana Cree (from
Poppy) will
cook the dinner after Brian's -- she's going to make deconstructed
holiday food, to toy with the nostalgia and other emotions entangled in
the tradition of thanksgiving and Christmas dining. Other cooks lined
up include
Tyler Palagi from
Spring Hill and
Josh Henderson from
Skillet. I'm really excited to see what sort of dinner food Josh will
make, seeing as he's created an empire serving lunch out of an
Airstream trailer. I've seen potential menus. That man is talented!
Any other thoughts?
Joey:
This has really become my favorite project to be a part of. Outside of
working with Sarah/Damien and Whitney (who are all pure gold!), it
fosters this community spirit of love that I just can't get it enough.
They really do feel like they're nourishing the body and soul, as
cliche as that sounds. And people seem real hungry for that right now.
Sarah: Thank you so much for your support of our 'baby' -
I literally feel like a proud parent. It's all a labor of love for us,
and it's an honor to see it recognized.
Whitney: Regarding Hope Grocery, I'm toying with some other
ideas to fall under the umbrella -- maybe a pr/consulting wing, maybe
some literary journal projects. The next event will take place November 22.
For more information contact: thenewguard@hopegrocery.com
