Cell Phones At The Dinner Table

One of my pet peeves is people using cell phones to make calls in the middle of a dinner party. I have to state up front that I like many of us am addicted to my cell phone. While I am not the nerdiest of nerds, in my circle of baby boomer friends, I am definitely up there as far as being addicted to technology. If you really want to be bored, I can take you through the app I have developed to calculate golf bets. With this said, I also believe you have to draw the line.

There have been times where a guest has made a call from the table at a supper club dinner. It is one thing to get a call, but a completely different thing to make a call. One guy made multiple calls to his daughter while she was on a date. I guess he wanted us to know that his daughter was dating the starring baseball player from the local high school. (Ten years later, the pitcher has signed a $127 million dollar contract. He didn’t marry the daughter.)

For the next supper club, I wrote a menu and put a notice stating, “Please refrain from making cell phone calls from the dinner table” on it. I am not quite sure if it was because of the notice, but the offender dropped out of the club. Virtually the same scenario has happened more than once over the last 15 years.

The rules on the use of cell phones at the dinner table are changing. My wife simply hates it. I find myself using it occasionally. Many millennials have phones as extended appendages. The key with a supper club is to establish ground rules that members can agree on or at least respect.

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.

How To Avoid “One Course Too Many”

One of the dilemmas in writing a menu for a Supper Club is matching the culinary standards of the dinners with the cooking skills of the of the cooks. In today’s worlds of fine dining and the food network the average Supper Clubber has pretty high standards. Quite often, the skills of the cooks don’t match up.

My Culinary guru is Lucien Vendome. He went to Culinary school in Paris. Lucien worked in some of the finest restaurants in the US. He has led Culinary innovation teams for both Nestle and Kraft. Simple put, he is a culinary great, and my good friend. I love the guy, but he is always trying to outdo himself.

Lucien’s assistant for many years was Amanda Hassner who is a phenomenal chef in her own right. She once told me that Lucien’s biography (which she would have to write) would be titled “One Course Too Many”. He never does anything simple. He always does fantastic.

When I write a menu I usually exhibit my inner Lucien. I once wrote a “Piatinni” (small plates) or Tasting Menu that involved 17 pages of instruction. In my mind it was simple. For the other Supper Clubbers it was more challenge than they signed up for. One poor lady was simply overwhelmed. I helped her out by breaking it down, doing some prep work myself and delegating many of the items to other Supper Clubbers.

There are things that are simple to me like chopping onions that were a challenge to my friend. She told me she spent close to an hour chopping onion and garlic. I asked if she owned a food processor? What she did in an hour I would do in five minutes.

Since my 17 page “War and Peace” menu I always try to balance my culinary challenge with the cooking skills. Simple menus can be written that meet the culinary standards of most Supper Clubbers. Some Supper Club cooks are very good and you can get more adventurous. In the long run…simple is better.

How To Grill The Perfect Steak

A question I get asked all the time is: Can you teach my husband to grill a steak? He over-cook’s everything.
There are several things that I do when I grill a steak:

• Let the steak slack out to room temperature for 45 minutes
• Pre-heat the grill on high for 15 minutes
• Brush on a light coating of olive all and season liberally with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.
• Place the steak on the grill and cook side one until about 60% done. I don’t believe in repeatedly flipping the steak. It is good to get a little char on side one. Side two should be less charred.

In my method there are 3 ways to check for done-ness

1. Touch it. Every steak you have ever had at a restaurant has been touched. At KFI we trained salespeople to check for doneness. We had them touch a raw steak. It was very soft. We had them touch an overcooked steak. It was very hard. We had them touch a medium steak and it was in between hard and soft. Touch takes practice.
2. Use an instant read thermometer. They work really well. I cook it to 115 degrees. Pull it off the grill and let it sit. It will continue to cook up to 125 degrees which is the perfect medium rare
3. Cut a little slice. This is a taboo in most cookbooks as “they” say you are letting out the juices. I once saw one of the best chefs I have ever worked with cut a little slice. There is nothing like seeing the doneness to be sure.

The goal is medium rare. I have surveyed chefs that work in high-end restaurants and they say 85% of customers want their steak medium rare.

I have one friend that asks the waiter for his steaks “Medium rare plus”. I pity the poor server that goes back to tell the chef that some pain in the ass customer wants his steak medium rare plus. If the server is lucky the chef will laugh. A few chefs I know would explode.

The first question I get asked is how long should I cook the steak. My answer is that it depends on several factors:

• How hot is the grill. All grills vary
• How often you open the grill
• How often you flip the steak (Only once recommended)
• How thick is your steak

Time and temperature can be misleading! Stick to the 3 doneness measures above and with a little practice you will get really good.
With the goal of medium rare, I cook to rare (warm red center) pull it off the grill, brush it with a compound butter (butter, garlic, shallot, herbs, salt and pepper) and let it sit for 15 minutes. Then slice and serve.

So what about steak for people that like their steak well-done? This is bad, but I avoid friends that like well-done steaks. I love the line in Anthony Bourdain’s book where he claims that most chefs save the worst steak for dinners that ask for well done. If they want well done they don’t have a clue. Truth is that there will always be end pieces of meat for the well-done guys.