It’s A New Year – Start A Supper Club

Who doesn’t like to socialize over a meal with friends? That is the whole premise behind supper clubs. Why not make a New Years resolution to start or join a supper club. The biggest challenge that keeps potential supper clubbers from starting a club is that hosting dinner parties is too much work. If that is the case for you, go to a restaurant. Whatever the case, don’t miss the chance with the New Year, get a group of friends together to socialize over a meal.

If you are a follower of this blog, or better yet, have read Impromptu Friday Nights – A Guide To Supper Clubs, you see some benefits from hosting dinner parties. With some advice (Buy the book) dinner parties don’t have to be that hard. There is also a chance that you know some folks that like to cook.

Our neighborhood group will be getting together in January to enjoy what I am calling the French Bistro Menu. I am a huge fan of French Bistro fare. The classic French Bistro has a relatively small menu of items that are made to perfection. The chef knows what his customers like and he knows what he can make well. Consequently, it makes excellent supper club fare. Here is my feeble attempt:

French Bistro Menu

Hors d’oeuvre

– Seared Beef Canapes

– Poached Lobster with Wasabi Cream Canapes

First Course

– Bistro Clams with Herb Butter

Main Course

– Grilled Steak with Sauce Bearnaise

– Pommes Macarre

– Roasted Asparagus Avec Jambon

Dessert

– Baba au Rhum

(Click on menu items for link to recipes)

Start the New Year right. Get together with friends and socialize over a meal. Go crazy, START A SUPPER CLUB.

If you enjoyed this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons follow me on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and check out my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs. Published by Morgan James Publishing and available through most channels where books are sold.

It’s Christmas…Don’t Overcook The Prime Rib

Every family has their holiday traditions. The Kenny family has a wonderful set of quirky traditions that keep us laughing and crying. For several years after my dad died in 1995 the whole family travelled somewhere to celebrate Christmas together and developed a special set of traditions.

Overcooking the prime rib

A prime rib of beef for the Christmas meal was the standard fare. Without fail, no matter who was the cook the prime rib would be overcooked. Most cookbooks call for cooking to 135 degrees. This is a recipe for disaster. If you take the roast out of the oven at 135 it will continue to cook to 145 degrees and higher. That produces well done versus medium rare.

Paula Dean’s recipe that targets pulling the roast out at 120 degrees works really well just don’t tell my sisters.

A reader asked me how Paula Dean’s recipe would work for a roast other than 5 pounds? I am a big fan of Chef John and his Food Wishes site.He promotes the “Method X” approach which I will be trying this year

“Method X.” The rib is brought to room temperature (this is CRITICAL), and seasoned anyway you like. Then you multiply the exact weight times 5 minutes. For me it was 7.2 x 5 = 36 minutes. This is said to work for any size prime rib.

The rib is cooked at 500 degrees F for exactly that many minutes. Then the oven is turned off. You wait 2 hours, without opening the oven door. Then you remove the prime rib and slice into the juiciest, tenderest, most perfectly medium-rare meat you’ve ever seen!

I will use an external read thermometer and pull the roast out of the oven if the temperature reaches 120 degrees fahrenheit

2. Christmas Vacation

How many times can you watch the same movie? Owning copies in VCR, BETA, CD, Blue Ray and DVD is an indication that we like it no matter the technology. You have to love the fact that every time you watch it you notice something different. We all have our favorite lines that have become part of our holiday vernacular. Some of my favorites:

Clark to company execs: “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Kiss my ass, Kiss your ass, Kiss his ass, Happy Hanukkah”

Cousin Eddie to neighbors: “Merry Christmas, the shitter was full”

Ellen to daughter: “It’s the holidays, we are all in misery together”.

3. Feast of the seven fishes

I grew up in an Italian neighborhood and loved the excitement at the fish store on Christmas Eve as Italians purchased seafood for the traditional Christmas Eve feast. One year we had the whole clan to Memphis and my menu for Christmas Eve called for seven fishes. My scientist brother in law called me out on the fact that cod, shrimp, scallops and clams totaled only four fishes. I made sure that he had at least 3 shrimp and 4 clams to keep his count accurate. Ho Ho Ho.

4. The blessing turns to tears.

Invariably our traditional blessing turns to tears when loved ones no longer with us are remembered. This painful tradition took a break when my son then aged 7 attended a southern Baptist grade school. Brian picked up the wonderful Baptist cadence of talking to god and thanking him for the family, the meal, the day and all our blessings. Brian’s rendition was a big hit and much to his chagrin the whole clan wanted Brian to give the blessing for years. Don’t cry for me Argentina.

5. Waiting for the holiday meal

My mother would tell us that dinner would be at 6 pm. Invariably 7 pm would roll around and dinner would still be 15 minutes away. My dad claimed it was part of mom’s strategy. By the time she served dinner everyone would be so hungry “shoe leather would taste good”. He also called her the “Brains of the operation” for good reason.

6. Westhampton Tee Shirts

My mom lives near the beach in Westhampton. The whole clan grew up spending summers visiting mom-mom. Westhampton has a great tee shirt shop and we all have years of summer purchases in our wardrobes. No matter where we celebrate Christmas, December mornings can be pretty chilly. Invariably, Christmas morning attire for a large segment of the clan involves Westhampton tee shirts. I never said we were smart.

7. Favorite memories

One of my personal favorites goes back to the year we went to a ski resort in New Hampshire. On Christmas Eve a big snowstorm hit while we were on a horse drawn sleigh singing Christmas carols. My middle sister (The college professor/smart one) got caught up in the beauty of the moment and proclaimed: “Isn’t this perfect, it’s a winter wonderland”. To which my oldest sister (The corporate executive/New Yorker) leans over to her then college aged niece and whispers: “Winter wonderland my ass, It’s a “F—-ing blizzard”.

You can’t buy memories like that.

Are these the quirkiest holiday traditions? My guess is that they aren’t even close to the record. Hopefully they generated a chuckle or two as you wait for that over-cooked prime rib. “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Kiss my ass, Kiss your ass, Kiss his ass, Happy Hanukkah”.

Oops My Club Is Closing

Sometimes in life, and golf, the things that you think at first, are the worst things, turn out to be the best things.

This blog is not food or supper club related. It addresses my other passion, GOLF. This piece was originally written for a Golf Digest series called Golf Interrupted, but as that series has been terminated, I wanted to share the piece as a blog. Apologies to my Foodie audience. Hopefully you will get a chuckle out of it.

What a shocker it was to get a letter on January 4, 2019 that our club would close on February 28^th. It quickly brought on something similar to the five stages of grief with dying:

Anger – Denial – Depression – Bargaining – Acceptance.

In Anger one yahoo threw a golf bag across the pro shop when he heard the news. The Denial piece was led by a group of guys trying to buy the place. (Talk about what a big mistake that would have been.) Depression was driven by the reality of losing connection to friends that we have built over the 28 years at the club. Bargaining came pretty quick as various clubs in the area put together packages to woo the 350 refugees set adrift. Acceptance hit home with the realization that there are better options out there.

The situation was driven by the reality of the golf market today. Young professionals (they don’t want to be called millenials) are not joining country clubs the way previous generations had. The reality is that something like 200 country clubs across the country have been closing per year. Our club, affectionately known as the “Germ” was pretty typical. The owner died and his kids realized that the land was worth way more than a country club. And, by the way, the club had been losing money. In summary, the reality can be summed up in one word. Adios!

In hindsight, there were all kinds of signs that the end was near. The truth was that we were in denial. I use my squeaky windshield wiper analogy. I had a Mercedes for years that had a windshield wiper that squeaked. I brought it in at least a dozen times trying to get it fixed. It got the point that I would manually turn it on and off to minimize the squeak without thinking. I bought a new car and low and behold, the windshield wiper didn’t squeak. It never occurred to me how much the squeak bothered me, until I bought the new car.

It was the same way with the Germ. I loved the place, but there were lots of things that bothered me, and signs that it would be ending, that we chose to ignore. For one, you have to love a course whose key design feature was affectionately referred to as the freaking ditch. If it was in California it would sound a lot better because it would be called a Barranca. In Memphis it was just a freaking ditch. The fact that the ditch was getting bigger every year with erosion was a bit of a tell. Ten years ago the owners spent some money to fix the ditch on 4 holes and promised to fix a few others. It never happened.

The Freaking Ditch

It turns out that other clubs in the area were hurting as well. One club in particular stepped up with incentives to woo a block of 75 refugees. The infusion of newfound revenues allowed the new club to make what was a nice club into a really nice club. The key design feature at the new club is a beautiful 30-acre lake. Somehow we don’t miss the freaking ditch.

Ridgeway Country Club…Kind Of Nice!

Of course we miss a lot of old friends. Then again there is the old saying about the two rules you have to remember if you are thinking about changing jobs. Rule 1. There are a–holes everywhere. Rule 2. You are probably making good money for what you do, where you do it. Rule 2. A. When in doubt… remember Rule 1. There are lots of parallels with country clubs. The really good news is that with 75 refugees at the new club we are constantly being surprised with old friends and former Germ employees showing up as part of the new club.

Don’t Miss the Freaking Ditch Flooding. Do Miss Ben & Hogan

In hindsight, what seemed to be a bad thing when the Germ closed turned into the best thing that ever happened. Who would of thunk! It was a shock. It still hurts to ride by the Germ. We worried about the Germ’s employees, but almost everyone has benefited from new opportunity. In a final point of irony, it turns out that the kids of the old owner, who had thought they were in for a big pay day, will have to wait a lot longer than they had thought to get their money. Lots of the old clubs members were mad at the kids for closing the club. In reality, they did us a favor. In all, it was 3 weeks from getting the closure letter to having a welcome reception at the new club. Sometimes in life, and golf, the things that you think at first, are the worst things, turn out to be the best things