supper club ideas

[Julie Germann]

I heard there was a thread about supper club theme ideas, but I can't seem to find it. Can anyone direct me to it? Thanks:)

[JenniferJJ]

Hi Julie,
Well, I don't have a thread to point you to, but I thought I'd just share what we have done and are talking about.

We have had two nights with an appetizer theme (had 1 - 2 deserts, also). We had a soup/bread night. One time our intention was to go pick berries and then make dishes with the fruit. Unfortunately, due to weather, the berries weren't ready. We did have a fruit theme, however. Once we made Chinese dumplings: We each brought an ingredient and then made the dumplings together as a group. Another time the hostess picked four of the "supper club menus" that CL suggested and we voted on them. Then we did dishes from that menu. Another time we made pasta together - that didn't work that well because it took too long. However, there were a lot of first-timers there and had it been people who knew each other better, there might have been more focus on working on the pasta rather than getting to know one another

Things we have talked about are:
-finding a personal chef or cooking instructor to come to our meeting and teach us something. We know there would be a fee, so we need to find out if people are interested/willing to do this.
-getting a very gourmet recipe that would take a long time to do and just spend some time teaching ourselves how to do that (and have the rest of the courses either be very easy and/or brought ahead.
-having a meeting with another club, just for fun. We're not sure how the food part of this will work yet

Hope that helps and sorry for the delay in responding. Hope your club has had a fun few months.

[tbb113]

Julie:

You can use these search results (http://community.cookinglight.com/search.php?s=&action=showresults&searchid=431839&sortby=lastpost&sortorder=descending) as a starting place.

Tyra

[chefinaround]

Originally posted by JenniferJJ
Hi Julie,
Well, I don't have a thread to point you to, but I thought I'd just share what we have done and are talking about.

We have had two nights with an appetizer theme (had 1 - 2 deserts, also). We had a soup/bread night. One time our intention was to go pick berries and then make dishes with the fruit. Unfortunately, due to weather, the berries weren't ready. We did have a fruit theme, however. Once we made Chinese dumplings: We each brought an ingredient and then made the dumplings together as a group. Another time the hostess picked four of the "supper club menus" that CL suggested and we voted on them. Then we did dishes from that menu. Another time we made pasta together - that didn't work that well because it took too long. However, there were a lot of first-timers there and had it been people who knew each other better, there might have been more focus on working on the pasta rather than getting to know one another

Things we have talked about are:
-finding a personal chef or cooking instructor to come to our meeting and teach us something. We know there would be a fee, so we need to find out if people are interested/willing to do this.
-getting a very gourmet recipe that would take a long time to do and just spend some time teaching ourselves how to do that (and have the rest of the courses either be very easy and/or brought ahead.
-having a meeting with another club, just for fun. We're not sure how the food part of this will work yet

Hope that helps and sorry for the delay in responding. Hope your club has had a fun few months.

I'm a chef if anyone is interested in instructions. One problem, I live in Virginia.

Currently, I am working with organics and healthful dishes. I might at least be able to help online.

[NancyJ]

Our 2+ year old club has had just about every ethnic and/or regional group as a "theme" for dinners. Favorites have been Italian and Mexican. We've also had other themes such as Mardi Gras (Cajun/Creole), Breakfast For Dinner (brunch-style foods), January Beach Party, Kentucky Derby, Comfort Foods, and Soup Samplers (a favorite that has been repeated).

We have also tried to use CL menus a few times with mixed results. We are all "working gals" and generally need to prepare the food in advance rather than doing the cooking that night.


Tomorrow night we're having our first Food-On-A-Stick dinner: shishkebab and fondue!

We also hold a Christmas Cookie exchange in early December. This year, everyone baked an extra dozen and we donated them to a local shelter.

Hope that gives you some ideas.

Nancy