Vacation Supper Club

All you need for a great Vacation Supper Club dinner party are some good steaks and a Limo Squeezo

As we head into the summer vacation/travel season it is great to have a plan to pull together an impromptu dinner party for family and friends. In today’s world of Airbnb and VRBO it has become a lot easier to rent a vacation property that includes kitchen basics.

The key to developing a menu for your Vacation Supper Club dinner party is to keep it simple. The last thing you want to do is spend your vacation time in the kitchen. My traditional “go to” menu revolves around grilled steaks and assorted sides from the local supermarket deli section. I have pulled this menu off during trips in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, it just works.

The steaks are your centerpiece and the key is access to a grill. Most rentals will provide a gas or charcoal grill. If you don’t have a grill, a quick trip to Wal-Mart for a cheap grill and some charcoal might be called for. I am a big fan of Costco’s New York Strip Steaks. Grill them up and then let them rest with a little compound butter and you and your guests are in for a treat.

Here is a menu we enjoyed in Cabo a few years ago:

Mojito’s
First Course
- Guacamole
- Hummus
- Chips
- Crudité
Main Course
- Grilled NY Strip Steaks with Compound Butter
- Potato Salad
- Broccoli Salad
- Cole Slaw
Dessert
- Ice Cream Sundays

Deli Side Salads

Cabo was great. We rented a fantastic place in the Pedrigal neighborhood. And while it is Mexico, it is very friendly to Americans with limited Spanish language skills.

Reminded me of my college roommate who spent six months after college living in Mexico. Upon his return I asked him how he got by with his limited Spanish skills. He said: “It was easy, all you have to know is Una Cervesa por favor. After that all you need to know is “Una mas”.

Cabo Crew

( Lauren Kenny, Brian Kenny, Ethan Begun, Jenn Kenny, Chef, Susan Kenny, Mike Schuler. Not pictured Jessica W. Schuler and our hero Max Begun (See cover photo – Age 1 year))

I was able to find a Costco to buy my steaks and a local market that had a deli section with plenty of sides/salad options. The one thing that got me in trouble was the Limo Squeezo.

We bought everything we needed for dinner between the Costco and Wal-Mart except for the Limo Squeezo to juice limes for the mojitos. A clerk at Wal-Mart directed me to a store on the Mexican side of town. No one spoke English there, but between my sign language and Limo Squeezo descriptor we were able to get what we needed.

Vacation Supper Club dinner parties can be the highlight of your summer vacation. Just make sure you keep it simple and can find a Limo Squeezo.

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.

How Much To Tip On Wine?

When the question of tipping on wine comes up, I think of the late/great baseball player and announcer Tim McCarver.

My workout buddy Jackie Aarons, once asked me how much to tip on a $1,200 bottle of wine. Jackie owns a wine and liquor distribution business in Memphis. He grew up with Tim McCarver, the great baseball player and announcer. Jackie has a group of buddies that would fly up to NY every year to go to a game and then out to dinner with Tim.

One year they went to a very nice Italian restaurant in New York City. When it came time to order the wine the Tim McCarver deferred to Jackie saying: “You are the wine guy, you order the wine”. Jackie ordered a bottle of wine not knowing what it would cost. He said: “I knew I was in trouble when there was no price on the menu and they decanted the wine without even asking”.

Jackie returned to Memphis and was retelling the story to his workout buddies and then turns to me asking: “You are the New Yorker, a food and wine guy, how much do you tip on a $1,200 bottle of wine. I responded with: You have to go with the flow, in that company, you gotta act like you belong. Go with 20%, besides, you can afford it.

Some would say that I over tip. Having grown upping caddying at a country club, I know what it is to work for tips. As Bill Murray character Carl in Caddyshack says “You expect a little something for the effort”. You may not get “total consciousness” on your death-bed as Carl the did, but you might get 20%, which is nice. Check out the clip.https://youtu.be/RnHaTlI1p7o

There is a great article from the New York Times on how much to tip on an expensive bottle of wine. https://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/the-answer-man-tipping-on-wine/Ironically, the article author takes the same tack as I did in saying he never would order that expensive a wine. The author did real research (unlike me) and the consensus he came up with is also to tip 20%. It is just safer.

Great Ideas Before Their Time

Starbucks stole our idea to build a chain of Viennese coffee houses. Yes, Maxwell House of “Good To The Last Drop” fame, had a strategic plan to invest in a chain of coffee houses in the U.S. in 1982. We didn’t do it , but Starbucks did and it has been the best thing to happen to coffee consumption since the discovery of caffeine.

Because of Starbucks, coffee is cool again and you should definitely serve it as part of your supper club dinner party.

I worked for Maxwell House in the early 1980’s and coffee wasn’t cool. Baby Boomers didn’t drink coffee. We were the “Pepsi Generation”. We had found another way to get our caffeine. Besides, our parents drank coffee and they certainly weren’t cool. I can remember sitting at dinner with the President of Maxwell House when coffee was being served and telling the waiter I didn’t drink coffee. The President said to me: “Kid, have him fill the cup, its all about consumption”. Maxwell House was desperate to get baby boomers to drink coffee.

The chain of Viennese coffee house was a brilliant idea…way before its time. We made our pitch of the strategic plan and got shot down by General Foods (Predecessor to Kraft) upper management for two reasons: The concept was:

“outside of our strategic core” and
“it wouldn’t play in Paducah”.

Back in that day, the Harvard Business School was preaching to have companies focus on their strategic core. In other words, stick to what you are good at. And, General Foods certainly didn’t know anything about Viennese coffee houses. We also got a speech from the then Chairman that he didn’t care what would be popular on Manhattan’s east side (Where many of our marketers lived). But rather, he wanted strategic plans that would be a hit in Middle America. Maybe this paragraph explains why the mainstream of American Food Processors are having the problems that they are having today.

Besides, You have to question General Foods marketing genius knowing that our two major marketing personalities were Jell-O’s Bill Cosby (Who knew) and Cora also known as the Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West. Margaret Hamilton, the actress who played Miss Gulch and the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz was also Cora, the Maxwell House lady from the 1970’s. Twenty-twenty hindsight is a wonderful tool, but you might want to question GF’s people choices.

Fast forward to 2005. It was then that I knew coffee was back. We took our daughter Jennifer to New York city and she made a point of being seen with a Starbucks coffee cup in her hand. Coffee was cool again. Young professionals love coffee. Baby boomers while late to the coffee craze, certainly love their caffeine. You have to give Starbucks credit for the resurgence of coffee. They did a great job of making coffee cool.

Thanks to Starbucks, coffee is cool again and you should definitely serve it as part of your supper club dinner party.