Day two of Park City Song Summit was a reminder that a music festival doesn’t have to be defined by massive stages and packed concert fields. In downtown Park City, Utah, Song Summit continued its mission of bringing music, food, wellness and community together in an experience the festival affectionately calls the “unfestival.”
From morning wellness programming and cookbook signings to conversations about recovery, mental health and creativity, Friday, August 28, offered plenty of opportunities to slow down and connect. By evening, the focus shifted toward food and music, culminating in an intimate dinner inspired by My Morning Jacket and an extraordinary Mountain Jam session at the Marquis Theater.
Song Summit Village Opens Its Doors to Park City
One of the most important aspects of Song Summit is that not everything requires a ticket. The Song Summit Village was a free, all-ages daytime experience designed to bring the spirit of the festival directly into the Park City community. Throughout the weekend, the Village features live performances from Summit Rising artists and local musicians, surprise appearances, wellness programming, culinary activations, shopping and opportunities to interact with the artists and chefs participating in the festival.
Friday offered a particularly impressive lineup of culinary and educational programming. At 11 a.m., Top Chef alum Gregory Gourdet met fans for a book signing of Everyone’s Table: Global Recipes for Modern Health. The cookbook, which focuses on globally inspired recipes free of gluten, dairy, soy, legumes and grains, became a national bestseller and won the 2022 James Beard Award for Best General Cookbook.
Gourdet is a three-time James Beard Foundation Award winner, best-selling author and television personality. He is also the owner of Kann, his live-fire restaurant showcasing Haitian flavors and dishes inspired by the African and Caribbean diaspora.
At noon, Iron Chef Stephanie Izard also hosted a cookbook signing of her book Gather & Graze: 120 Favorite Recipes for Tasty Good Times: A Cookbook, giving fans another opportunity to meet one of the culinary stars participating in Song Summit.
Stephanie Izard is a James Beard Award-winning chef and restaurateur known for Chicago restaurants including Girl & the Goat, Little Goat Diner, Duck Duck Goat, and Cabra, with a culinary career that has earned her national recognition and appearances on shows including Top Chef.
Andrew Zimmern Gets Real About Recovery
The day’s programming took a deeper turn at noon with the first Summit Lab, featuring Chef and Bizarre Foods TV personality Andrew Zimmern. Rather than focusing on food, Zimmern shared a deeply personal story about addiction, collapse, a suicide attempt and the difficult early years of recovery that ultimately led him on a decades-long journey toward emotional sobriety.
Zimmern discussed a simple practice he calls “being the dog.” The concept is about showing up for other people with empathy, presence, safety and closeness rather than judgment or performance. Dogs don’t try to fix us or lecture us. They simply remain present.
After his talk, Zimmern met fans and attendees at his book signing in Summit Village. Blue Food contains over 145 sustainable seafood recipes and in connection with his Emmy-nominated PBS docuseries Hope in the Water.
For an event built around connection, it was a powerful message. Song Summit’s programming frequently looks beyond entertainment, asking how music, food and human connection can contribute to healthier, more meaningful lives.
Cooking as Therapy
At 1:15 p.m., the conversation continued with “That’s Fun” Live Podcast: Mise en Place for the Mind: Cooking as Therapy and Burnout’s Best Antidote.” Chefs Damaris Phillips and Nikki Dinki explored the relationship between cooking, mental health and the pressures of life in the culinary world.
The conversation was another example of Song Summit’s ability to use food as a starting point for much larger discussions. Cooking can be creative, therapeutic and communal, but it can also become a source of stress and burnout. Bringing those conversations into a music festival creates a different kind of experience for both food lovers and music fans.
Sean Brock Connects New Orleans Food and Music
One of the day’s most unique programs came from James Beard Award-winning chef Sean Brock. From 3 to 4 p.m., Vinyl & Vittles Vol. 1 brought Brock together with KRCL’s Eugenie Jaffe for a conversation about his two great passions: food and music.
With Jaffe originally from New Orleans, the conversation naturally became deeply rooted in the musical history of the city. Brock shared stories from his own life and career, including memories from his time as chef at Nashville’s Hermitage Hotel. He also recalled occasions when Dolly Parton hosted events at the hotel and enjoyed his food. One particularly memorable story involved Brock’s use of liquid nitrogen and an incident that nearly resulted in an injury to Parton.
The conversation then moved directly into the Song Summit Village, where Brock spun selections from his personal vinyl collection while continuing the discussion about the relationship between music and food. As records played, Brock demonstrated his oyster-shucking techniques and prepared Oysters Rockefeller for guests.
The dish became another vehicle for storytelling as Brock discussed the history of Oysters Rockefeller alongside the musical history of New Orleans. It was exactly the kind of programming Song Summit does best: food and music becoming two different ways of telling the story of a place.
A Celebration of Kentucky Summers with Damaris Phillips and Patrick Hallahan
By 5 p.m., the focus shifted to Le Depot Brasserie on historic Main Street for the Song Summit Supper Club: A Celebration of Kentucky Summers.
The four-course dinner was created by James Beard-nominated chef, author and television personality Damaris Phillips and My Morning Jacket drummer Patrick Hallahan, who are longtime friends from their hometown of Louisville. The evening celebrated their shared Kentucky roots while connecting each course to a My Morning Jacket song.
The duo came out to discuss the menu with guests and talked about each course including the deviled egg appetizer with cheerios on top because of some of the stranger items on the band’s show rider. They always require hard boiled eggs on their rider in case the food is not great so they still have a good source of protein. They also want to always have cheerios on hand for a snack.
The first dinner course, Golden Tomato Panzanella, featured sun-bold tomatoes, turmeric buttermilk biscuit croutons, yellow heirloom tomatoes, grilled sweet corn, buttermilk ranch yogurt, herbs, golden beet and bee pollen. It was inspired by the song “Golden.”
Next came Creamed Green Hand Pies with Lucifer’s Peach Chutney, filled with collards, kale, spinach, white cheddar, caramelized onion, roasted garlic and fresh herbs. The chutney packed just the right amount of punch to accompany the vegetable forward entree. The dish was inspired by “Holding on to Black Metal.”
The third course was Pork Confit, featuring slow-confited Berkshire pork shoulder, sorghum barbecue sauce, creamy stone-ground grits, pumpkin chow chow, smoked nuts, micros and petals. Its musical inspiration was “Hopefully (Tribute to the Farm).”
Dessert was a Butter Banana Pudding Surprise, featuring roasted peanut pastry cream, bananas, homemade vanilla bean wafers, smoked bourbon Chantilly and burnt Virginia peanut brittle dust. The course was inspired by “Highly Suspicious,” with its playful nod to the song’s “peanut butter pudding surprise.”
For me, the meal created a wonderful throwback moment to eating at the family table at Bonnaroo. Patrick Hallahan had previously contributed one of the brown butter grits and pulled pork recipes, and those dishes remain some of the best bites of summer I remember from the festival.
This dinner brought back that same feeling—food made with a sense of place, friendship and history.
Jim James Brings Dolly Parton to the Mountains at The Marquis
After dinner, the festival returned to music at the Marquis Theater. At 9 p.m., Jim James of My Morning Jacket performed an acoustic set that included several highlights from his career as well as two heartfelt tributes to Dolly Parton: “Eagle When She Flies” and “I Will Always Love You.”
James also performed “Hands On,” “Beginning From the End” and a Grateful Dead cover of “Scarlet Begonias.” The set was a stripped down version of many of the My Morning Jacket classics in a way that was truly unique and one night only for this special audience.
The Dolly tributes carried particular emotional weight, connecting the Kentucky-inspired dinner with the music that followed and honoring one of the most influential figures in Tennessee and American music.
Mountain Jam Closes an Epic Day
At 10:30 p.m., the Marquis Theater became the setting for an all-star Mountain Jam featuring Patrick Hallahan, Ivan Neville, Eric Krasno, Tony Hall, Ross James, Nicki Bluhm and Alex Koford. One of the highlights was Ivan Neville’s rendition of “Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.”
The musicians created the kind of spontaneous collaboration that is difficult to replicate at a traditional festival. James also joined the group for “Franklin’s Tower” and “A.E.I.O.U.”, helping bring the night to an energetic close.
After a day that moved from wellness and recovery to cookbooks, New Orleans vinyl, oysters, Kentucky food and acoustic songwriting, the jam session felt like the perfect ending.
Song Summit Is About the Journey
Day two demonstrated why Park City Song Summit stands apart from a traditional music festival. The day wasn’t about racing from one stage to another. Instead, it was about sitting down for a conversation, meeting a chef, listening to a record, sharing a meal or discovering a new artist.
From Andrew Zimmern’s honest discussion of recovery to Sean Brock’s exploration of New Orleans food and music, from Damaris Phillips and Patrick Hallahan’s Kentucky-inspired dinner to Jim James’ tribute to Dolly Parton, Friday offered countless reminders that food and music are powerful forms of storytelling.
And in the mountains of Park City, those stories felt even more meaningful. Song Summit may call itself an “unfestival,” but after two days, one thing was clear: this is a festival built around being present—and sometimes, that’s the most important experience of all.