Found Treasure: H Jackson Events

May 24, 2024 – The intuition for citrus, crunch and creaminess. The sly seasonal choices, artisan accents and battle-tested techniques. The onrushing combinations that often surprise yet always comfort.

A tasting at chef Hollie Jackson’s Marina prep kitchen—a strategic hub in an uncommon spot Jackson built to her specs, and shares with frequent collaborator Tart and Tin—creates an ensemble of experience around these elements, from the Baker’s Bacon sous vide BLT to the asparagus-spring pea panzanella with feta marinated in lemon zest and pink peppercorn.

That’s all buoyed by the running notes from the conductor herself, the woman behind H Jackson Events, and its only full-time employee.

“I have to cut myself off,” she says. “Or I’ll keep talking, and we’ll never leave.”

Which is why the fennel apple puree broke her.

Those are her words. 

They come up as she describes the path that led her to her current calling, and a big ticket party next month. 

The extended and repetitive chopping, hour after hour, day after day, in the kitchen at Restaurant 1833. 

“Over and over again,” she says, “then it goes out the door and I don’t see any results.” 

That—spiced with 3am moments cleaning sardines as the night vacuums roar—told her it was time to reimagine her food dreams. She was OK with the work. She wasn’t OK without the social nutrition she craved.

“Now I can be who I want to be,” she says. “Every event is new, and almost every menu is custom. I’m asking, ‘What’s the vibe? What do you want to eat?’ And I’m getting to see people enjoy the experience, and that’s really important to me.”

Not that her current existence is easy. At the moment, she’s fresh off seven events in five days—a 100-person plated dinner here, a grazing board for another 100 at Sunset Center’s member preview there. 

But it’s more her sort of game, collaborating with hosts, participating in the party, earning reviews like her most humbling (“When we met Hollie we felt like she was our lifelong friend, and it was like that through the whole thing”). 

“I cried with gratitude when I heard that,” she says. “That’s what I want to portray, not, ‘What do you want, chicken or beef?’ To be able to cook for a special event in someone’s life is the best. I will set an alarm at 5am to write a menu, because I’m that excited.”

She had culinary school training from Le Cordon Bleu in Portland and fine dining experience as a sous chef at celebrated Canlis in Seattle, which led to 1833. But a gifted chef does not become an accomplished businesswoman by waving a magic immersion blender.

You need culinary fairy godmothers for that. Dorothy Maras saw her work at 1833 and asked if she wanted to help with Pebble Beach Food & Wine, where Jackson still oversees purchasing and receiving. 

Tami Aceves later put Jackson in position to run the food at Holly Farm, which does a brisk event trade, and further upped her catering game. (It’s no coincidence those two culinary souls are big-hearted connectors themselves, as a recent Found Treasure explored.)

A different longtime leader in the chef community turned me onto Jackson. Estevan Jimenez first worked with her at Aqua Terra Culinary, where she started in the kitchen but asked for, well, more people on her playlist. 

She got good enough at contracting gigs as an event manager that Jimenez says the team refrain to Jackson was, ‘You go out in your business clothes and later show up in chef whites. You can book it and cook it!’”

These days Jimenez has her on speed dial to help with benefit events for Rancho Cielo’s Drummond Culinary Academy, where he’s lead educator and Jackson serves as a mentor to a young cook.

“She’s always been really supportive of my own kids—understanding the way teens need non-parental love,” he says. “And she fell in love with the power of the ranch: When you can actually see that change in the students visit to visit, and realize the more you contribute the more it accelerates, it’s super cool.”

Jackson is clearly in her element as she hosts, dolloping bumps of caviar before decorating mini homemade waffles with creme fraiche and more roe, all while describing how managing a budget for a behemoth like PBFW informs ways to splurge and save in accordance with, say, a wedding’s bottom line.

“I love spreadsheets! I use professional and personal pack sheets!” she says. “A friend asked if I had the drop-off time for some food I made for him on a spreadsheet and we all laughed. But actually I did.”

If she seems ready for her closeup, she is. That’s why she’s organizing Solstice Sunset Soirée amid Earthbound Farms’ seasonal bounty, Outstanding in the Field-style: She doesn’t know how to market herself, so she’s sticking what she does know: how to throw a party.

A-list collaborators like Grow All Good Things (providing the produce and flowers), Seabold Cellars (wines) and Tart and Tin (artisan desserts) are in place. 

The disco dress code calls for summer floral outfits and gold. Monterey Touring Vehicles will provide the matching vintage vehicles like the gold Thunderbird while Gweynneth does the DJ soundtrack. 

“It’s not like I’ve made it, but I’m ready to take on more,” Jackson says. “This whole thing for me is to show I’m not your traditional chef in whites, I’m a young woman in a flower apron with pink nails who can cook with anyone, and have fun doing it.”

A peek at the draft menu presents a tour de flavor force that feels on brand with her own vibrant comfort food: steak tartare with bone marrow aioli, cured egg yolk and crispy garlic; whipped Schoch fromage blanc with cherries, apricots, honeycomb and pistachio on charred Ad Astra bread; saffron pappardelle with burrata; grilled Oishi shrimp in braised tomato and her own rouille; pan-seared jumbo scallops in roasted cauliflower sauce beneath those brown butter crumbles. 

There’s another dish awaiting guests: a black sesame cone filled with Passmore Caviar-topped hamachi crudo diced small with yuzu, Fresno chili pepper, cilantro and…apple-fennel puree.

In a literal sense, it’s the same puree. But it’s not carrying the same spiritual verve.

“No offense to my tweezer-chef friends, but I can take food quality and flavor seriously, and do more of what I want,” she says. “I genuinely like people—I don’t like cooking for myself because stoking people stokes me.”

This title for this self-employed/self-discovery tale could be called Book It and Cook It. 

But the puree suggests an alternative: Broke to Stoke.

More at hjacksonevents.com, and more on Solstice Soiree Feast in the Field via its eventbrite page.