Feasting with Friends

May/June 2009 Issue | Posted by Kate Wicker in What's Cooking

By Kate Wicker

A few years ago some friends and I decided we wanted to do something intellectually stimulating in our lives. We also wanted a good excuse to eat, drink, and be merry. So we started a bookish supper club, a dressed-up potluck of sorts where we would meet regularly at someone’s home to talk about books and share a delicious dinner.

Our love affair with mixing social pleasure and food is not uncommon.

Affordable Entertainment

Sara Burch has been a part of a supper club with two other couples for several years now. The three families gather at each other’s houses once a month to share dinner and hospitality. Burch says this arrangement is perfect, affordable entertainment for busy families.

“We couldn’t afford to go out all the time, and with the kids it was doubly hard,” says the mom of five. “The supper club idea first came up because we wanted to try something more ambitious, civilized, and elegant. Doing it at someone’s home rather than going out seemed more practical in terms of money and also managing the children.”

Trying New Things

“While the social aspect is certainly my favorite part, I have to say the whole experience has exposed me to a lot more foods than I would ever try at home — or even at a restaurant,” adds supper club member Laura Beutler.

There’s also the dependability of supper clubs. When life gets crazy, you still can count on some good eats and good company.

Recipes

Here are some pretty, pleasing recipes to try for your next supper club, or for anytime you entertain:

Festive Pepper Bundles

Supper club devotee Sara Burch adapted this veggie recipe from BettyCrocker.com and uses it to add a tasty touch of color to any main dish.

The green parts of 12 green onions, sliced into thin strips lengthwise

Assortment of red, yellow, green, and orange bell peppers (4 total)

1 1/3 cup water

Lemon juice and melted butter

Place thin strips of green onions in shallow dish. Pour enough boiling water over them just to cover. Let stand for about 10 seconds so onion strips become supple. Drain well and set aside.

Cut each bell pepper into eighteen 3-by-1/4-inch strips (there may be some extra strips). To create each bundle, place three pepper strips side by side on the center of a green onion. Top with three more pepper strips, alternating their colors. Tie green onion strip around bundle. Repeat with remaining pepper strips and green onions. Gently transfer bundles to 10-inch nonstick skillet; add water. Heat until boiling. Boil about 1 minute or until the bundles are tender.

Place cooked bundles on a serving plate, and drizzle with a mixture of melted butter and lemon juice.

Roast Chicken Neanya

My godmother (known as Neanya to family and friends) is a wonderful chef who enjoys entertaining and cooking for others. She shared this recipe, which is very tasty but fairly simple to prepare and would complement any supper club menu.

3 1/2- to 4-pound roaster chicken

1/4 pound (1 stick) of butter, softened

3 medium shallots, peeled and quartered

3-4 sprigs fresh tarragon

1 lemon, halved

Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 485 degrees. Rinse the bird thoroughly, inside and out, and then pat dry. Rub butter, salt, and pepper around the inside cavity, then insert the quartered shallots and one half of the lemon. Squeeze the juice from the other half into the cavity. Add the tarragon sprigs.

Rub all surfaces of the outside of the bird generously with butter. Sprinkle salt and pepper liberally all over the outside of the chicken. Tie the legs together with twine, and tuck the wings under the bird to prevent burning. Place trussed bird on a shallow rack in a roasting pan.

Roast the bird for about 20 to 30 minutes at 485 degrees, and then turn oven down to about 375 degrees. Continue roasting at that temperature for about 20 minutes per pound. If the bird starts to brown too much, loosely tent it with foil while it finishes roasting.

Allow to rest under a tent of aluminum foil after you remove it from the oven. The resting phase is es­ sential to prevent the rush of juices and flavors from spilling from the meat when you begin to carve it.

COOK’S NOTE: A heavenly accompaniment is red or Yukon Gold potatoes. Do not peel; just halve them lengthwise, rub each in butter, and then salt and pepper them. Place them flesh side up on the rack all around the chicken before roasting. They’ll be dark golden and crunchy on the outside, and soft and tender inside when the bird is done.

Dishing the Details

Here are some key ingredients for supper club success.

Plan Ahead.

Determine how often you’ll meet and whether you’ll rotate houses. Many clubs meet monthly; however, you can design your schedule around your members’ needs. You could start out with quarterly events tied to the change of season, and go from there. You’ll also want to consider the host’s role. Will the host family be responsible for all of the cooking, will you gather and cook together, or will you take on more of a potluck approach?

Start Small.

“I would advise keeping your club to three or four couples, especially at first,” says Sara. “The more people you have, the crazier it gets logistically.”

If you’re wondering where to recruit supper club members, you might consider starting a supper club as a part of your parish’s family life ministry. Lisa Farnsworth belongs to a supper club that parish volunteers organize. “It is truly a ministry and builds such good relationships within the church,” she says. 

Be Creative.

Some clubs allow the host to choose the style and flavors. Others plan ahead and shape their dinner club menus on regions — everything from Italian and French to Chinese and Indian.

Another option is to adopt a cookbook or magazine like Bon Appetit or Food and Wine to cook from each month. CookingLight.com has an online supper club community complete with menus and entertaining tips.

Some clubs, like the one I belonged to, make discussing media such as music, movies, or books a part of their entertainment.

Finally, don’t be limited by the word “supper.” Coworkers or at-home moms could organize a lunch club and prepare mid-day meals for each other during the weekdays.

Enjoy!

“While these parties are ostensibly about the food, it was nice to have an intelligent, nice group of people getting together that you didn’t see all the time,” says Laura. “Over the years we had several babies, several miscarriages, and one cancer diagnosis. We all moved at least once. We changed careers and lost parents. As it should be, it was always more about the people than the food.”

Sara couldn’t agree more. “The food is great, the drinks are better, but the friends will last a lifetime.”

Blue Cheese Bites

Serve this tasty appetizer while your guests mingle.

1 package of refrigerator biscuits

(10 biscuits)

4 tablespoons butter or margarine

5 tablespoons crumbled blue cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Quarter biscuits, and arrange in two 9-inch round baking dishes. In a saucepan, melt together butter and blue cheese. Drizzle over biscuits. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until browned. Makes 40.

— Adapted from AllRecipes.com

Mussels in White Wine

As a main dish, this only serves two, but the mussels make a wonderful first course for a larger crowd and are delicious served with crusty French bread for dipping.

2 to 2 1/2 pounds cleaned mussels (the smaller the better)

1/4 pound (1 stick) butter

3 medium-large shallots, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2/3 cup chopped fresh parsley

1/3 cup clam juice

1/2 cup dry white wine

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1/2 cup of half and half

Salt and pepper to taste

In heavy frying pan or Dutch oven, melt butter. Add shallots and garlic and sauté until just translucent. Add a pinch of salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. Add parsley, clam juice, and white wine, and bring to a gentle simmer. Add mussels to pan and cover loosely, allowing steam to escape and al­ cohol to evaporate. Add fresh lemon juice and half and half, and stir the mussels once or twice during cooking. Mussels are ready when the shells have opened, about 5 to 7 minutes. Discard any unopened mussels.

Raspberry Delight

No culinary tour de force would be complete without a delectable des­ sert. According to Sara Burch, this easy and elegant dessert is always a big hit.

Drizzle Chambord, a French black raspberry liqueur, over vanilla ice cream and serve with fancy cookies such as Pepperidge Farm Black & White Milano Cookies.

Supper Swapping

Many hands make light work — here’s an innovative way to ease the burden of daily meal planning.

It’s 5 o’clock — do you know what you’re having for dinner?

For many parents, mealtime mayhem is just a part of the daily grind. But it doesn’t have to be. Stay-at-home and working moms alike are discovering the benefits of something called “supper swapping,” also known as “co-op cooking.”

It works like this: You form a group of three to five families of similar size. Then, once a week, each family provides dinner for all the families in the group.

On your designated day, you cook one identical meal in several batches, keep one for your family, and then deliver the other meals to the families in the group.

The rest of the week, your swapper friends deliver supper to you. It’s like having your meals catered several times a week, saving you time as well as money since cooking in bulk tends to stretch your food dollar.

Supper swapping is not only a solution to your dinnertime dilemma, according to Trish Berg, author of The Great American Supper Swap ($13.49 at Amazon.com); it’s also a means of building relationships.

“Supper swapping is more than just meal sharing — it’s life sharing,” writes Berg. “God calls us to love one another, and supper swapping is a wonderful opportunity to do just that. It opens the door to building stronger friendships and witnessing to neighbors and friends.”

The Great American Supper Swap is a great starting point for supper swap newbies. The book includes how-to tips, recipes, and even biblical wisdom to share with your cooking buddies. In addition, Berg’s website, SupperSwapMom.com, is a clearinghouse that offers printable meal calendars, advice from veteran swapping moms, and recipes.

Kate Wicker feasts with family and friends in Georgia. Find her online at KateWicker.com.

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