The dinner party club

The dinner party club was inspired by our good friends, the Urban Gardeners, who rallied together five couples and instructed us on a theme (Italian) for which we were to each provide one course.  Like a bookclub for couples, with delicious food and matching wines thrown in.

From Italian, we’ve covered Perfection in Small Parcels, Hunting and Gathering, Kiwi Cuisine, Mid-Winter Christmas, Recipes from Your Oldest Cookbook, Bon Appetite: Inspiration from Julia Child, Around the World, and Spanish, to name a few.  Creating a theme is part of the fun – as is responding with your chosen dish.

Over the years, we’ve found that the host selecting a theme, participants nominating courses/dishes and everyone providing wine, is a recipe for a successful evening.  However, it has also motivated us all to return to our shelves of cookbooks, try recipes that we’ve always wondered about, and explore cuisines that we haven’t ventured into before.

An unintended benefit has been that is requires significantly less effort than the dinner party hosted (prepared and cooked) by one couple – although we all have to be comfortable sharing our kitchens (and the resulting kitchen chaos).

The next theme is Morrocan – we will be making Briwat Bi Loz (Brides’ Fingers) for dessert [recipe here].  The wine we have selected to match the dessert is the Pegasus Bay 2008 Aria (late picked riesling).  The "luscious honey and beeswax complexities" and the "touch of spritzig" should nicely match the combination of nuts, cinnamon, orange blossom and honey in the dessert.