Interest in Cincinnati Supper Club?

[snetram]

I am a long time Cooking Light reader and try lots of recipes. The idea of a local Supper Club is interesting to me. My husband and I have participated in several "gourmet" clubs over the year and have really enjoyed them. Most of all I like the friends we have made in many different places.
If anyone else in Cincinnati, or nearby (we are actually in Evendale) is interested, let me nkow. We are pretty down to earth, but really friendly. Interested in sharing good food and conversation with others.

[stacys]

I've been in the area close to three years. I just recently moved to Newport. I have a really crazy schedule, but would really enjoy meeting new people who also love to cook and entertain.

stacys

[snetram]

Glad to hear from someone local. In what way is your schedule crazy? I work parttime from home, and my husband is on a pretty regular schedule. Maybe we can work something out.
We are both over 55, have moved around a lot including living overseas and like food. I cook and we both eat it.
Let me know a litle more about youself and let's see.

[stacys]

I am manager of a restaurant in downtown Cincinnati. I'm 24 years old. I work 5-6 days a week. I don't have much time outside of work. Hopefully things won't be this way much longer. We're planning to bring in another manager to offset some of the long hours.

stacys

[AndreaD]

I am also a long time Cooking light reader. And yes, I am definitely interested in a Cincinnati supper club.

In the September 2001 issue of Cooking Light, in the cover article "Supper Club Special" a Becky Molloy of Cincinnati is mentioned. She included a comment about "But once we got together and started talking, etc."

Has anyone met with Becky, knows her, etc. ?

(I haven't had a chance to review the older postings . . ):D

[snetram]

Since I started this, I'll try to keep it up. Maybe we could plan a time to meet in September to see what we want to do. I don't know how to find Becky from Cincinnati, but I will work on that this week.
I'm excited that there are three people interested in this, and maybe we can drum up a few more.Some basic questions to answer are:
Are we individuals or couples and does it matter?
How to organize, especially the meal planning
Do we have a theme for the month
How to make sure no one person has to bear the financial burden
When to have the dinner and if wee cook at home or at the hosts' home

Let's put together some answers, a t least in our minds and try to come up witha meeting day/time. I am available pretty much anytime, with planning. Those with a schedule need to let us know what the schedule is. I can meet just about anyplace.
Talk to you all soon.
Karen

[AndreaD]

Regarding Becky - Actually I tracked her down on this site, and sent her an email to see if she has a Cincinnati supper club "going" on. ;)

I also mentioned in the email to her, that there were some Cincinnati Supper Club queries on this bulletin board . . .

One thing to keep in mind . . . I bet there's a limit to how many people can be in a "supper club," with everything becoming a bit unweldy. If Becky's group is (already) a decent size, there's no reason we can't start a second club. :)

[snetram]

AndreaD,
You are right, if we are talking couples, then 8 is a good number. Many people don't have facilities for more. Also right that we could expand, have more than one group.

Hope Molly is interested.

[stacys]

Hi ladies,
I mentioned to snetram that I work a lot of hours. However, I will do what I can do be involved in the supper club. Please keep me posted.

stacys

[Lauren Plageman]

Hi! I too have been a Cooking Light reader for about the last five years. I would very much be interested in a local supper club. I am 28 years old and noticed that in some of the postings, there is interest by couples. I think I would be more interested in participating than would be my husband and I would relish the opportunity for an evening to myself (so daddy and the baby can have some Q.T.)! I also read in the September issue that Becky Molloy(sp?) has a local club. The article mentioned her group has nine members. I agree that to keep things managable, there would have to be a limit. Please keep me posted on starting a second club and note my interest. Please let me know if there would be room for me to participate and if individuals, as opposed to couples, would be welcome. I would also be willing to help organize. My work hours have become much more flexible as I just resigned from my job to stay home with my daughter.

[bahrn]

I am also interested in participating in a cooking club. I already started one in which we only make new recipes that we have never made before and never had prepared for us. Makes you try out all of the recipes you rip out of magazines. I want to get started in a different group for different influences and to meet new people around town. I am in the Amberly Village area. Look forward to hearing from you.

[AndreaD]

Hi Laura!

I am also a stay-at-home mother (we have a 6 and and half month old, Nicholas), as well as a freelance editor and writer.

My husband is interested in the supper club too (we're already planning on a babysitter, so we can have some "adult" time together AND enjoy good food AND get social :))

So it looks like we have the beginnings of a Supper Club! We have (Andrea counts up in her head) five or six people interested so far, right?

:D

[snetram]

Okay, This is getting serious. How about everyone interested in meeting in the next two weeks to plan a club send me an email, with your name and phone number? Include the best days and times for you to meet. If lunch is the best time for working people, mention where you work and how far you could go.
If everyone can get me an email by Wednesday, August 29, I will promise to check the info and get back to you all by Monday September 3rd. WE will aim for a meeting the week of September 10 to 15.
my email is snetram@fuse.net.
Looking forward to hearing from all interested.

[AndreaD]

And the scheduling challenges begin ;)

We will be out of town (vacation) 9/5-9/15 . . . :(

I'll send my info to Karen, and we'll see what cooks up . . .:p

[bahrn]

Sent my information off to the email. Hope this can work out. I am looking forward to hearing from everyone. Scheduling is always difficult with these items, I too work long hours and am often on call. Let's just see what happens and know that not everyone will be able to make it to every event. Looking forward to hearing from you.

[bahrn]

Regarding responsibilities, I think it is easiest to have the host fix the main entree and then make assignments beyond that. Have people bring appetizers, salads, side dishes, desserts, wine, bread, etc. You can provide a theme for them to work off of or even just assign them a specific recipe. I think it is nice to leave it up to the individual because it creates a little more of a surprise factor with each meal. I think helps to spread out the financial burden as well as time management. I'm also hoping you will allow singles, since that is the category I fall into. Those are my thoughts. We'll see what the others have to say.

[Lauren Plageman]

I too sent my info off to snetram's e-mail. I noted that at first my husband didn't show much interest, but when I told him it would be a once-a-month gathering, he perked up! Best times for us are weekends...my husband has to be to work very early which makes late weeknights difficult. No vacation planned until December (Cooking light cruise!!). Anyway, I am in agreement that the best format would be "potluck" where everyone brings a dish to go along with the main meal. Of course, these are all issues that could/should be discussed at the first gathering. I also told snetram that it was mentioned in the most recent issue that the first supper club meetings are usually best done at a neutral site, such as a restaurant, in order for everyone to spend time getting to know one another.

[BeckyM]

Hello All! I'm the one who was quoted in the September issue about a Supper Club in Cincinnati. The group I'm involved with does already have 9 members (though one is moving, which will put us down to 8), so we're currently not looking to expand. But it sounds like you're already drumming up a lot of interest, which is exactly how we started.

You have a lot of things to decide about how to set up your group. I'll let you know how our group is structured and how we work things out -- some of our decisions might be the right ones for you, and others might not be. I thought you might just be interested to see how one group is doing things.

As it looks like you all are suggesting, we met first at a neutral location. We chose Buca de Beppo, which is an Italian restaurant in the new Rookwood Commons shopping center. It was nice to meet like that first, so we could spend time getting to know one another and deciding how we wanted our group to work without worrying about cooking that night. In retrospect, I probably would have chosen a quieter restaurant, because we sometimes had difficulty hearing each other around the table. Another hint for this first meeting is that I brought a copy of Cooking Light and held it (title side facing out) as I was standing in the waiting area of the restaurant. That made it easier for the others to find me. You might ALL chose to bring copies of the magazine, just to make identification of each other easier.

We initially had interest from about ten people, and all of us were women. At our first meeting we discussed the option of including husbands/ significant others, but most of us either were single or had husbands who weren't very interested. We decided we would keep it just to us, and maybe sometime we'd have a cookout or something and invite guests. (We've been going for almost a year now, and we haven't included the men yet -- we have too much fun just talking to each other!) We also decided we wouldn't limit ourselves to just women if men wanted to be involved as well, but they had to actually cook and participate -- not just come eat! So far we haven't had any men express interest.

Because all of our members work, and we didn't want to meet on weekends, we decided to have our dinners on weeknights, but we would do more of a pot-luck type thing rather than cooking together. We usually meet at about 7pm and start with appetizers, then we eat dinner sometime around 8pm, and dessert (there are ALWAYS desserts!) around 8:30 or 9pm. We talk A LOT, so we usually take our time getting through the meal. I usually don't leave until about 10pm, so it makes for a late night, but once a month I really don't mind. We also live all over town -- from Bridgetown (out I-74) to Anderson to Wyoming to Hyde Park to clear up in Yellow Springs (east of Dayton), but so far that hasn't been a problem. When we met in Yellow Springs, we had it on a Saturday to make it easier for all of us to get up there. But our member from there drives down once a month to meet with us, and she NEVER complains!

In our group, the hostess decides on a theme for the month and is responsible for the main dish. We decided that way we spread around the expense, and each person can decide on her own how much to spend on what she makes. We had originally tossed around the idea of all chipping in on the total cost of the meal, but with varying incomes, we didn't want to obligate anyone to helping pay for ingredients that are beyond her means. Once the hostess lets everyone know the theme and what the entree will be, everyone else e-mails her to say what they will be bringing. This system has worked pretty well for us. We always have a great variety, and we get to try fun new things.

We have had a big variety of themes so far -- some of our members are pretty creative with them. They have included Cajun, Chinese, The Letter "C" (foods starting with "C", such as Carrot Cake), Tex-Mex, Cook-out, New/Unusual Ingredients, and Things You Grew Up With. Next month's theme is "Nutritional Powerhouses" -- foods that have exceptional nutritional value, such as soy, flaxseed, etc. We have fun coming up with the themes and with recipes to match them. We do not restrict our members to cooking only with Cooking Light recipes, but about 90% of our recipes end up coming from there. Some of us try to cook new and different things each time (I try to avoid making desserts, since that is what I have the most experience with), and others stick with tried & true, but most importantly we have fun sharing food and conversation.

Our group is not as diverse as some I've heard about on this board. As I mentioned, we are all women, and only one of us has children. One is now pregnant, and the rest of us are either single or fairly newly married. All of us work, though we have an interesting range of occupations, from dieticians, to counselors, to engineers, to marketing, to sales, to working for the Nature Conservancy. We have enough in common and enough different to make our conversations lively and interesting. Of course we're all very nice people, so we enjoy each others company a great deal.

I do know there is at least one other Cincinnati Cooking Light Supper Club out there, because one of our members was involved with that group as well as ours. That one only had about five members, so if you don't end up finding enough people on this board, you may want to try contacting them to combine groups. We are actually trying to get contact information for that group, because we thought it might be fun sometime to get both groups together for a bigger dinner. If you get a third group going, maybe all three could have a combination dinner sometime!

Good luck getting your group going. Feel free to e-mail me if you have any other questions or just to keep in touch. Our group is definitely interested in having a get-together with other CL Supper Clubs in the area sometime, so once you get your group established, we'd love to meet you all.

Becky

[Billg]

I have been a reader for the past couple of years and try a number of the recipes in the magazine and think the idea of a supper club would be fun to expore

[Jenhagenbarth]

Hello,

Sounds like there is a lot more interest than I have found in the past for supper clubs here in the city. I started a group here last spring and we are looking for a few new members. Right now there are about six of us. Maybe these groups can start inter mingling. Any new ideas would be welcomed! Also, are there any other single people out there interested in doing this kind of stuff? Let me know if anyone is interested in joining our group. I would love to hear what else is going on out there!

[BeckyM]

Jen,

Are you in the group that Mary Stech was also in? She was in our group and also another one, and our group was thinking it would be fun to have a dinner sometime WITH the other group, just so we can meet more people interested in Cooking Light. And even if your group is not the same one Mary was in, it still would be fun to meet you all sometime. We're not looking for new members or to join an additional group -- we just thought it would be fun for two (or more) groups to get together once in a while. Let me know if you and your group would be interested.

Becky

[Jenhagenbarth]

Becky,

Yes, Mary was part of our group. I think our group would love to get together every once in a while to meet some new people and make the events a bit more social. We are meeting this Sunday and I will suggest to them getting together. Just let me know what kind of schedule you are on and when your group might like to do this. Thanks for writing back!

Jennifer

[BeckyM]

Jennifer,

Our next get-together is the 26th. We normally meet on Wednesdays, but I think our group would be flexible to meet on another day for a special event. I'll let my group know at our next meeting that I've "talked" to you and ask them about a potential month and days to get together with your group. This sounds like it would be fun!

Becky

[Tanya]

Hello, My husband Steve and I are looking to join a Cincinnati Supper Club. We actually live in Amelia.
I am 28, proud new Mom of Grace 5 weeks old. Steve is an organ recitalist.
We both own our own business with Shaklee Corp. We live a very active and healthy lifestlye and are always looking forward to meeting new like minded people to discover who they are. And what more fun surrounding a great meal!
Let us know the scope on the Supper Club!
Gratefully,
Tanya Fischer
FischerWellness@aol.com

[snetram]

We will be having a meeting September 16, Sunday, at 5:00 om at my house. If you are intetrested in coming to help form this new group, RSVP to me. Everyone is to bring a finger food to share (from Cooking Light) and your own drinks. We have about 16 people, mixed singles and couples. I think we will need to divide somehow, but that is one of the decisions to make onthe 16th.
Let me know if you can come.

[DeniseM]

I am single living in the Landen area...interested in the Cincinnati club. Anyone know any details?

Please email me at twizzbees@aol.com. Thanks and happy cooking!

[wayans]

I am very interested in the supper club idea in Cincinnati. I'm married and live in Delhi. 44 years old. My husband travels a lot. Have enjoyed Cooking Light for years. Is there anything I can do to facilitate the starting of a Cincinnati club?

[snetram]

There is a group that had its first meeting in September. There were about 20 people onthe list (including partners) and o attended the first supper. We have another planned for this month, but it is full. We can add you to our list if you want. Some have not been able to make the day that was chosen by those attendign the first meeting. Perhaps some of those will want to start a second group.
We really had a nice time, made some guidelines and have agreed to be flexible to meet as many peoples needs as possible. It is hard to meet everyone's at the same time.
Let me know if you wan to be on the list and we can go from there.

[wayans]

Thanks. I would like to be put on the list. If the dinners are through the week, my husband probably won't participate, due to his travel schedule. If on a weekend, I would probably want to bring him with me.

Looking forward to hearing back from you!!