Road Trip Supper Clubs

There are some that say I can be bought. Our friends Peggy and Phil Rose promised to buy some books if I would come to Nashville and cook for their friends. Guilty!

The truth is that we are on our way to Nashville to visit with our old friends. While we are there we will be catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. Phil and Peggy are original members of the Impromptu Friday Night crew. They were one of the five couples that we would call at 4 pm on a Friday afternoon and they would show up for a dinner party at 7 pm. The thing that was amazing was that these were busy people. For example, Phil was travelling the world as head of Supply chain for Pfizer. Yet for 9 out of the 10 times the Rose’s got the 4 pm call they would be there for the 7 pm party. I am not sure if it was the good food/times or just chemistry.

In getting ready for the trip, I called Peggy and asked if there wee any menu requests. She said Phil definitely wants your grilled pizza. For the second night we will have 11 people so I gave Peggy the choice between steak and rack of lamb. She said: “well we can have steak any time but your rack of lamb is special”.

Rack of Lamb Provencal

That rack of lamb is now one Phil’s favorites is just a little bit ironic. I remember the first time we served it to Phil. My good friend and chef Lucien Vendome and I hosted a dinner party for about 25 people. Before the party I told Phil that we were having rack of lamb. He told me that he didn’t like lamb. I can still see Phil as one of the “lamb haters” at the end of the evening fighting for the last lamb chops. A rack of lamb done the right way will turn “haters” into “lovers”.

There are two menus. One for Wednesday night that will be for 6 people. The theme is dinner in Tuscany. Both the Kennys and the Roses have been to Tuscany using the same travel guide so I am building on those memories. Thursday night we will have 11 people and will be built around a French theme and we have a few of Lucien’s creations as the core.

Here are the menus. I promise to write a blog next week to tell you how things work out.

Sending a message out to old friends around the world, promise to buy a few books and start a supper club, just remember… I can be bought!

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.

Reverse Engineering Or …Imitation Is The Greatest Form Of Flattery

I really enjoy having a dish at a restaurant and then trying to replicate it at home. In fact most of my “Original” dishes are the result of this process. It is also a great way to come up with ideas for a supper club menu.

I started this process with our friends Debby and Marc Waldman when we lived in Dover Delaware in the late 1980’s. Mark and Debby lived across the street and our routine was to go out to a restaurant on Friday night and then I would replicate dishes on Saturday night at home via reverse engineering.

I’d better explain, “Reverse engineering”. It is a standard practice in the food business. It is very common for a major manufacturer to spend a lot of money developing a new product. If the product does well in the market, competitors, particularly private label manufacturers will develop a “knock-off” product. Reverse engineering is the process of analyzing the ingredient line and researching manufacturing options to come up for a match of the successful product.

Early on in my career, a representative of a private label manufacturer propositioned me. He said I could make a lot of money by helping him to develop a knock-off of Post’s Grape Nuts. The guy was a sleaze ball and there was no way I was going to help him. Divulging trade secrets is certainly unethical, but I have no qualms about replicating a dish I enjoyed at restaurant.

To be honest, not all the recreations that I made for Marc, Debby and Susan were stellar. Today it is a lot easier. There is a wealth of information available on the Internet. You can Google steak au poivre and come up with several recipes. Or better yet, you can search YouTube and get a few videos with step-by-step instructions. Back in the day, my victims were stuck with my rudimentary culinary skills. I learned a lot and Marc, Debby and Susan survived. You should never question wine’s medicinal value.

One of my early attempts t0 recreate a dish was Roasted Peppers. I can remember buying roasted peppers in the Lake Farms Italian Market in Silver Lake NY where I grew up. Mr. Belmonte would bring a tray of freshly roasted peppers from the kitchen. They had a wonderful smoky flavor from the roasting married with the garlic and olive oil.

Check out the recipe

If You Are Scared Say You Are Scared

In writing Supper Club menus you have to take into account that some things you think are easy can be really challenging for others. I once wrote a menu that including steamed lobsters. I grew up on the east coast where boiling a lobster was considered simple. For others it was a real challenge.

I knew I was in trouble when I saw my friend Kathy having a panic attack in my kitchen. Our neighborhood Supper Club is large and involves 5 dinner parties of 4 couples each. To make it a little easier I ordered the 40 lobsters and arranged for the hosts to pick them up at my house.

Kathy stopped by to pick up the lobster and her anxiety started to show. Let me say that Kathy is a very clever lady. She grew up in Kansas City and had never cooked a lobster. Seeing the squirming lobsters in the bag set off a look of panic that reminded me of a lady I had seen having a panic attack in the Shannon airport in Ireland. Fear of flying is a real phobia. Fear of cooking lobster was apparently just as real.

I felt really bad. Kathy is one of my favorite people and I was the cause of her anxiety. My initial answer was to offer to cook the lobster for her. She would never have to see an uncooked lobster again.

Somehow we talked Kathy down off the panic level. I took her through the simplicity of boiling water. Dropping the lobsters in head-first. Cooking for 7 minutes. Checking for the lobsters to turn red. Explaining how lobsters have built in doneness devices. Sort of like the pop-up device in Roasting chickens that pops up when the chicken is done. Lobsters turn bright red when done.

She got through the evening and her Supper Club was a huge success. Has she cooked a lobster since? When asked her response was: “NO WAY!”

When faced with a Supper Club challenge, do a little research. You can get a video on YouTube or several “How-to’s” via a Google Search. Another tried and true method is to invite the person that suggested the menu and tell them: “It was your idea so you can cook the Lobster”.