Cake friends,
One of the great pleasures of making a magazine is bringing it to life IRL with a launch party—the ideal opportunity to eat a frankly inadvisable amount of dessert. Thank you to everyone who packed Public Records for our Candy Land launch party last Thursday. We’re excited to share photos from the evening below by our friend and issue contributor Brandyn Liu
The feast included botanical cotton candy spun onto Callisto farm flowers by Jen Monroe, a fish tank stuffed full of dirt n’ worms tiramisu by Libby Willis, a candy cap mushroom chocolate log cake by Camari Mick, mini margarita jelly cakes spiked with Del Maguey VIDA Puebla mezcal by Phoebe Tran, and Raven Simone Walker’s Pachamama Helados sorbet featuring Zerbinati melons from Natoora.
A special shout out goes out to the night’s sponsors: Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal provided a fleet of drinks featuring our favorite VIDA Puebla mezcal, plus the coolest spiked jelly cakes around. (Stay tuned for Phoebe’s recipe, dropping here soon.) And Le Monde Gourmand ensured it was the best-smelling crowd we’ve ever had, thanks to their Sucre de Coton eau de parfum. We’re excited to offer 20% off the perfume with the code: CANDY20.
Thank you also to Behave for donating a cosmos of sweet and sour star gummies, Natoora for the opulent produce on display, and Lyft for ensuring the avalanche of magazines and desserts arrived at the venue safely.
An extra big thank you goes to all of the people who made this event possible: Our partnerships lead Peter Romero, and our producers Danielle Levy and Kacie Paganelli of Area Projects, Diane Ng, Aliza Abarbanel, and Tanya Bush. Thank you to Liz Mydlowski for the gorgeous mossy tablescape and design, Christine Balcer for her beautiful projections, and Rachel Korajczyk, Noah Prebish, and Alyssa Stowers for their iconic DJ sets.
We also raised $400 for Anera’s work providing essential food, water, and healthcare in Gaza and the West Bank by donating 50% of the night’s back issue sales and 100% of sales from an illustrated print.
We’ll be releasing a limited supply of our new shirts with Social Species soon, so watch this space. And if you haven’t picked up your copy of Candy Land yet, we have copies online and in stockists nationwide.
Links to Click:
Order: Pachamama Helados is accepting pick-up orders for ice cream here in New York. Order another batch of pink peppercorn melon sorbet to relive Raven’s dessert from our launch party, or try something new like sweet corn charred banana leaf ice cream dusted with totomoxtle ash. She even takes requests for custom flavors.
Go: The Brooklyn Art Book Fair is having at fundraiser night at TV Eye on 7/31.
Eat: Bé Bếp is doing streetside BBQ for Cafe Botani’s Second Anniversary Block Party on August 2, alongside other delights like slushies from Mina Park/99 and mahjong.
Listen: Aliza and Tanya are on the TASTE Podcast talking all about making Candy Land, with gummy worms, tanghulu, and more. Plus contributor Amy Rose Spiegel reads her story from the issue on doomsday preppers.