Dinner Clubs an Entertaining Way to Cook and Dine with Friends

This dinner club generally meets quarterly, depending on its members' busy schedules, but the newer, private Supper Club based in Ojai, has been meeting once a month for over a year. Picking a date and host can be a challenge, says Supper Club founder Lisa Snider, so they use Facebook as a tool.

"Sometimes we agree on a theme – from White Trash to Mediterranean – and everyone brings a fantastic dish," she adds. "We always bring favorite wines from our home cellars, even when dining in restaurants."

For its first meeting, Lisa, a food writer, organized a group of foodie friends – including two other food writers, a former chef and sommelier, another food lover and their significant others – at Sidecar Restaurant for its closing.

Like the Supper Club, the Epicurious one began on a whim that broadened into regular events.

Larry and his wife, Patty, met two of their future dinner club mates 15 years ago at their synagogue's social group, where potlucks were the norm. Larry, who has always been an intrepid home cook, found potlucks a bit limiting, so when an equally adventurous member suggested they begin a dinner club, he was intrigued.

November 1999 marked The Epicurious Club's first meal, a harvest birthday celebration in honor of Larry's birthday, which the Lerners had previously celebrated at Charlie Trotter's two-star Michelin- rated restaurant in Chicago.

"Patty took me on a surprise trip to Chicago and we ate something that was a totally different experience," says Larry. "We ate at Charlie Trotter's and bought the cookbook."

Their first dinner included Trotter's recipe for red kuri squash soup. A club member located the thick-skinned winter squash at Underwood Family Farms for the Lerners, who replicated the recipe.

"We had to put it in a juicer," says Larry. "We were pulping those things all day long."

Undeterred by the hard work, the gatherings became a regular and much anticipated event. Typically, one-half of the couple is the more avid cook, with the other acting as sous chef. Recipes are handed out for the event usually two to three weeks in advance to give time to acquire ingredients and allow for adequate preparation.

Each dining experience is a leisurely unfolding of multiple courses, with couples taking turns in the kitchen to do finishing touches on their prepped courses. In between, the group socializes, catching up on their personal lives. As one might imagine, much has changed over a decade-and-a half for club members, now in their 50s, with children who are young adults.

The group started with four couples, but whittled down to three when one couple moved out of the area. On dinner club nights, an enthusiastic guest couple generally takes the remaining spot.

While there are no written rules, member Michelle Tingley says there is a definite process for their dinner club, which differs from other gourmet food groups.

"We take turns hosting the event in our home, and it's the hosts' responsibility to come up with the theme, and the hosts assign the dishes to the other people," says Michelle. "Usually the hosts will do what you would consider a main dish. We can have anywhere from four to six or eight courses, and the hosts create and provide the wine pairings."

For Epicurious Club members, the wine pairings – and, occasionally, the cocktail or nonalcoholic beverage pairing – is an essential part of the dining experience.

Some members have gone to the extent of taking the club's assigned recipes to a local wine shop for advice on the best pairings. While they admit there is a large workload and expense involved for both wine and food, primarily for the hosts, the members agree that once a year is doable, and the best reward is a great meal in a relaxed home environment.

"People who are not as serious or skilled can also put together these clubs where it's economically feasible," says Patty Lerner. "You don't need to have six or seven courses. There are a variety of ways to put this together to promote home cooking and to promote using good local ingredients and good local wines."

Members note that learning about wines has been a welcome and unexpected area of growth for them, as has their understanding of the types of tools required to create their dishes. Often they will share fryers, juicers and other equipment, and call or email each other to find out the best techniques to complete a recipe.

While there have been a few minor mishaps, everyone in The Epicurious Club enjoys the experimentation aspect of the recipes, utilizing unusual ingredients, the shared joy of eating and, best of all, the camaraderie of long-term, close-knit relationships.

It also makes for an entertaining evening. "It is the most fun I've had with foodies, and about as far from snooty as possible," says Lisa of the Supper Club.

"I think in a group like this, not only can you cultivate lifelong friendships, you just expand your horizons and really learn to savor the food," adds Patty. "Try things you wouldn't normally try or, if you're cooking, to try recipes that normally you wouldn't attempt – and, honestly, to get together with good friends and have good food and wine."