Life lessons learned in the kitchen (04/16/08)

A confession: I'm not much of a cook.

Left to my own devices, hungry and alone in the kitchen, I might settle for slicing some cheese and microwaving it on Triscuits. That would be dinner.

Or, if I were feeling really ambitious, I might make a fried egg sandwich the way my father taught me many years ago.

But, at the same time, as a non-cook, I have to brag that I've cooked some truly delicious dishes.

The secret: Being told what to do.

Something like 15 years ago, we were invited by some good friends to join a dinner club.

What's a dinner club? We wondered the same thing.

Turns out, it's simply a way of encouraging hospitality and building stronger friendships.

Ours works pretty much this way: There are few rules, no officers, and no bylaws.

So far so good?

The "membership" is four couples. Every two or three months, depending upon busy calendars, one couple acts as the hosts.

The hosts decide upon a menu, usually linked to some sort of theme or other, and come up with recipes and assignments for all of the couples. Usually, the host couple takes on the main course.

Themes have ranged from the obvious (Chinese, French, Italian) to the not-so-obvious (Eastern European, Irish). Last weekend, at our house, it was "Dinner Down Under," with a New Zealand recipe for lamb as the main course.

To make something like this work, it's essential to have congenial people. And in that we have been very fortunate. Every dinner's conversation rivals the meal, and the meals are pretty spectacular.

But great as the food is, for me there are two big payoffs.

The first is the fellowship and interaction. In an era when people easily can feel alienated, there's nothing quite like a long dinner talking about one another's kids, one another's parents, one another's challenges, one another's disappointments, and one another's dreams to make you feel connected again.

The second may seem less obvious, but for me it's the most important. That's time together, working as a couple toward a shared goal in the kitchen.

And that's where I've learned the secret of doing what I've been told to do.

My wife is a marvelous cook, far better than I deserve.

So when we're tackling macadamia-encrusted lamb, as we did last weekend, or trying to make an exotic dessert like baklava as we did another time, I do as I'm told.

I've learned a few things along the way, and I've experienced a cook's pride when the friends gathered around the table like what I had a hand in preparing.

On my own, I'd still opt for Dad's fried egg sandwich.

But given the challenge of dinner club and my wife at my side, the sky's the limit.

One final note: Anyone can start a dinner club. Try it. My guess is you'll find yourself enriched.[[In-content Ad]]