CREATING MEMORIES

Supper Clubs are not always just dinner, if you are lucky, you can create a memory. We had a memorable evening with Phil and Peggy Rose in Nashville.

The theme for the evening was Parisian Bistro combined with Phil’a favorites. We had warned participants to bring an appetite as the menu consisted of:

Hors D’Ouevres

Pisaladieres
- Caramelized Onion with Olives
- Caramelized Onion & Garlic With Bacon

First Course

Romaine Wedge with Roquefort Vinaigrette, Croutons and Bacon

Main Course

Rack of Lamb Provencal
Potatoes Gran Mer
Roasted Asparagus
Béarnaise Blush Sauce

Desert

La Tartre Au Pommes with Grand Marnier Infused Berries & Sauce Anglais

The key to preparing for a dinner party for 11 people is in the mise en place. Said another way, do everything you can in advance. By the time guests arrived at 6 pm:

Pisalidieres had been cooked
Potatoes and the asparagus were in the oven
Rack of lamb had been prepped and the grill was preheating
The salad was staged ready to be assembled

All I had to do was to assemble the salad, cook the rack of lamb and serve.

Preparing the meal in Peggy’s kitchen was a delight. The Roses have top of the line stoves, ovens and grills. The kitchen is well laid out. Peggy is the gadget queen. Working in a strange kitchen can be hard, but in this case it was a delight.

The Rose’s friend are a fun bunch and were very appreciative dinner party guests. It was great to get to know them and give them the background on Impromptu Friday Nights. It was particularly fun to hear the color provided by Peggy and Phil. They shared their Supper Club memories bringing credibility and humor to the story being told. Even if the jokes were at my expense.

Check out the video

At the end of the night it was Phil that hit the nail on the head by saying:

“Tonight was not just a dinner party, we created a memory”

That pretty much said it all, and that is one of the beauties of supper clubs.

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.

Reverse Engineering Or …Imitation Is The Greatest Form Of Flattery

I really enjoy having a dish at a restaurant and then trying to replicate it at home. In fact most of my “Original” dishes are the result of this process. It is also a great way to come up with ideas for a supper club menu.

I started this process with our friends Debby and Marc Waldman when we lived in Dover Delaware in the late 1980’s. Mark and Debby lived across the street and our routine was to go out to a restaurant on Friday night and then I would replicate dishes on Saturday night at home via reverse engineering.

I’d better explain, “Reverse engineering”. It is a standard practice in the food business. It is very common for a major manufacturer to spend a lot of money developing a new product. If the product does well in the market, competitors, particularly private label manufacturers will develop a “knock-off” product. Reverse engineering is the process of analyzing the ingredient line and researching manufacturing options to come up for a match of the successful product.

Early on in my career, a representative of a private label manufacturer propositioned me. He said I could make a lot of money by helping him to develop a knock-off of Post’s Grape Nuts. The guy was a sleaze ball and there was no way I was going to help him. Divulging trade secrets is certainly unethical, but I have no qualms about replicating a dish I enjoyed at restaurant.

To be honest, not all the recreations that I made for Marc, Debby and Susan were stellar. Today it is a lot easier. There is a wealth of information available on the Internet. You can Google steak au poivre and come up with several recipes. Or better yet, you can search YouTube and get a few videos with step-by-step instructions. Back in the day, my victims were stuck with my rudimentary culinary skills. I learned a lot and Marc, Debby and Susan survived. You should never question wine’s medicinal value.

One of my early attempts t0 recreate a dish was Roasted Peppers. I can remember buying roasted peppers in the Lake Farms Italian Market in Silver Lake NY where I grew up. Mr. Belmonte would bring a tray of freshly roasted peppers from the kitchen. They had a wonderful smoky flavor from the roasting married with the garlic and olive oil.

Check out the recipe

Is Papaya Killing Your Sex Drive?

Have you ever heard that papaya can kill your sex drive? Everyone knows this to be a fact? I certainly didn’t.

Several years ago I was traveling in Asia with my buddy John Huang. John is a Chinese Filipino who was our sales manager for Asia and we were in the midst of a long car ride in Korea. John is a devout Catholic and I had told him that my uncle Pat was a Catholic priest. Out of nowhere John says to me: “Your uncle must eat a lot of papaya.” My response was: “excuse me?” “Yeah”, John said: “Everyone knows that priests eat a lot of papaya because it kills your sex drive.”

I explained that my uncle didn’t have a sex drive. He was a priest living in a monastery at Villanova University. Picture an 80 year-old Archie Bunker in a Roman collar. Father Pat probably didn’t know what a papaya was. He was strictly a meat and potatoes kind of guy and certainly wasn’t worried about his sex drive.

Fast-forward a few years when I was visiting my cousin Virginia in Hawaii. Ginny and her husband Rich live on Maui near Hana. They have an organic farm and one of their principle crops…you guessed it…papaya. One morning Rich and I go off into their orchard with a long pole to pick some papaya for our morning smoothies. So I say to Rich: “You know that papaya kills your sex drive.” Well Rich certainly didn’t know that and almost took offense to the suggestion.

What got me on this tangent? I was watching an old episode of the Barefoot Contessa where she starts her day off with a papaya smoothie.

Check it out https://youtu.be/Ikf92NioGUE

I always love Ina Garten because of her practical cooking and entertainment advice. I am also a fan because she opened her first shop in Westhampton N.Y. down the road from my mom’s house. She was in Westhampton (the poor man’s Hampton) for a few years before moving to Easthampton where the real money is. A story she tells really explains the difference. She had just opened her shop in Easthampton when she noticed a customer hemming and hawing over how much lobster salad to buy. Ina was fearful that her price of $25 a pound was causing his reluctance. When she asked if he needed help he told her: “I am just not sure if I need 5 or 6 pounds”. There is real money in Easthampton and they certainly are not worried about papaya killing their sex drive.

How about a rum infused papaya smoothie as an amuse bouche at your next supper club dinner party? It would be a hit…just don’t tell folks that it may kill their sex drive.

If you enjoyed this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons 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.