Gourmet Group On A Budget

GUEST BLOG… My sister contributed the following. If you find any spelling or grammatical mistakes, you will note that such errors are consistent with the quality of the other blogs on the site. We are the children of an esteemed communication professor, but as he would have noted: “Good grammar/spelling skills run in the family, but when it came to these blog authors, those skills walked”. ENJOY THE BLOG.

Ten women gather each year on Kiawah Island, South Carolina for tennis, biking, walking on the beach and eating! For over 15 years, Martha has organized this great group and has provided the meal planning and cooking. We all help out. Martha’s goal – feeding ten people for four days (including wine and beer and liquor!) for under $100 per person.

Advance planning is key – and she takes into account food preferences and allergies.

Martha brings with her little baggies of any spices she thinks she will need. She figures out the main meals and then the different components of the main meal. Then she will see how overlaps work, so food not used in the main meals contribute to other meals.

Main meal or dinner menus included steak, potatoes with pesto, couscous with grilled vegetables, salad; surf and turf with leftover steak, Shrimp scampi, pesto pasta, salad, grilled asparagus; and shrimp/steak/veg tacos, quesadillas and more salad.

Lunch today will be two frittatas – leftover pesto potatoes with bacon and another one with leftover grilled vegetable/bacon and onions. Both have tons of cheese. And of course bacon.

Frittata Recipes

Each day begins with steel cut oatmeal with all the fixings served with a lot of coffee and conversation.

How does Martha do it? She buys steak, salad, eggs, garlic, peppers, tomatoes, red wine vinegar, coffee, olive oil, fruit, vegetables and bacon in bulk at Costco. She buys locally caught shrimp and adds a lot of helping hands. And then she mixes in friendship, memories, conversations and athletic activities to work all the food off.

Saint Remy Market

Markets are a wonderful source of menu inspiration. There is nothing better than developing a menu around fantastic ingredients. A walk through the weekly market in Saint Remy de Provence is more than inspirational. It is simply unforgettable.

Local outdoor markets in France are special. If you ever get a chance to visit France, make a point to spend a few hours walking through the market. There is a cornucopia of wonderful food and fantastic Ideas.

Mushrooms

In the fall you are sure to see a wonderful selection of mushrooms. In the US we grew up with one mushroom. The Champignon or white button mushroom was all we knew. We called generic tissue a Kleenex and a Champignon was a mushroom. My mom was an adventurous cook and I can remember her forcing mushrooms on us as kids. As the ungrateful brat that I was, I can even remember complaining about the smell of the mushrooms cooking. Today the sight of the mushrooms at Saint Remy made me drool with thoughts of mushrooms soup, sautéed mushrooms with chicken, mushrooms in a wine sauce with steak. I could go on and on.

Hostess Gifts

My book publicist made me write an article on hostess gifts. I protested that hostess gifts weren’t exactly a “guy thing”, but I tapped into my “expert panel” and wrote a fun article. Walk through the market in Saint Remy and you find all kinds of things that would make any hostess happy. One catch, you won’t find any Pro V1 golf balls, but I digress. (see the article)

Fruit de Mer

There is nothing like a multi tiered platter of fresh seafood at a Paris bistro. I always remember my buddy, the food scientist from Louisiana, ordering a whole platter for himself and declaring: “It is just protein and water”.

Cured Meats

Growing up in an Italian neighborhood in New York, I learned to love salamis and sausages. The cured meats at the Saint Remy market were simply at another level. A few of these salamis and a nice baguette would make the perfect supper club meal, for me.

The Perfect Takeaway

Do have people coming over for dinner and you are too tired to cook? Stop by the Saint Remy market and pick up some paella for dinner. Sounds pretty perfect to me.

Fromage

What to have for dessert? Why not bring home a selection of cheeses and a pear, an apple and a bunch of grapes. Voila!

Seasonal Specialties

For me, there are few things more inspirational than the perfect tomato, lettuce and peppers. To get vine ripened produce in season is more than special. Maybe I am just weird.

Exceptional Produce.

Every supermarket in the U.S. has produce, but to see really fresh produce at the market in Saint Remy was special.

OK, many of you are thinking: “The Saint Remy market is great, but I don’t live in the South of France”. My advice is go to your local market and dream a little. Think about the trip you took, the TV show you saw or even this silly blog. The chances are you will see something inspirational.

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.

The Key To Success Is Growth

The key to the health of most supper clubs is growth. The supper clubs that last for a long time are the ones that are open to new members and actively encourage newbies, especially younger ones, to easily get involved.

A problem our local supper club is that a lot of members are getting older. Many have been in the club for over 20 years. Lots of our good friends have moved away. We are faced with the challenge of recruiting new members and members not of a certain age.

Just about everybody likes to socialize over a meal, but many of us are daunted by the supper club challenges of:

Finding the right people?
How to organize?
How to host a dinner party?
What if i don’t cook?
How to recruit new (and younger) members?

Impromptu Friday Nights – A Guide to Supper Clubs (Available from Morgan James Publishing anywhere books are sold) addresses these concerns in detail. However, encouraging and recruiting new members is a key and more than worthy of a few meaningful thoughts.

Our neighborhood is in transition. The homes are 20 to 30 years old and many of the original owners have retired and moved away. The bad news is that membership has fallen off as the core group has aged. The good news is that it is still an attractive neighborhood with affordable homes near good schools and we have seen a significant influx of younger families. It is a perfect environment to attract new members to a supper club.

The key is to get younger people involved. Our club leadership has taken several steps to do so. The club is made up of regular members, who host a dinner party and subs that get invited as fill-in when regular members can’t make an event. Historically, the way we have gotten new people involved is as subs. The good news is that subs don’t have to host and quite often didn’t even need to cook. They show up, have a good time and get more involved. The bad news is that as subs they would get called at the last minute and quite often couldn’t come because of scheduling conflicts. In an effort to get subs and younger people involved, we have started trying to recruit new subs in advance.

Coincidently, a wine club has sprung up in the neighborhood. Many of the participants are younger. The founder of the club developed a website and used it to get the club set up amongst her younger friends. We are trying to get the wine club set involved with the supper club and at the same time adapting some of the more casual features of the wine club into the supper club. For example, historically the supper club has been scheduled for Saturday nights. The wine club meets mostly on Sundays, but moves the dates around and is more flexible trying to get as many people involved as possible.

Growth is a key to success with supper clubs and just about most things in life. If you are not growing as a club, or a person, you have a problem. The good news is that growth is fun. Getting new people involved with supper clubs is a lot of fun. It is a particularly good way to get new neighbors engaged. It is important to make it easy for new people to get involved and lower the intimidation factor. And, most importantly, keep it fun. If your supper club is fun, it will grow.