Would You Like A Beer Or A Glass Of Wine?

This is a major supper club question. Socializing over a meal at a supper club dinner party usually involves beer and wine. Historically supper clubs have been more wine centric, but with explosion of craft beers that can change. Picking the right craft beer is a lot easier for millennials.

In my neighborhood in Germantown we have been blessed with a great beer guy.
My buddy Tom Schoelkopf has worked for Anheuser Bush and other beer companies. He has always been a great guy to bring a selection of beer. Beer has really changed over the last 30 years. I grew up in the Lite era. Today the variety of flavor you can get form the myriad of craft beers is great. Tom has been the lead guy to educate us. He also likes my grilled pizza.

Check out the recipes:

Another beer story comes to mind. I used to run a company in the Philippines. Once I was at a cocktail party at the U.S. Embassy in Manila and got in a conversation with an Embassy staffer. He said he rated the countries he had worked in by the quality and quantity of the beer in the country. He said Pakistan was the pits. Past the Muslim aversion to alcohol, beer was really expensive. In the Philippine beer is pretty good and really cheap.

The kicker to that story came ten years later. I was walking through the Department Agriculture offices in Washington DC and recognized that former staffer walking down the hall. I couldn’t help myself. Unannounced I walked up to him and said: You are the guy that rates countries based on the quality and quantity of beer. The guy knew he was “the guy” but didn’t have clue who I was. I probably scared the political daylights out of him.

For me, a beer or two at the start of a dinner party is great. With my meal I prefer wine. The beauty of supper clubs is the group gets to decide and should have lots of fun in the decision making process.

If you enjoy this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and be on the look out for my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs due out from Morgan James Publishing on January 30, 2018.

Are You Afraid To Invite A Chef To Dinner?

One of the challenges of a supper club is when one of the guests is a chef or is the one that wrote the menu. This can be intimidating to some hosts. Consequently, quite often chefs don’t get asked to dinner.

I am not a chef. I have been lucky to work with great chefs so I know what I am not. I have been cooking for years and have written this book so people think I know what I am doing. I also know that I intimidate some people when it comes to food. I will even admit that I can be an asshole, hopefully a good asshole. I certainly don’t want to make people nervous.

A good example of this involves Lucien Vendome. He is a world-renowned chef, a brilliant guy and my good friend. We used to work together at Kraft and Susan and I would invite him over for dinner. At first, I insisted that he not cook at my house. My thought was he was my guest and I didn’t want him to cook. This didn’t work. Lucien was more comfortable cooking. Cooking together worked really well.

Lucien was a central to the original “Impromptu Friday Nights” crew. We got into the routine of him stopping by my office around 3 pm on a Friday afternoon. He would ask: “Are you and Susan in town this weekend?” To which I would respond: “The usual suspects?” After getting clearance from the war department (my wife Susan), Susan would call four other wives to invite them. Then Lucien and I would start planning. There were three amazing things that would happen:

  • Susan would get the house ready. The fact that she would agree to hosting a dinner party on such short notice was amazing and a credit to her flexibility.

  • Nine out ten times the four couples that got invited at four would show up at seven. These guys all had big corporate jobs that had them traveling the world. Somehow it was serendipity. Whenever we would host an “Impromptu Friday Nights”, everyone would show up.

  • Lucien and I would pull together an amazing meal in very short order. We would make things like chicken Milanese that could be made “a la minute” or very quickly.

  • Check out the recipe:

While inviting chefs and authors can be intimidating it can also be a lot of fun and chances are you, like me will learn something.

If you enjoy this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and be on the look out for my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs due out from Morgan James Publishing on January 30, 2018.

 

What It Takes To Be The “Wine Guy”.

Every supper club will benefit from having a “wine guy” or fifteen wine guys. This would be guy that has a great selection of wines in his cellar or aspires to have them. A guy that really knows his wines and what pares with what. And, most importantly a guy that loves to share.

Scott Flora is my all time leading wine guy. He doesn’t work for a wine company he just buys a lot. A classic Scott story involved a kickoff party that we had for my daughter’s wedding. We had 75 people at our house in Westhampton and I had bought a variety of 1.5 liter bottles of wine. Scotty asked if I minded if he brought some wine to the party. I told him he had been bringing wine to my parties for years why change now thinking he would bring a bottle or two. During the party I was pretty busy socializing and cooking. I did notice that Scotts table was popular. The next day I realized I still had cases of wine left. Scott’s cases trumped my cases.

Scott will ask what is for dinner and bring a few bottles that speak to the meal. His education has come a long way from Elgin Illinois. Corporate America has done an excellent job of training Scott and others. Working in the medical industry he has worked with doctors around the world. Through his work and travels he has learned a lot about wine and our supper club has benefited from that education.

We once had a really earthy Gorgonzola. Scott tasted the cheese and darted off to his wine collection. He then pared it with this wine that had an amazing terroir. (Terroir is how a particular region’s climate, soils and aspect (terrain) affect the taste of wine.) The combination of the wine and cheese was amazing.

Speaking of terroir, I used to work in the chocolate business. I was at a trade show and Ben of Ben and Jerry’s stopped by our booth. We asked him if he would be interested in buying our chocolate as an ingredient. He said he wasn’t because he didn’t like the “barnyard note” in our chocolate. Translated, he was telling us it tasted like shit, but it had a great terroir.

In the end, all it really takes to be the “wine Guy” at a supper club is to be the guy that brings the wine.

If you enjoy this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and be on the look out for my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs due out from Morgan James Publishing on January 30, 2018.