Do You Like Social Distancing Over An Appetizer?

Like it or not, we will take it. The elevator pitch for my book Impromptu Friday Nights: A Guide To Supper Clubs started with the question:

Do you like to socialize over a meal?

Of course, the answer is yes which led me into the speech about supper clubs being the panacea for young professionals and all other demographics as a great way to have a good time. A small confession here. The title phrase (Do You Like Social Distancing Over A Meal?) is from my daughter. Poor Jenn has heard my elevator pitch way too many times.

Times have changed. None of us could have predicted a few months ago how drastically our worlds would have changed. As we get through the first two months of the coronavirus world we are learning about social distancing and trying find ways to be safe and have a good time. Virtual cocktail hours via zoom are great, but there is something lacking. There is nothing like face to face contact with friends and family. There is also something about sharing food.

We have taken to DRIVEWAY SOCIALS using Costco/card tables to ensure social distance and provide a platform to share an appetizer. Socializing over a meal in the driveway…isn’t going to happen, but sharing an appetizer with social distancing works. It has become our new evening ritual.

My go to appetizer this week has been freshly baked focaccia’s and grilled pizzas. A few of our friends are vegan/vegetarians (prefer plant based, but love cheese) and these appetizers work well. There is another reason I have been making a lot of pizza and focaccia. Because of the virus I have 6-year supply of yeast. All of our local markets sold out of yeast at the start of the pandemic. I bought yeast through Amazon and wound up with way more than I historically use. The net result…let them eat bread! Besides, we are all easing up on our low carb discipline in these trying times.

Focaccia Recipe

Pizza Dough Recipe

Grilled Pizza Recipe

By the way, my next book is being built around the concept of BRING A BOTTLE AND AN APPETIZER. Preparing a dinner party is just too daunting for many of us. My thought is that everyone can make or buy an appetizer. And, everyone likes to social distance over an appetizer!

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.

Buy Restaurant Gift Cards

Restaurants are being hit really hard by the ”Stay At Home” mandate being required by the Covid – 19 risk. Many are still offering takeout, but there is no way they can keep up with their regular cash flow. There is something we can all do now to support our favorite restaurants and increase the chance that they will be around when the economy reopens.

Basic premise:

BUY GIFT CARD FOR RESTAURANTS
Restaurants get cash now when they need it
Consumers can use them when things reopen

While different restaurants have different accounting practices where some get cash sooner than others. Either way buying gift cards now helps restaurants through a tough time. This particularly true of the smaller privately-owned establishments. They have overhead and need cash.

A chef that used work with me at Kraft Food Ingredients has a great restaurant in Collierville TN.

Check out the blog

Justin Young is a really amazing chef and his Raven And Lily Restaurant was doing really well. Then the coronavirus hit. Justin has made the decision to close the restaurant short term and focus on feeding hospital staff working on the front line with #feedthefrontlinememphis. These are tough times. You can reach out to Justin and most restaurants via their websites. Some have links to order gift cards, and if they don’t, requests for cards can be arrange via text or email.

One thing that Susan I like to do is to use gift cards for a portion of the bill, so that when we use them, it doesn’t hurt the restaurant’s cash flow on the back end. . The purchase of a gift card now is welcomed cash. The problem for many restaurants will be that when the cards are used in the future, they take a hit. So if our bill is $100, we use a gift card for $50 and a credit card for $70 ($50 towards the bill and $20 for a tip). Another thing to remember when you use gift cards is to tip the waitstaff on the full amount of the check, not the net amount after using the gift card.

Justin makes an amazing Bordelaise sauce. He has shared the recipe with me, but there is something special about the way he makes it. Buying some gift cards now is an investment to help restaurants through a difficult time so that they are around in the future. This way, you get to enjoy that amazing sauce when things reopen.

The “Freshman 15” Now The “Covid -19”

Remember when you went off to college and pretty quickly put on 15 pounds from the dorm food and regular beer drinking? Now, many of us are “Sheltered in place” and eating pretty well with threat of the coronavirus and Covid-19. Hopefully, we can avoid getting sick and all we get is a few extra pounds (AKA “The Quarantine 15) from eating well.

Last night we splurged a little with:

New York Strip grilled to a perfect medium rare
French Fries
Chopped “Three Hour” Salad
Pan Roasted Shishito Peppers
Caramelized Onion
Phelps Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon

Talk about all the food groups!

Steak

We don’t eat a lot of red meat. When I get the green light to grill a steak, I like to work with a thicker cut of New York Strip. We bought a whole loin from Costco with our bulk shopping at the start of the lock down. I cut it into steaks that were 2 inches thick. The added thickness widens the window to get it cooked to the perfect medium rare.

French Fries

What is not to like about homemade French fries. The French really know how to make them. I will never forget my first trip to Paris and getting fries at a Bistro and thinking: These are better than McDonald’s. Growing up in the states, my gold standard for French fries were found under the Golden Arches. After working with a French chef, I learned that the Bistro in Paris and McDonalds both know the magic secret to a crispy fry. YOU HAVE TO COOK THEM TWICE. The key is to pre-cook them, let them cool and then finish them quickly in hot oil. It works every time.

3 Hour Salad

My daughter Jennifer has renamed my Romaine Wedge Salad with Gorgonzola Aioli as the “3 Hour Salad”. The combination of:

Roasting homemade croutons
Sautéing bacon
Whipping together a Gorgonzola aioli
Prepping a combination of green onion, olives and grape tomatoes with live oil and vinegar
Chopped Romaine Lettuce

What takes me about 30 minutes, will take Jennifer 3 hours. There is something to be said about trying to cook while at the same time keeping an eye on three kids under the age of 6.

Shishito Peppers

These are easy to make, taste great and add a perfect amount of zip/color to your plate. I love that they add the zip without too much heat, The funny thing is that 1 in 10 will have a real pop of heat, but that isn’t exactly a bad thing,

Caramelized Onions

These were a last minute addition. It just so happened that we have a lot of onions from our “Buying In Bulk” exercise. A wonderful offshoot is you will add something different

Phelps Cabernet Sauvignon

Talk about a little splurge. Phelps is one of our favorite vineyards that we first visited back in the 1980’s. Do their wines taste better to us because they remind us of a wonderful afternoon in an idyllic setting 40 years ago? Probably! Past that, Phelps makes a pretty tasty Cabernet.

We can’t eat the way we did last night or we will be adding and unwanted Coivd-19 POUNDS. But, we certainly had a pretty good meal last night. Tonight, may be a pan seared chicken breast with extra vegetables. Being “Sheltered in Place” doesn’t mean we cant eat well.