Years ago (before we had children) we were in a monthly dinner club with friends, and it was an absolute blast. Everyone involved enjoyed cooking and entertaining (which is somewhat of a requirement), and I especially liked having an excuse to go all out on a dinner party for friends. After all, you don’t mind going through an extreme amount of effort to entertain guests when you know it is going to be reciprocated!

So, since our kids are very much out of the baby stage now (at ages 3 and 5), we decided that we felt ready to take on something like our old dinner club again. This time it is with a different group of friends that all live in our neighborhood, and we settled for getting together every other month to make it more manageable for all our busy families. We were the first to host last night, and I am happy to report that it was a success!

When we planned our dinner club menus in the old days it was all very themed (Asian, Northwest, Mardi Gras, etc.), and I am ashamed to admit that I barely put any thought into using ingredients that were in season. Continue Reading »