Monday Night Supper Club: Potluck-ing it

Dan    Monday Night Supper Club     #MNSCyyc, awesome, dinner, friends, social media, tea, twitter

As I mentioned in my Top Chef Canada piece, I have come to really enjoy Mondays. The same goes for my friends, who frequently Charcut with me over the past few months. With the first season of Top Chef Canada now over, however, we didn’t know what to do…

Would we all go back to hating Mondays? How were we to fill the void?

So many painful questions that each of us were afraid to answer. Finally, we came to a solution. Why don’t we just keep having dinner together on Monday nights? Bam! It was that simple!

That’s when Monday Night Supper Club was born.

In an effort to be a tad more, well, fiscally responsible, we all agreed to follow a schedule of one week dining in and one week dining out. For our first week, we decided to stay in, and have a potluck at Chelsea’s house. There were no real restrictions on what we could bring as a dish (aside from my severe allergy to rhino meat, of course), so it was time to let kitchen creativity run its course.

Due to summer holiday plans and Calgary Stampede-ing obligations from some of the group, it was a smaller dinner, just six of us. That was ok with me because that meant less competition over the wine, as that is not a competition I like to lose. It was nice spending time together and having dinner in a casual home environment. More importantly, it was fun to cook (it’s always fun to cook) and it’s always more fun to cook and eat with friends.

So, what did we make?

Chelsea K. (we have two Chelseas, just in case things start sounding too Chelsea this, Chelsea that) bought what I think was the largest fresh salmon I had ever seen, and proceded to salt crust it, then let it roast in the oven. It smelt amazing the second I walked in the door.

Chelsea W. (pictured) prepared a nice salad with some fresh market greens, goat cheese, and, my current summer fling, fennel. Yes, things were shaping up to be quite delicious. Once Rob Waye arrived, he whipped together a couscous dish with yogurt and dill. Simple and fresh. One of Chelsea K’s friends, Kathryn, joined us for dinner as well. She brought some fresh linguine, that she had made from scratch. There are many keys to my heart, one being home-made pasta. I definitely had more than my fair share of this, I actually could not stop eating it.

Once all for food was prepped and plated, it was time to eat!

Rad table settings, as laid out by Chelsea K. I think Sarah would of been impressed had she been there!

Finally, time to eat…but first, a friendly ‘Cheers!’ before digging into the food. Yes, it seemed like the first official Monday Night Supper Club was going to be a success. The only thing that could go wrong now was dessert…

So, that’s where I came in. I had offered to bring the sweet course for the evening. Not being much of a baker, I don’t really know why I signed myself up for this one. That being said, I do make a mean pie. Well, not a pie that’s rude or anything…I mean a relatively tasty pie.

Since I like to be odd and put tea in many different dishes, I opted for an Apple Blackberry Rooibos Pie. The rooibos tea that I used had some lavendar in it, so I played that up a bit by adding some fresh lavendar, taken from my fledgling herb garden (it will get there…).

It definitely hit the spot at the end of my meal, and, much to my relief, my friends enjoyed it too. A good pie never let anyone down now did it? That being said, since I’m more or less a one trick pie pony kind of a guy, I think I’ll leave the dessert to someone else next time around! Oh, if you’ve been counting, I’ve only named five out of the six people in attendance. My friend Drew came along as well, she brought the wine. Bless her little heart.

And that folks, is the end of our inaugural Monday Night Supper Club! Next Monday, we are hitting the town and heading down to Home Tasting Room for some delicious fare. Executive chef Geoff Rogers has just updated the menu for the summer season, so we’re all super excited to see what he has in-store for us!

Not to get all ‘social media’ on you or anything, but our Monday Night Supper Club crew, and friendships within, blossomed via Twitter. We appreciate the fact that there are a lot of fantastic people out there, so we’re always looking for great individuals to come along for one of these dinner adventures, whether it’s at one of our houses, or out dining at one of the many amazing restaurants Calgary has to offer! Send one of us a tweet. Let’s do dinner!

Twitter in Attendance:

@dansgoodside
@chelscore
@chelseamwatson
@robwaye
@brie_elise
@alexKGT
@frecklesandash

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