Cooking Club At My House

Tuesday night was Cooking Club.  I hosted.  Here's how we do things: 

Once a month-ish we pick a night that all works with our schedules.  It might be a Thursday or a Monday, but it always changes.  We usually meet late-7:30, which means dinner is at 8 or later. It works out best this way.  Whoever is hosting, picks the theme.  There are 8 of us, so we have several courses:

Appetizer

Salad

2 Main Dishes

2 Sides

Dessert

Drinks.  The host is in charge of the drinks seeing as it's hard to transport beverages.

It's all really fancy and a ton of food and we kind of get dressed up-or at least put on a fresh coat of makeup.  

Last night was no exception.  The food was great, our talk was fun, and we just focused on our common bond of food.  For our theme, I picked Local.  We could make anything, but at least one ingredient had to be local-from our garden or purchased locally.  

We had eggplant from someone's garden, local honey, local bacon (for the brownies, yep bacon in the brownies), cheese from a local farm, etc.  It was all very fun.  Andy VERY YUMMY.

One of the fun parts of the night for me was the hour that I had to get ready.  John and Burl left the house for a calzone at our favorite, LOCAL, pizzeria, so I was alone. In the house. By myself.  The house was clean, the drinks were made, so I focused on the important things like candle lighting, dancing around, and setting the table.  Girly things, oh how I love you!

I even busted out my Emily Post Etiquette book to figure out where the salad plate went and remind myself for the 400th time which way the knife blade faces.  Important things, I tell you.

Things that I remember:

BMW: From left to right, the order is Bread-Meal-Water.  Bread (or salad plate) on the left-Meal in the center-and Water (and other drinks) on the right-not pictured.

Silverware is set up working from the outside-in.  We had soup first, so I included a soup spoon on the far right.  We had salad next, so it's further away from the center (aka the dinner plate).

The knife blade faces the food because that's what it does-it likes to cut food.

And I'm pretty sure that the napkin can go wherever it wants to.  Traditionally, it went under the forks.  Then, we got fly in the 80s and turned it into random things like ducks, then the 90s hit we had to bundle it up in a napkin ring-the creative the better, and now we're keeping it real in the 21st century.  We like it casually laid down.  I slapped mine right on the plate.

All girly things.  All fun, girly things that don't matter in the grand scheme of things but are fun to do when we have the house to ourselves.  Plus, it's always good practice, because we never know when the President is going to show up for dinner.

After the table was set, candles lit, and music on, the girls started to arrive and I got busy talking and didn't pick up my camera again.  The white plates were decorated by mother nature's finest: a rainbow of colors, textures and flavors that kept us eating until we were stuffed.  It was fun.