You Had S.E.X. at the Party?

One of the funniest things that ever happened at a Supper Club event goes back to a New Years Eve party we had several years back. Before I go further I have to say two things:

1. Alcohol was involved
2. Names have been changed to protect the guilty

Susan and I hosted a neighborhood New Years Eve party for years. This year in question involved extensive appetizers/drinks, dinner/drinks, game/drinks and dessert/drinks. About a quarter of the way through the evening “Ralph”, who I had probably over-served, announced to party that his new years resolution was to “have more sex in the new year”. His wife who is usually adept at controlling such out bursts was missing in action. It really got out of control when another neighbor who was a psychologist started querying: “So Ralph tell us what you really feel?” As you can guess Ralph was the target for a fair amount of teasing, but the evening went on and a good time (non-sex related) was had by all.

A few days later I was back at work and got a call from Ralph to apologize for his S.E.X. comments at the party. While the whole thing was funny to me, poor Ralph had taken a (deserved) beating from his wife and probably had been forced to give me a call. Later that day my wife and kids met me at McDonalds for lunch. In recalling the highlights of my day I told Susan about Ralph’s call and apology for comments. I was careful to spell out the S.E.X. word in front of the children. My daughter Jennifer who was about 9 quickly leans across the table and carefully turns to protect her brother Brian (6) and whispers “You had S.E.X. at the party?” Susan and I both initially burst into laughter and then almost in harmony ask “How do you know about S.E.X.”. To which Jennifer answered confidently “Oh Lydia (Ralph’s daughter aged 10) has told me all about it”. In the immortal words of Ricky Ricardo on “I love Lucy” we had quite a bit of explaining to do.

Do you want to catch up on similar tacky stories? Keep an eye out for my book Impromptu Friday Nights – A Guide to Supper Clubs – Due out from Morgan James Publishing January 30, 2018

Healthy Menus

I was asked at a supper club once: Why don’t we have a “Healthy Menu” for a Supper Club. The answer is we could and we should. We have quite a few friends and family members that have become vegans. I have cooked with and for them and we have had some really amazing meals. Unfortunately, “Healthy Menus” are not all that appealing to a broad group of Supper Clubbers. The truth is that most of us try to eat healthy all week long and we like to splurge a little at a dinner party.

Like it or not, “Healthy” is still a tough sell. Kraft has invested heavily in “healthy” businesses over the years. Good friends of mine ran the “Back to Nature” business for Kraft and the experience was not good. Consumers say they want to eat healthy, but invariably there hasn’t been a large enough volume to drive the growth and margins that large corporations must deliver. But this can change.

I am sure that some readers will disagree with me, thinking that I am a relic of the big bad food processors. I truly hope that we can all eat healthier and what a lot of smaller companies are trying to do is very good. Unfortunately, there is a huge risk in local, organic and natural products. There is a huge food safety risk in products from small companies that make “local/organic/natural” products. “Food Processors” have kill steps in there processes to control pathogens. These kill steps, critical control points and good manufacturing practices provide a level of safety that many smaller companies don’t have.

This irony came home to me while visiting my cousins on Maui. They are vegans and own an organic farm near Hana. They looked at me as working for the evil empire with fear that Kraft is killing the American consumer with processed foods. I saw how they made their tropical fruit frozen smoothies that they sold at their farm stand and I was scared silly. I ran a coconut company in the Philippines so I know too much about bad bacteria in tropical environments. I saw them making their fruit pops in an open air kitchen. In the yard next to the kitchen was Mable the Mule. Mules will do what mules will do. The do attracts flies. Flies can carry bad bacteria. This irony was all too real.

The backlash that Chipotle went through last year is just a small example. Chipotle was trying to do what the American consumers says they wants by sourcing ingredients from smaller local suppliers. Those suppliers didn’t have kill steps or necessary critical control points in their processes. This led to the E. coli contamination and people getting sick. The way Chipotle has addressed the issue should be applauded. They just have to back off their local/organic/natural claims.

But I digress. And yes I will write a “Healthy Menu” for a Supper Club. And yes there are several fantastic vegan recipes in my book – Impromptu Friday Nights – A Guide to Supper Clubs due out from Morgan James Publishing January 30, 2018.

When Communications Go Bad – No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

With Supper Clubs there are times when people get their feelings hurt. As with most things in life, the more people that are involved, the more chances for mis-communication. We had an excellent example a few years ago. One of the chronic problems with Supper Clubs is there are cancellations. When people cancel, there can be a chain reaction of difficulties: finding substitutes, changing dates, combining dinner parties, etc.

We had a supper club melt-down caused by cancelations and mis-communication. Our neighborhood Supper Club is quite large with 5 dinner parties going on a given night with 4 couples at each party. So with 40 people involved it can get complicated. Denise is a key leader in our club and does a masterful job of scheduling through difficulties. The rule in our club is that if you cancel it is up to you to find a substitute. We have a list of 30 or more subs so there is usually a good pool of alternates. If you have difficulty finding a sub it initially falls back to the host of the dinner party. When we are hosting and we have cancelations I look at it as a recruiting opportunity. The host can call in reinforcements from anywhere. I have been known to pull people in from work, the gym, golf course, or anywhere. My wife has accused me a pulling strangers off the interstate.

The night of the meltdown was caused by multiple cancelations. Denise as the de facto leader made a decision to consolidate dinner parties, as was the normal practice. An email was sent out explaining that one party was being eliminated. The hostess whose party was eliminated was new to the club and was very offended. Poor Denise thought she was doing the “Newby” a favor by solving the scheduling issue and saving the hostess from all the work involved with hosting. Newby felt that she being arbitrarily picked on. Email nasty-grams were sent and quite simply it got ugly. To be honest it was a case where email was the standard operating procedure, but simply does not work.

Communication rules to live by:

1. Never use email or text if any bad emotion is involved. If you are irritated don’t push send.
2. Face to face communication is best.
3. Direct phone contact is second best.
4. If you have two touches of telephone tag use text message to get a person to person meeting or call scheduled.
5. Voicemail is next best but dangerous.
6. Be really careful what you put in writing. Email and text can be great but you miss out on the chance to read your audience and adapt your message. Plus, they don’t go away and keep hordes of lawyer gainfully employed. The really bad thing about emails and texts is that people will write things that they would never say face to face.
7. Blogging is dangerous. Please note that I have broken just about every one of my “Rules” in writing this blog. Oh well…

At the end of the day it is hard to avoid miscommunication and feelings getting hurt. Common sense and sensitivity go a long way. Sometimes bad stuff just happens.