Luncheon at Neuman's Kitchen

On Saturday, Victory Club hosted a luncheon in the tasting room above Neuman's Kitchen on the Lower East Side. 

Members and guests enjoying lunch

Neuman's Kitchen is a catering company that inspires people through its artistic and delicious fare. The hors d'oeuvres are gorgeous and high concept; the menus are seasonal and thoughtful; and the serving pieces are innovative and highly functional. Everyone who works at Neuman's Kitchen considers details. This kind of thinking trickles down from the top; Paul Neuman, who founded the business thirty years ago, is himself an artist who incorporates his sense of aesthetics into the food for which the company is known. 

Paul Neuman giving the context around his career, how his family's fish business combined with his passion for making art, led to his creative catering business.

Growing up, Paul Neuman worked in his family's fish business and then went to art school. In his talk, he explained how work at Neuman's Kitchen and in his studio are respectively influenced by his passion for the visual and culinary arts. His discussion generated a rich conversation that kept the group engaged until the early evening. Moreover, the centerpieces on the table were little sculptures Paul designed to hold crudités, and the dining room included many of his pieces. 

Little sculptures that hold crudités, designed by Paul Neuman

The food itself was superlative. As the event was a collaboration, Victory Club and Neuman's Kitchen divvied up the dishes. 

Neuman's Kitchen's Adam Starowicz, who has worked at Momofuku Ko and Mas Farmhouse, took on the hors d'oevures and desserts.

Beet chips

Miniature lobster rolls, served on a platter designed by Paul Neuman

Vanilla Panna Cotta with Mint Purée, Earl Grey Meringue, Vanilla Gel, and Berries

Victory Club founder, Stephanie Nass, took on the appetizer and main course.

Chilled Asparagus Soup garnished with Crispy Onions, Fiddlehead Ferns, and Edible Flower Petals

Stephanie Nass plating the asparagus soup

Moulard Duck Breast with Rhubard Purée and Leeks à l'Anglaise

After lunch was served, guests lingered. And lingered :) 

To find out how you can get in the Victory Club mix, click here. 

An Afternoon with Mark Kostabi

Mark Kostabi has work in the Met, MoMA, and Guggenheim permanent collections. He did the album covers for Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion and The Ramones' ¡Adios_Amigos!. He has collaborated with Swatch, San Pellegrino, and Alessi on products. He is an accomplished music composer who has played concerts all over the world. On Saturday, he hosted Victory Club members and their guests to "Kostabi World" for a luncheon of rosé and Roman fare.

The Studio at Kostabi World, including the "Sexting" painting that was the most popular one among the group :) 

The afternoon began with Mark leading a studio tour. He walked the group of Victory Club members and guests through his four story townhouse, presenting his range of work and answering questions along the way. 

Mark showing his drawings to members and guests. 

Mark Kostabi posing in front of his work. 

After the studio tour, the group convened for lunch. Mark and Victory Club founder, Stephanie Nass, together chose all of the menu items to highlight the Italian influence on his art. 

Mark Kostabi spends half the year working in Rome, Italy. He and Stephanie Nass selected his favorite Roman dishes for the event, and he helped decorate the menus. 

Tiramisù was for dessert. It was topped by a chocolate Victory Club seal. 

After lunch, the group moved to the roof to enjoy the warm weather. 

The afternoon concluded (and culminated) with of Mark performing some of his original piano compositions.

To find out how you can get in the Victory Club mix, click here. 

Michael's of New York

Yesterday in the Garden Room at Michael's of New York, members and guests gathered for a conversation and luncheon around the restaurant's art collection. Michael McCarty, the restaurant's (and art collection's) proprietor, gave a tour of the restaurant collection, which boasts works by Jasper Johns, David Hockney, Frank Stella, Helen Frankenthaler, and so many other greats. Most special about the tour was having Kim McCarty be a part. A number of her own works feature in the restaurant. She spoke to the group about her creative process and inspiration. She has a show coming up this May at the Morgan Lehman Gallery. 

The setting of the event was gorgeous - the daffodils were poking out outside the room's floor-to-ceiling windows, and the weather was perfect. 

The event was also the debut of Victory Club's embroidered bespoke napkin line. You can learn more about ordering and designing here. 

Everyone had a wonderful time. In no small part due to the amazing menu... Seasonally inspired and perennially delicious, Chef Kyung Up Lim wowed us. 

Victory Club menu at Michael's

Hanger Steak

Cookies

London Pop-Up

On Friday night, Victory Club did its first pop-up outside of New York City: an apératif at Frameless Gallery in Central London celebrating the work of Brazilian artist, Rodrigo Sassi.

Ylenia Corsi, the gallery manager, explained how Sassi's exhibition "In Between" emphasizes being in between media as well as places. The notion of being in between places resonated with the group; at an intimate party, 8 nationalities were represented, and the editors from fashion-travel magazine majestic disorder, who attended as guests, endorse a nomadic lifestyle in their publication. 

As ever, the invitation encouraged invited guests bring friends who were not initially invited ("Come in a pair"), and many new friendships were born. 

Women in Art

This afternoon, Victory Club hosted a luncheon at Vere van Gool and Mary Wang's MISS: Salon in SoHo. The 3-course meal was followed by a performance by Paten Hughes and a tour of the exhibition.  The exhibition, on view until the end of this week, assembles the works of young emerging female artists across various mediums: painting, photography, video, and fashion. 

As the afternoon was a celebration of women, the menu cheekily incorporated pink into all of the dishes. 

Menu.

Chilled Vichyssoise Soup with Pink Peppercorns.

A Pink Eton mess - a play the British dessert named for the boys' school.

There were 8 lunch guests, until dessert - when an additional dozen people joined to hear Paten Hughes' reading of the pilot episode of her new web series, Heirloom. 

Paten Hughes performing the pilot episode of Heirloom 

It was a wonderful Sunday afternoon spent making new friends and learning about the arts over a leisurely luncheon.

The exhibition space at MISS: Salon in SoHo -- and the setting for this afternoon's Victory Club luncheon

Red Grooms at Redeye Grill

Last night was the first weeknight supper Victory Club hosted. Seeking refuge from the snowy cold winter night, 11 members and guests met to discuss the 88 foot Red Grooms mural in the Jazz Lounge of Redeye Grill and enjoy a delicious dinner. The group sat above the main dining room, with the fireplace blazing and a window to the main dining room cracked to hear the live jazz performance downstairs. Shelly Fireman, who owns Redeye and 6 other New York restaurants, spoke about how he developed his art collection, as well as how Red Grooms' and Mark Kostabi's works came to hang in his restaurants. It was a wonderful intersection of art and food, and everyone had fun.

Part of "The History of the World" by Red Grooms

The front and back of last night's menu.

The evening benefitted SUS, a nonprofit that advocates for people challenged by disability, poverty, past incarceration, unemployment, and substance abuse in New York City.

New York Historical Society

On Sunday, Victory Club hosted a luncheon and private tour at the New York Historical Society. Members brought friends; non-members brought friends; and everyone had a fantastic time. So much so that the last guests left at 6pm for an event that began at 1:30pm !

Ryan Matzner and George Kailas on the tour of Annie Leibovitz's Pilgrimage exhibition.

The tour was focused on Annie Leibovitz's Pilgrimage exhibition, of which the closing day was Sunday. 

One of the pieces from Annie Leibovitz's Pilgrimage exhibition that represents Annie Oakley. Per the exhibition guide, "One of [Annie Oakley's] stunts was shooting through the center of a heart on a card from a distance of about forty feet. ... When she retired, she gave shooting lessons to women. 'I have always maintained that outside of heavy, manual labor, anything a man can do a woman can do practically as well,' she said."

Guests enjoying lunch.

An aerial shot after lunch had been cleared, which included the menus turned over for discussion of the literary passages. 

To enhance conversation, every menu included a passage about New York, including an essay by Joan Didion, a quotation from Woody Allen's Manhattan, and a poem by Walt Whitman. The rest of the menu, and some of its features are included below.

Saint Valentine's

Valentine’s Day can be tough, so I wanted to throw a Saint Valentine’s party where couples and singles would have a special occasion-y evening in a beautiful and engaging setting. 

The evening was hosted by Vivian Brodie and Ahmet Civelek in Ahmet Civelek’s studio loft in Lower Manhattan. We ate below his paintings, and he talked about his work. The table was crowned with a big balloon customized for Victory Club by Robert Moy of the Brooklyn Balloon Company. 

Me, dressed up like a Hallmark Valentine, and dear friend Lucy Demery.

Some "Galentines": Leslie Blackshear, Alyss Vavricka, Sophie Lambert, and me. 

The dress code? Black tie. Why? Because though the evening was intimate (12 people), I wanted it to feel festive and special. 

The dress code extended to each place setting.

Wine flowed (at an average rate of 1 bottle per person), and during dinner, a few people volunteered to read poetry. I read my favorite love poem, Frank O’Hara’s "Having a Coke with You," and another guest read Billy Collin’s "Aimless Love."

Clockwise from left: Suzie Byowitz, Alyss Vavricka, Matthew Chen, Sophie Lambert, Vivian Brodie, Ahmet Civelek, Greg Cohen, Lucy Demery, Zach Sims, Leslie Blackshear, David Byowitz.

In Victory Club style, all invited guests were encouraged to bring someone who had not been invited. For this holiday, however, bringing a date (a friend date or date date) is sensitive, so I adjusted the verbiage to say: "Please bring your dearest." I was touched by everyone's interpretation of "dearest": one guest brought her brother; another brought her best friend; and the rest brought date dates of varying seriousness. The warmth of every pair radiated to the entire party. 

Suzie Byowitz and David Byowitz, sister and brother.

The playlist was singsongy and familiar: Diana Ross and the rest of the Motown canon. It was perfect: relevant and fitting from 8pm and 3am, the entirety of the party. 

The menu and its corresponding pictures follow below. And yes, I did fry the cauliflower in my Valentino gown ;)

Menu

Champagne, White Wine, Red Wine

Hors D'Oeuvres

First:

Crimini Mushroom Soup with a Porcini Marshmallow

Second:

Filet mignon

"Chefanie's" cauliflower

Roasted Haricots Verts

Third:

Peppermint Tartlets

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

Crimini Mushroom Soup with a Porcini Marshmallow

Chocolate dipped strawberries with the Victory Club seal

PORTRAITS & COCKTAILS.

On Saturday night, I hosted a cocktail party that celebrated the work of fashion photographer David Seidner in my apartment. 

The living room of my apartment: a collection of David Seidner portraits from his Faces of Contemporary Art and Sargent's Bloodlines series, as well as a portrait I painted while I was in college.  

The focus was on two of his series: Faces of Contemporary Art and Sargent's Bloodlines. (The latter was a Vanity Fair editorial, the entirety of which was projected over the course of the evening and is included below.) 

35 guests came. People ultimately engaged with notions of portraiture in a wider context, with the props of instant film cameras and references to Instagram.

Modern notions of portraiture (including reference to the foldedvictory Instagram) were juxtaposed with David Seidner's commentary on John Singer Sargent's portraits. 

To snack on, there were savory hors d'oeuvres (crackers with brie, honey, and apples; pigs in a blanket; puff pastry with feta and carmelized onions) in addition to the sweets pictured below. There was also some cinnamon cotton candy. And winter sangria :) 

Bite-size Valrhona chocolate chip cookies, sans their outer edges, as is the Victory Club standard.

Sandwich cookies filled with Trader Joe's cookie butter and stamped with the Victory Club seal.

The Best Carrot Soup

The best carrot soup I ever ate was in Campo de Fiori. It was 2005, and my family went to Rome for Christmas vacation. The summer before, I went away to learn French from a strict ruler-slapping Swiss woman -- and a sixteen year old boy. This boy (who had taken the overnight train from Paris to Rome) joined my family on all our tours of the city, but somehow he and I found ourselves alone in Campo de Fiori at lunchtime. (The next day, in the garden of the Villa Borgese, he told me he loved me; he was my first love.)

Anyway, the soup. The memory of this soup has endured me nearly a decade. I don't have a picture, but I vividly remember how fresh and sweet it tasted. It was not curried or gingery or creamy. It extracted the carrot's purest essence and intensified it. And last night, with all of the pounds of carrot choppings I had from my first week of culinary school, I endeavored to make this soup of fantasy. It was delicious. 

RECIPE 

Ingredients:

• 5 of the freshest large carrots feasibly accessible, peeled and chopped into 4 inch pieces (Don't fuss over the chopping if you don't have to- just chop them to be relatively uniform to ensure they cook at the same time.) 
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Half an onion, diced
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar + more to taste
• Salt

Directions:

• Set a pot of salty water to boil. Add enough salt to the pot that the rims of the pot become white. 
• In a sauté pan over medium, combine the olive oil and onions. Sauté until the onions become translucent. 
• When the water comes to a rolling boil, add the carrots. Let the carrots boil for 15 minutes or until they become tender. 
• Once the carrots are tender, discard the some of the water so that there is only as much water that the carrots are submerged. For me, in a big pot, this meant discard half of the water. 
• Add the onions to the pot of carrots. Purée with a hand mixer. 
• Add the pumpkin pie spice and the brown sugar. Salt to taste. 
• Serve. Or store for up to 4 days. 

Serves 10. 45 minutes total time, 30 minutes active time.