Category Archives: Appetizers

The Perfect Comfort Food

Some times even your wine group needs a little comfort food. It doesn’t need to be a cold snowy day to have comfort food theme for your wine group gathering. There are not many foods that are more comforting than French Onion Soup.

French Onion Soup Recipe

Why not kick off your wine group by greeting your guest with a small ramekin of french onion soup and a nice glass of chardonnay? For me, the challenge with French Onion Soup is that I love it, but a bowl can be too filling. Hence, the idea of starting out your guests with a small ramekin works pretty well. My bet is that even when you encourage friends that they don’t need to finish it, by the end of the evening, everyone will have slurped the last drop and scraped the caramelized cheese.

Another favorite of mine is a dish I call Bistro Clams. It combines some of my favorite food groups, seafood, garlic/herb butter and bacon. You might need a piece of baguette to sponge up the last drops of butter and a glass of cabernet, but you can’t go wrong with this appetizer

Bistro Clams Recipe

Enjoy the comfort.

If you enjoyed this blog and similar other stories/wine group/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.

 

French Onion Soup

Bread! Bread! They Cried And The Curtain Came Down With A Roll!

Apologies for the old joke. It was one of my father’s lines. I just couldn’t help myself. When I would go work with dad as a kid, many would comment how much I looked like my father and he would say: “We all have a cross to bear”. If he only knew…

With the pandemic, it is really easy to get frustrated on what we CAN NOT DO. The truth is that there is quite a bit that we can do to socialize with a group of friends over a glass of wine and a bite to eat. After we had a trial Virtual Wine Group session, someone asked about a Virtual Baguette class for an expanded Wine Group via zoom.

We had a great time making and breaking bread. Zoom is a wonderful technology and we are all getting better at using it.  It can be  a bit chaotic, but the baking class did seem to work out well. I even had my dad who passed away in 1995, talking to me. Dad taught a college speach class for years. One piece of advice from dad really payed off. MAKE SURE YOUR AUDIO VISUAL TOOLS WORK BEFORE YOU START. I don’t think that dad would have been real good with Zoom, but a little dry run certainly helped me to work out the kinks. I had planned to have two devices connected to Zoom with my MacBook connected with a slideshow and my iPhone being used to be the primary video tool. My dry-run before going live taught me that the 2 devices would create audio feedback. Hence, I went with one device and it is safe to say, I was the only one aware of the shortfall. The participants got quick glimpse of the slides and a link to this blog for the real detail. Susan did a great job of capturing the pictures used in the following.

Remember when people told jokes? My dad was a great joke teller, but he ruined lots of great jokes by cleaning them up. Some times a good “F” bomb makes a joke. I did have a really good clean joke to share, but the politically correct police pulled it because it mentioned a piece of anatomy. While I won’t share it here, I will share it with anyone who asks. PLEASE ASK down below in the comments and I will share it with you.

 

ENJOY THE SLIDE PRESENTATION

 

 

 

Click here for the Baguette Recipe

If you enjoyed this blog and similar other stories/wine group/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.

 

A special thanks goes out to the Berrys for providing the featured photo and the McMahons for providing the group with a Charcuterie plate. We started the session with all 7 participants making a pesto, olive oil and balsamic dip together. After the class we all enjoyed the fruits of our labor and a fun virtual conversation.