Supper Club VI: Notes, Etc.
Now that we've had dessert, I'm going to write up a few summary notes and wrap this up.
With regards to beverages, we had the one round of shots previously described at the beginning of the meal. It was Zwack plum, complete with Hebrew on the label for those who are truly picky about such things. We also had a generic peppermint schnapps.
For drinks we had water on the table for the non-drinkers. For those who prefer something stronger, my sister and I took the last $75 of budget to Rozi's and told them we needed four bottles of red (two varieties) to go with beef short ribs. They made two suggestions, which we followed because we don't know much about wine and their suggestions have always been solid in the past.
First off we had two bottles of 2011 Conundrum, which was a blended red. This was, to my admittedly untutored view, fantastic. I'm not a huge wine fan but this one really hit the spot for me. I may go buy a couple more bottles just to have some on hand, and I've never said that about any bottle of wine before. Both bottles of this were gone by the end of the night.
We also got two bottles of a 2012 Meiomi Pinot Noir. This didn't do much for me, and given that we had 13 people who could drink alcohol and stille had almost a full bottle left at the end of the tonight I gather this was the standard opinion. gieves happily took the bottle home with her.
I should once again give props to Smitten Kitchen. This Supper Club featured one recipe from their cookbook (rugelach) and three from their blog (black & white cookies, knishes, kugel). Throw in the brisket from last year, which was another recipe from the Smitten Kitchen and is the most successful thing I've ever served at Supper Club, and that's one super successful blog.
Overall, I feel that this Supper Club was a winner from top to bottom. It had most attendees of any of my six times hosting (17), and while I don't think that's the all-time Supper Club attendance record, it's probably in the top 5. Additionally, each of the times I hosted previously there was at least one dish that didn't work as well, but this time everything was a winner; I would certainly consider make everything on this menu again.
From a preparation standpoint, having both tigerlily_blue and Ethan here to help really was helpful. Everything was ready right on time, and thanks to our manic, hard-cider powered cooking sprint Friday night we never felt rushed on Saturday. With three people I was able to stay well ahead of the dirty dishes, and at the start of the meal the dish rack, dishwasher and trash cans were all empty. Clean up was a cinch; as usual, I used paper plates and bowls so clean up was that much easier, but I still had essentially everything fully cleaned before I went to bed that evening, and I didn't even have to work all that hard to make it happen.
Last time I complained that I clearly had no idea how much food normal people can eat. This is still true. We had a tiny bit of extra soup, half an extra kugel, 3/4 of a crock pot of extra cholent, one extra knish, a lot of extra toppings for bagels (no salmon though) and quite a few extra black & white cookies. I could definitely made do with half as much cholent. Still, even with all the extra food I was on right on budget at $20/head for $340 total, and everybody who wanted leftovers got them, so while this is still something I need to work on, it's not a huge problem.
Perhaps somewhat more problematic is that my sister did most of the work For example, here's the breakdown of whose idea the item on the menu was, who provided the recipe, and who did the majority of the cooking for that dish.
Homemade Bagels - me, Mom, sister
Wonton Soup - me, sister, me
Sweet Kugel - me, sister, sister
Cholent - me, Mom, me
Potato Knishes - me, sister, sister
Rugelach - sister, sister, sister
Black & White Cookie - sister, sister, sister
That's 12 votes for my sister, 2 for mom and only 7 for me. Since I'm the nominal host, maybe I should do more of the actual work. On the other hand, I love having tigerlily_blue at my house for any reason, she's a brilliant cook, and I did once host an entire Supper Club for 15 sans help so it's not like I have something to prove.
In any event, this particular Supper Club was a smashing success, and now I've got at least a year to figure out what to do next time. I'm pretty sure there won't be another Jewish Soul Food though. The second sequel in the series is never very good. Of course, there could be a prequel...
With regards to beverages, we had the one round of shots previously described at the beginning of the meal. It was Zwack plum, complete with Hebrew on the label for those who are truly picky about such things. We also had a generic peppermint schnapps.
For drinks we had water on the table for the non-drinkers. For those who prefer something stronger, my sister and I took the last $75 of budget to Rozi's and told them we needed four bottles of red (two varieties) to go with beef short ribs. They made two suggestions, which we followed because we don't know much about wine and their suggestions have always been solid in the past.
First off we had two bottles of 2011 Conundrum, which was a blended red. This was, to my admittedly untutored view, fantastic. I'm not a huge wine fan but this one really hit the spot for me. I may go buy a couple more bottles just to have some on hand, and I've never said that about any bottle of wine before. Both bottles of this were gone by the end of the night.
We also got two bottles of a 2012 Meiomi Pinot Noir. This didn't do much for me, and given that we had 13 people who could drink alcohol and stille had almost a full bottle left at the end of the tonight I gather this was the standard opinion. gieves happily took the bottle home with her.
I should once again give props to Smitten Kitchen. This Supper Club featured one recipe from their cookbook (rugelach) and three from their blog (black & white cookies, knishes, kugel). Throw in the brisket from last year, which was another recipe from the Smitten Kitchen and is the most successful thing I've ever served at Supper Club, and that's one super successful blog.
Overall, I feel that this Supper Club was a winner from top to bottom. It had most attendees of any of my six times hosting (17), and while I don't think that's the all-time Supper Club attendance record, it's probably in the top 5. Additionally, each of the times I hosted previously there was at least one dish that didn't work as well, but this time everything was a winner; I would certainly consider make everything on this menu again.
From a preparation standpoint, having both tigerlily_blue and Ethan here to help really was helpful. Everything was ready right on time, and thanks to our manic, hard-cider powered cooking sprint Friday night we never felt rushed on Saturday. With three people I was able to stay well ahead of the dirty dishes, and at the start of the meal the dish rack, dishwasher and trash cans were all empty. Clean up was a cinch; as usual, I used paper plates and bowls so clean up was that much easier, but I still had essentially everything fully cleaned before I went to bed that evening, and I didn't even have to work all that hard to make it happen.
Last time I complained that I clearly had no idea how much food normal people can eat. This is still true. We had a tiny bit of extra soup, half an extra kugel, 3/4 of a crock pot of extra cholent, one extra knish, a lot of extra toppings for bagels (no salmon though) and quite a few extra black & white cookies. I could definitely made do with half as much cholent. Still, even with all the extra food I was on right on budget at $20/head for $340 total, and everybody who wanted leftovers got them, so while this is still something I need to work on, it's not a huge problem.
Perhaps somewhat more problematic is that my sister did most of the work For example, here's the breakdown of whose idea the item on the menu was, who provided the recipe, and who did the majority of the cooking for that dish.
Homemade Bagels - me, Mom, sister
Wonton Soup - me, sister, me
Sweet Kugel - me, sister, sister
Cholent - me, Mom, me
Potato Knishes - me, sister, sister
Rugelach - sister, sister, sister
Black & White Cookie - sister, sister, sister
That's 12 votes for my sister, 2 for mom and only 7 for me. Since I'm the nominal host, maybe I should do more of the actual work. On the other hand, I love having tigerlily_blue at my house for any reason, she's a brilliant cook, and I did once host an entire Supper Club for 15 sans help so it's not like I have something to prove.
In any event, this particular Supper Club was a smashing success, and now I've got at least a year to figure out what to do next time. I'm pretty sure there won't be another Jewish Soul Food though. The second sequel in the series is never very good. Of course, there could be a prequel...