Take a Step Back in Time for Gather's Retro Americana Spring Taste Event

Spring has sprung, but instead of turning the clocks ahead, Chef Jyll has turned the clocks back! 

The Spring Taste event always keeps even esteemed and experienced chef of over a decade, Jyll Everman on her toes over how she can shock and awe individuals not only with her menu but with her venue as well.

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Welcome to the 60s!

This Spring of 2024, Chef Jyll Everman took guests back in time for a Madmen-inspired, Retro Americana evening on March 20 and 21, filled with classic staples of the 1950s and 1960s that she gave her own twist to.

“The menu was easier than the decor for this Taste event,” Chef Jyll Everman revealed. “I had 20 different ideas before I landed on what we presented. At first when you hear ‘Retro Americana’ you think diner, so do I want to go diner and 60s and doo-wop? Do I want a record player out? And then I realized, no I don't want to go the diner route, I want to go the Madmen route!” 

Jyll called up her friends and trusted partners at Ruby Design and Petal Pusher to create the vision that set up camp in her mind until they had perfected exactly what she had been going for. This was no surprise to anyone as Ruby Design and Petal Pusher have always been able to attain even Jyll’s craziest of visions.

“I always start at Ruby Design and Petal Pusher with inspiration pictures, and luckily Ruby Design had these avocado-colored linens that I knew I needed to use, so we started with the linens! With Petal Pusher, everything I saw in my vision was carnations and daisies and roses, big yellows and greens, and Petal Pusher delivered my vision so perfectly,” she beamed. “Once you have photos, colors, and textures for inspiration, you can just take it from there!”

“I love a theme, there's nothing that can't be thought of! When you walked in the front door, Ruby Design had this super cool ice cream table from the 50s, so I did a big punch bowl and little tiny punch glasses, a porcupine appetizer of cheese-and-fruit-skewers, and two big tubs of old-fashioned soda pops with original vintage labels for Squirt, Dr. Pepper, and Coca Cola. Guests could feel the theme as soon as they walked in the door.”

To obtain the look in its entirety, Jyll and Maddie Meyer, catering manager and pastry chef of seven years for Gather, went to the Green Bay area’s many thrift and antique stores collecting glasses, goblets, and other thematic trinkets for the two evenings.

“The Retro Americana took a solid month of planning the decor alone,” Jyll explained. “It was hitting thrift shops to get little cordial glasses, and consignment shops to get old fashioned punch bowls, searching around and ordering vintage Squirt and Coca-Cola bottles, and just trying to make it feel the vibe feel like you're walking into a Madmen dinner party.”

Filling her trunk with collections from different thrifting and antique stores more times than she could count, Jyll and Maddie eventually collected everything they needed to pull off what Jyll had envisioned.

“Catering manager, Maddie Meyer, and I shopped at consignment stores and thrift stores because we had a beautifully delicious and balanced port our wine representative, Rane Cegelski, paired with the peanut butter and jelly dessert, and we wanted them to be in tiny little Sherry glasses that you would have seen back in the day,” said Jyll. “We went to different stores and collected mismatched, adorably vintage sherry glasses, which continued to give that mismatched, homey vibe to the event I was going for. I didn't want to use the standard tall champagne flutes for the first course, instead, I wanted those wide, old-fashioned champagne goblets to make everything feel authentic, but it took a bit of shopping around and loading up my trunk for a month of mismatched glassware.” 

The time spent being thorough paid off as her theme was glaringly clear to all who walked through the vibrant doors of Gather on March 20 and 21.

“I truly feel like that vision came to life, because as guests were leaving they were laughing and commenting, ‘I feel like I was at my grandma's house for dinner,’ and that's exactly the vibe I was going for,” Jyll smiled. “Aesthetically alone, I was so incredibly happy, and then the food mirrored all of those classics really well and we had nothing but fantastic feedback for another Taste event.”

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A time capsule of Taste

“The Spring Taste is difficult because I like to work with seasonal ingredients, and springtime in Wisconsin, as we're currently experiencing, is incredibly difficult to work with anything seasonal, so there's always some sort of theme on Spring's Taste event to keep the excitement going,” Jyll explained. “This Spring I wanted to do an American menu, classics from the 1950s and 60s but reinvented and reimagined. I wanted guests to be familiar with what they were eating, but elevated in a way they've never seen before.”

As per usual, and per Jyll’s hopes for the evening, guests felt oddly at home with this familiar yet fresh menu. 

“Coming up with new ideas and reinventing them is very easy for me,” Jyll smiled. “I have too many ideas and I have to rein them in.”

While there was nothing new for the bar area in the evening, Jyll and Shoshana Magnant, bar manager, encouraged attendees to take a step back in time by starting their evening off with a classic shaken, dirty martini to pair with their apps and hor d’eouvres. 

“For my spontaneous hor d’eouvres, I went through a Betty Crocker cookbook made in the 1960s,” Jyll giggled, “I made a cheeseball with carrot sticks and Ritz crackers, deviled eggs, and these god-awful skewers holding canned pineapple, cubes of cheddar cheese, and maraschino cherries because that was very authentic to 1950s apps. They were displayed on these beautiful old platters down the center of the table to capture the essence of those retro dinner parties.”

“Deviled eggs always go over well,” Jyll scoffed nonchalantly, “the cheese ball I had never made anything like the cheeseball before, and it was essentially cream cheese rolled in almonds, but the skewers… I stuck them in heads of iceberg lettuce so they were similar to that tacky porcupine look that we're all the rage, did they taste good? Let’s just say I did a very big disclaimer at the beginning of the evening: The appetizers in the middle of the table are brought to you by a Betty Crocker cookbook, give them a try! They are not Jyll recipes, please do not review us on these,” she laughed, “But I think everybody had a blast picking up those skewers of maraschino cherries and canned pineapple, thinking, ‘why not?! This is something my grandma or great grandma would have served!’ so let's serve it!”

Jyll has become known for challenging herself and never shying away from risks, even for events where the entire purpose is to showcase the menu and her talent and talented staff in the kitchen. For this Retro Americana Taste event, Jyll took risks at every dish, from the hor d’eouvres to the main course, trying her hand at new cooking and crafting methods and flavor pairings, and each one was a resounding success.

“My first course, the Waldorf salad, really had me on edge because Waldorf salad is typically grapes, apples, and walnuts tossed in mayonnaise, and I needed to find a way to elevate it but still make you feel like you're eating a Waldorf salad,” Jyll explained. “My original vision was making it Napoleon style, stacking the sliced apples, but they were browning too quickly -- I had to practice that one and it ended up being a very simple plate up. Ironically, everybody loved it! Even Tommy, my husband who eats no salads or seafood, sent me a text after that course saying ‘the salad is bomb -- change nothing’ and I knew if Tommy likes it, everyone will like it.”

“I took the humble tuna noodle casserole and gave it my own twist by folding morel and other beautiful wild mushrooms, caramelized shallots, and leeks into the pasta, and homemade potato chips with truffle salt and a dehydrated crispy pea salt over the top. It's taking all the ingredients you love with an imported Spanish, olive oil brined tuna, and elevating all of it, and making people laugh.”

Tommy Everman, who proved difficult for the January Taste event revolving around seafood, still found a way to enjoy the delicious menu his talented wife curated, without Chef Jyll surrendering any of the food to someone who wouldn’t enjoy it.

“Tommy ate the tuna in the salad, and I think he probably ate around the tuna in the pasta,” Jyll laughed. “For the surf and turf entree, I got these gorgeous U-8 scallops, which means there's only eight per pound, these things were the size of your fist and I was not wasting that on him, so he didn't get one. I ate his scallop in the kitchen between courses.”

With the full list of courses plated, presented, and devoured, all that was left in the evening from a time capsule was Maddy’s delicious dessert.

“I asked Maddie to make me the best peanut butter and jelly ever, and she came up with this gorgeous dessert consisting of delectable butter cake and took a cookie cutter in the shape of bread so she could make two pieces of 'bread' from this butter cake, with a peanut butter mousse, homemade jam, and strawberry meringue to make a more than gourmet, PB&J! It was gorgeous. Everybody giggled as they ate because it was just an incredibly bougie peanut butter and jelly. She did an amazing job with it.”

Ready to be shocked by Chef Jyll Everman and her talented staff’s creations in the kitchen? To be swept into an evening of whatever theme Jyll has decided to perfect? Sign up for Gather’s newsletters and mailing list today, and follow us on social media to keep up with all of our events!

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https://www.gatheronbroadway.com/ 

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