Roycroft201
07-04-2004, 17:10
I'm starting this thread hoping that some others will share stories of dinner evenings at home with good friends. Any and all details are permissable, as long as it is within the perameters of the QP site.
I am sure many of you may have been part of a 'gourmet club' at one time or another, but I thought I would share with you how my former husband and I set one up with 3 other couples.
These were the ground rules:
1. The dinners would alternate between the men doing the cooking and the women doing the cooking.
2. The 'club' would meet four times a year, so each couple hosted it once (minimum. - We saw these friends more often, of course, but for this function, it was hard to get everyone's schedules to click).
3. Whoever is the hosting the party, will send the kids to grandma's or a friend's for overnight. (Trust me - we were ALL very involved parents, but this rule really made it a 'night out' and we were all very glad we set it up this way.)
4. Every item will be made from scratch. - No boxed mixes, no prepared soups, etc. unless the recipe called for it as an 'ingredient' .
5. We met just once for a 'planning' evening before starting this adventure, and everyone was able to list what foods they could not eat or were allergic to, so we would not use it as an ingredient. (Example: peanut allergy, etc.). If it was just a matter of never having tried something, then that didn't count - suck it up and try it.
6. We set up the dinners and courses the following way.
A. The person hosting the dinner that month, would select a main course and a side dish (It could be a 'theme menu' if desired, and alot of them were, but many weren't.) Once he/she selected the main course, then contact was made with other 3 men/women, so they could then select their recipes for their courses based on what the main course was :
B.(for ease of explanation, I will make it a night of the men cooking). Gentleman #2 was responsible for the hors d'oeuvres and the soup course.
C. Gentleman #3 was responsible for the bread and salad course.(N.B.- remember, all from scratch. No fair hitting your favorite bakery and picking up a fresh loaf! LOL)
D. Gentleman #4 was responsible for the desert and the table wine to be served with dinner.
Note: host couple was responsible for beer and wine for the evening , but not the dinner wine.
We would show up at the hosts' house between 6:30 and 7:00pm. We would usually sit down to dinner about 8:30 for the soup course, having already had the hors d'oeurves, and while finishing touches were being taken care of on the other courses. (When the men were cooking, there was always LOTS of laughter coming from the kitchen. )
Rule #7. The opposite sex did all the clean-up work after the meal was completed (If the men cooked, the women cleaned up. This held true except for the one wife who, after the men dropped one of her fine crystal goblets, preferred that MEN be excused from washing the crystal ! LOL! )
So, we set up the planning 'grid' so that we rotated homes (each couple 1X per year); we alternated between men doing the cooking and the women doing the cooking, and we rotated the courses thru the 4 couples, so one couple didn't always get stuck with the course that their spouse did the time before.
One of the girls kept a book, and she copied the recipes used each meal, soaked the wine label off the bottle and pasted that on a page, a couple pictures were always taken ( the hair styles and waist lines don't lie in pictures !) and then we all gave some input into a "very kind" critique.
We did this for ten years. Great memories. We watched families grow and we were there for each other during some difficult days, too. We had tons and tons of laughs and some nights lasted into the very,very wee hours.
We found some great recipes and some were disasters (like the one husband who put two days of prep work into his chinese duck recipe, only to mis-read the recipe for the sauce and didn't see that it called for 1/4 t. of pepper - he thought it said 14 t. of pepper !!!! We never knew if the beers affected his eyesight or if he just was such a novice in the kitchen that it never dawned on him that 14 t. of ANYTHING might be wrong !! He made the sauce just before serving and prepared each plate in the kitchen so we didn't realize he was doing it until he put the plates down in front of us at the table. And by then it was too late !! LOL!!!
There was also the 'desert' that my ex-husband made and it ended up costing $45.00 !! It was supposed to be a frozen strawberry souffle' and it was made with Gran Marnier. He didn't like the souffle' dish I had so he went shopping. Also, he needed fresh strawberries and they were out of season here - I don't know where he found them. Then he decided to be VERY generous with the Gran Marnier. No problem with that, except that there was so much liquor in it, that it never froze and we ended up having something similar to a superb strawberry milkshake for desert ! LOL!
So, there you have my story of some good meals with friends. I would love to hear some of yours.
Bon Appetit,
Roycroft201
I am sure many of you may have been part of a 'gourmet club' at one time or another, but I thought I would share with you how my former husband and I set one up with 3 other couples.
These were the ground rules:
1. The dinners would alternate between the men doing the cooking and the women doing the cooking.
2. The 'club' would meet four times a year, so each couple hosted it once (minimum. - We saw these friends more often, of course, but for this function, it was hard to get everyone's schedules to click).
3. Whoever is the hosting the party, will send the kids to grandma's or a friend's for overnight. (Trust me - we were ALL very involved parents, but this rule really made it a 'night out' and we were all very glad we set it up this way.)
4. Every item will be made from scratch. - No boxed mixes, no prepared soups, etc. unless the recipe called for it as an 'ingredient' .
5. We met just once for a 'planning' evening before starting this adventure, and everyone was able to list what foods they could not eat or were allergic to, so we would not use it as an ingredient. (Example: peanut allergy, etc.). If it was just a matter of never having tried something, then that didn't count - suck it up and try it.
6. We set up the dinners and courses the following way.
A. The person hosting the dinner that month, would select a main course and a side dish (It could be a 'theme menu' if desired, and alot of them were, but many weren't.) Once he/she selected the main course, then contact was made with other 3 men/women, so they could then select their recipes for their courses based on what the main course was :
B.(for ease of explanation, I will make it a night of the men cooking). Gentleman #2 was responsible for the hors d'oeuvres and the soup course.
C. Gentleman #3 was responsible for the bread and salad course.(N.B.- remember, all from scratch. No fair hitting your favorite bakery and picking up a fresh loaf! LOL)
D. Gentleman #4 was responsible for the desert and the table wine to be served with dinner.
Note: host couple was responsible for beer and wine for the evening , but not the dinner wine.
We would show up at the hosts' house between 6:30 and 7:00pm. We would usually sit down to dinner about 8:30 for the soup course, having already had the hors d'oeurves, and while finishing touches were being taken care of on the other courses. (When the men were cooking, there was always LOTS of laughter coming from the kitchen. )
Rule #7. The opposite sex did all the clean-up work after the meal was completed (If the men cooked, the women cleaned up. This held true except for the one wife who, after the men dropped one of her fine crystal goblets, preferred that MEN be excused from washing the crystal ! LOL! )
So, we set up the planning 'grid' so that we rotated homes (each couple 1X per year); we alternated between men doing the cooking and the women doing the cooking, and we rotated the courses thru the 4 couples, so one couple didn't always get stuck with the course that their spouse did the time before.
One of the girls kept a book, and she copied the recipes used each meal, soaked the wine label off the bottle and pasted that on a page, a couple pictures were always taken ( the hair styles and waist lines don't lie in pictures !) and then we all gave some input into a "very kind" critique.
We did this for ten years. Great memories. We watched families grow and we were there for each other during some difficult days, too. We had tons and tons of laughs and some nights lasted into the very,very wee hours.
We found some great recipes and some were disasters (like the one husband who put two days of prep work into his chinese duck recipe, only to mis-read the recipe for the sauce and didn't see that it called for 1/4 t. of pepper - he thought it said 14 t. of pepper !!!! We never knew if the beers affected his eyesight or if he just was such a novice in the kitchen that it never dawned on him that 14 t. of ANYTHING might be wrong !! He made the sauce just before serving and prepared each plate in the kitchen so we didn't realize he was doing it until he put the plates down in front of us at the table. And by then it was too late !! LOL!!!
There was also the 'desert' that my ex-husband made and it ended up costing $45.00 !! It was supposed to be a frozen strawberry souffle' and it was made with Gran Marnier. He didn't like the souffle' dish I had so he went shopping. Also, he needed fresh strawberries and they were out of season here - I don't know where he found them. Then he decided to be VERY generous with the Gran Marnier. No problem with that, except that there was so much liquor in it, that it never froze and we ended up having something similar to a superb strawberry milkshake for desert ! LOL!
So, there you have my story of some good meals with friends. I would love to hear some of yours.
Bon Appetit,
Roycroft201