The Friday Friends: Party People

Showing posts with label Party People. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Cooking Club—Italian

“Friendship is the butter on the bread of life.”

Cooking Club-- October 2020.

If you recall, we last met a mere week before the pandemic broke out worldwide, on February 28th, 2020.

We waited patiently for there to be a break in COVID so we could get together again.

But...it was not happening.

So, we bent the rules.

We chose to become rule breakers--we are a wild and crazy bunch of cookers and even tho the government and health departments all over the US were warning us to stay away from each other still, we just couldn't do it.

So we gave in and had Italian food.

And as Sally said, "we'll never again take for granted the company of good friends and good food."

It never fails---one of us always buys a new cookbook for cooking club.

April always sets a nice table.

There is just one thing--and this has nothing to do with the table or the food, but rather, our hearts were sad because our friends, Shelly and Lorin were actually in the process of making a move. A move to another state. It won't happen for another year, but being the future thinkers that we are, we invited Mike and Theresa Mavity to be the new 'substitutes'.

“The love of good food and the love of good friends are two of the simplest yet greatest pleasures in life.”

It's so true!

It's so simple, and yet the best thing in the world.

This--THIS--is my kind of gathering.

Food and friends. In someone's home.

The new people laughing and having fun!

Actually, there are only new to this group. We've all known each other for years.

AND they are happy to be the subs.

See! Theresa is so happy being a substitute---she's thinking "there is no way I'm making something that time consuming and complicated."

We had lasagna and an antipasto salad and gelato and Neapolitan cookies...and other Italian dishes all made from scratch.

Lots of good food.

(lots and lots of carbs)

Then enjoyed the evening with good conversation and discussions about Italy and food.

Scenes from the evening....of friends and food.

Giving away her honey.

She had bees.

(the bees liked the COVID year)

The end!

This was the best cooking club ever!

With the best friends ever!

And these cooking club meals were all good too... just click on the link to see.

Cooking Club #1 -Meals your mom used to make

Cooking Club #2- Cajun Cooking

Cooking Club #3 - Let's all go to Hawaii

Cooking Club #4 - American Regional Cooking --Great Lakes Region, featuring: SUPPER CLUBS!

Cooking Club #5 - Famous Chefs (long post with other stuff mixed in, but just trust me)

Cooking Club #6 -Meatball Madness -- or something round (long post combined with Famous Chef's. Scroll thru some stuff to get there)

Cooking Club #7 - Breakfast for dinner

Cooking Club #8 - Slow Cooking

Cooking Club #9 - Mexican Street Food

Cooking Club #10- Your Christmas Cookie Heritage

Cooking Club #11 - Cooking from labels/back of box, can, or carton

Cooking Club #12 - It's all Greek to Me!

Cooking Club #13 - A Root Beer Tasting Holiday

Cooking Club #14 - Thai Food

Cooking Club #15- Pizza

Cooking Club #16- Pacific Northwest

Cooking Club #17 - Christmas Scavenger Hunt

Cooking Club #18 Milk Street Mania

Cooking Club #19 - 9x13 Cooking

Cooking Club #20--Jewish Deli

Cooking Club #21--Italian Dinner

Coming Soon --

Cook from a Movie --CHEF

Fondue Party

End of summer rhubarb party

Paella

Fermentation, pickled, raw, clean food.

Indonesian

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Cooking Club--Jewish Deli Food

I think we need a cool name. Cooking club---Supper Club.

They sound boring to me. So, I looked up cool cooking club names and thought perhaps we could borrow one?

Here are a few interesting ones:

The Zesty Chefs

The Tasty Temptations

Gourmet Goddesses

Bad to da Bone Cookers

I'm not sure what fits us.

We are a small group of friends who get together on a semi-regular basis to take on a large cooking project--or--explore an unfamiliar cuisine.

This was a bit unfamiliar to us--

Jewish Deli food.

And-- I am so far behind; we did our Jewish Deli food in March of 2020. Early March, right before the world went crazy.

And let's face it--it did go crazy for a while, and at first it was very scary. And then, it wasn't.

But I digress.

Sally and Paul made corned beef and Pastrami from scratch!!

It was the centerpiece of the meal.

And it was oh-so-good.

This is a text about how they did it:

It tasted really good!

Seen below right before going on the grill.

What we always do---whoever is hosting, buys a cookbook before cooking club. NOT something we have to do, or even talk about--we just do it, to be able to look thru it and know some facts about what we are attempting to do.

Of course, none of us have Kosher kitchens, but the food was really, really good.

We bought the right stuff....

We read the right books, watched the right movies.

And then we just had fun--as we always do.

It was a really good sandwich!

As usual I have a gazillion photos of our evening.

I wish I could explain how nice it is to have a cooking club/supper club.

When trying to find something on the internet about cooking clubs I did discover that they are the newest trend. Cooking and meal sharing is trendy.

I've done both and while the meal sharing (we called it dinner swap and only once a week was I responsible for making dinner--for four couples. And dropping it off on their doorstep. My day was Wednesday and then on all the other weekdays, someone would drop off on my doorstep. Or kitchen counter.

We did it Monday-Thursday for 6 months. It was so nice to have dinner prepared for us.

I loved it. And I would do it again, but if I had to choose, I'd choose this cooking club, the one where we eat with our friends. We get to talk and laugh together. You share a bond with people when you gather to eat on a regular basis.

I feel comfortable saying that I love this one, this cooking club the most, because half of the dinner swap people are the same as cooking club people.

But anyway--- let's get back to our Jewish Deli party night!

We had a test!

Yes, a test!

I think I am so smart, but I failed this test!

We began our evening with some pickled things.

Pickles

Olives

Beets

And bagels and lox-- or my bastardized version of it.

But they were good, nonetheless.

Something smells good!

It's Chicken soup with Matzo Balls!

We had latkes or latkas--it depends on where you are from--a Ashkenazi Jewish tradition that is made for Hannukah.

We served with applesauce.

And we also had Kugle..

I didn't get a close up of the Kugle, so I borrowed this photo below. But April's Kugle looked exactly like this.

As you can tell if you look closely at all the Kugle left on the plates.

It was no one's favorite. But really, who are we?

And once again, poor Paul and Sally got put in the corner.

(whenever I say 'corner' like that, I am reminded of the movie Dirty Dancing and the line "no one puts Baby in the corner." And that movie took place in the Catskills, which was a typical Jewish summer holiday place. See how I can bring this all back around to the theme of the evening?)

We always have fun at our SUPPER-CLUB!

(whatever you want to call it)

**notice that Shelly and Lorin were absent from this cooking/supper club get together. They were probably in Hawaii in March but let this picture (of them missing) be a foreshadowing.