This past weekend I was in Nothern Michigan with my Cooking Club. We get together once a month for dinner at someones house (we rotate hosting). The rules are: you make food you wouldn’t normally make for your family or your family wouldn’t really appreciate (most of us have young families, so throwing carrots is the main event at dinner. Not always eating, or even enjoying dinner together). Also read Shauna Neiquests book “Bread and Wine” for more inspiration to start your own.
The host comes up with a theme for dinner ei: “green,” “mexican,” “PB&J,” or “soup” and the like, then each member claims a course. Appetizers, drinks, the host does the main dish, a starch, salad, dessert. You all bring tupperware for the leftovers and share the recipes once dinner is over via a private pinterest page. We keep a record of the themes, who brought what, and who hosted last; as well as a list of ideas/dreams to one day do together. We just crossed off “Wine tasting/Cook together weekend.” Every month we merrily abandon our duties of the table to our spouses and children while we shop, prepare, and make one exquisite course to share among ourselves. For just one night a month – we share a table with enthusiasm, toast to good fortune, and get to know each other a little bit more without distraction.
We very much want you to have a cooking club so if you need permission for one more thing to fit into your month: this one is worth it. Gather a few friends or folks you’d love to get to know and invite them to the table. It’s been a beautiful rhythm in my life, and I owe it all to my friend Jeannette for getting it off the ground.
We spent the weekend wine tasting, cooking together, laughing and singing, watching the Olympics, driving all over Northern Michigan, eating, paddle boarding and kayaking, sleeping, and hiking/walking/yoga-ing. There were a few squats in there, some leg lifts. A posture demonstration. And lots of discussion about our kids, oily skin, and hair care (ps, don’t wash your hair every day). I may have fallen down some slippery steps in the rain as we were packing up to go home. It’s possible I have a blue leg to prove it.
Worth it.
Our first menu of the weekend included: A cheese plate with homemade hummus, (Tahini from Jerusalem? Yes.) all the cheeses, fruits, veggies, crackers and breads. Moscow Mules for appetizers, white wine with dinner which was Lobster Alfredo, caprese salad, roasted asparagus, crusty/rustic bread, and homemade strawberry sour cream ice cream with biscuits and whipped cream.
It took us a good 6 hours to prep, make, and actually eat this feast.
The next day we woke up and did not wash our hair. Drank coffee while we got ready and packed up snacks for the day on the road. We had a plan and we were off to conquer it. First stop? The cheese shanty in Leland – their pretzel bread sells out fast and we needed that bread. Then a hike to the Empire Bluff to eat those coveted sandwiches and sweat, on to our wine tasting tour beginning with Cherry Republic in Glen Arbor (please go to Glen Arbor, every body. Just go. It’s my favorite.) and then meandering around the peninsula stopping at various wineries ending up at Tandem Ciders before toasting the day complete at the original Moomers for an ice cream dinner.
From the left: Kara, Beth, me, Laura, Jeannette, Stacey
We worked out when we got back to the cottage for the night. And then we ate some more cheese.
Sunday morning we woke up and took our time drinking coffee, and then more coffee. We all made our way on to the dock to paddle board and kayak before getting back in the kitchen together to prep brunch, toast bloody mary’s, and eventually eat our last meal of the weekend together. We planned on walking after brunch (before heading home) when it started raining. So we cleaned up and closed up the cottage to the cadence of the water falling outside and then piled back in to the van to head home. Slowly. With deliberate stops to drive down main-streets with our windows open and the music blasting. We were those people. I love those people.
Our brunch menu on Sunday was frittata, parfaits, french toast, dry rubbed bacon, the green well salad from Shauna’s book, and Mimosa’s.
And I returned home full in a way I hadn’t expected.