When a meal is on the line, everyone has at least one go-to recipe. It is similar to your go to drink at your favorite bar; it is familiar and comforting and never fails to bring joy to your taste buds. If the meal was a rousing success you will most likely be asked for the recipe. So you painstakingly write down each ingredient, trying to translate into actual quantitative values - a pinch and a dash. Your friend will grasp this holy grail of recipes to their heart, triumphant in the thought that they will soon be serving up your delicious dish as their own to some outer circle of friends who won’t know any better. In reality, their meal will turn out just okay and your friend will be left with thoughts of revenge; insisting you left out the one key ingredient that pushes the dish over the top. Cooking With Friends was created to avoid just such a situation, as well as give friends a chance to come together over good food and drink to learn, from the master chef, how to make that magical dish.
The concept behind Cooking With Friends is simple, take one group of friends, select one individual to host. The host is in charge of teaching their guests how to create one dish. The dish can be anything, from breakfast to dessert. The guests are responsible for providing the sides and the beverages. These items can be made at the host's house or in advance. Once the whole group is assembled, the eating commences, as does the cooking. As the first host of our Cooking With Friends group once said - this is Cooking
With Friends, not cooking for friends - so everyone is expected to participate in the preparation of the dish being taught. That includes, prepping the ingredients or stirring while the host moves onto other dishes. At the end of the evening, everyone leaves, belly full, and with a copy of the recipe they just witnessed the creation of. Cooking With Friends is the live cooking demonstration you always wished you could have – good friends, good snacks, and tasty beverages all while learning something new.
A friend of mine invited me to my first Cooking With Friends shortly after I moved to San Diego. Being new to the area I was excited to meet some new people and try out some delicious food. Our host was cooking a Peruvian dish called Peruvian Spicy Creamed Chicken (Aji De Gallina). When we arrived her house was already filled with delicious food smells. My contribution was my famous Grape Nut cookies. Others brought veggies, crackers, and wine. Another guest passed around a Peruvian blended beverage. After allowing us to chat and munch a bit, our host called us all to order and commenced putting us all to work - scrubbing veggies, shredding chicken and peeling potatoes. Once the prep was done she was ready to show us how to make a proper Peruvian meal. It was no small task reining all of us ladies in, especially after the Peruvian drink and some wine. Nonetheless, our host was a pro, seamlessly moving between the stove and blender, all the while explaining exactly what she was doing. She then showed us how to plate the meal properly and once that was done, turned us loose to serve ourselves. The end result was delicious. The chicken was moist and incredibly flavorful, with some spice to it. The white rice helped to balance the heat and the boiled egg was a cool respite from the hot meal. It was everything you would want a dish to be. If we didn't need to share with others, I probably would have gone back for thirds. My first Cooking With Friends experience was everything I hoped it would be plus more; I met excellent people and sampled foods I might not otherwise have tried.
I’ve been to two more Cooking With Friends sessions since my Peruvian experience. The next edition was “build your own pizza with friends.” This time the host provided the dough and some toppings, guests were tasked with bringing some toppings of their own as well as creating their own pizzas. The results were stomach stuffing good and I learned how to stretch out pizza dough without tearing holes in it- a very important skill. My pizza was a half and half - garlic spread with spinach and tomatoes on one side and spinach with fig spread on the other. Additional pizza creations included a pesto, avocado, corn, and mozzarella cheese with tomatoes, and a mashed potato with bacon and cheese that brought most guests to their knees. The delicious pizzas kept rolling out with the piece de resistance being the dessert pizza - nutella, powdered sugar, nuts and some caramel sauce. If your mouth isn't watering by now your imagination taste buds must be broken.
I was the host for the following installment of Cooking With Friends. Never one to shy away from a challenge, I chose a dish that I had never made before - chicken and vegetable tamales. As I will freely tell you, I am a lover of the tamale and the decision to cook this traditional Mexican dish may have been a result of our recent trip to Cabo. Because of the time consuming nature of creating a tamale, I chose to do my prep in advance, enlisting the help of Mike - the chief cook in our household. We went to a Mexican food store and got all of our ingredients, including the dried corn husks, chicken, various peppers and vegetables for those who wanted a meatless tamale. Once the guests arrived all the ingredients were ready to stuff into the tamales. Everyone got to make their own tamale - I won't pretend that this went perfectly, it took a while to get the dough spreading process down and most of the time tying the tamales shut was a two person job - but this was Cooking With Friends, so everyone joined in. I am happy to say that the tamales turned out pretty darned good. The chicken took in all the flavors of the spices and peppers that they were slow cooked with and the tomatillo salsa gave the whole dish a nice kick. Since everyone made their own, each tamale was unique. Our guests made Mexican themed appetizers including chips with cheese and salsa and Mexican cookies. There was also some sipping tequila that was enjoyed by all. Even though it might not have completely gone according to plan, that is another important ingredient of Cooking With Friends - working together to make a great meal.
The November Cooking With Friends was a Thanksgiving edition; our hosts provided the 18 pound turkey and the guests brought the sides. It was quite the feast. My contribution was a vegetable and mushroom stuffing that turned out moist and flavorful and guests felt free to go for a second helping since it was "healthy". I also brought a sweet potato and apple dish created from a recipe I discovered while looking through my grandmother's old handwritten cookbooks. A few ingredients were substituted as using massive amounts of butter and salt did not seem like a good way to start off the holiday eating season - we need to pace ourselves people. Every dish was unique and delicious, from the figs stuffed with goat cheese and wrapped with bacon, speared with rosemary, to the more traditional sweet potato puff and green bean casserole. Some of us would go on to have family Thanksgivings later that week and others would escape to the desert of Palm Springs, but that Cooking With Friends was truly a joint effort and a Thanksgiving blessing that no one will ever forget.
Our final Cooking with Friends of 2012 was the merriest of them all - Christmas Cookies Cooking With Friends. Everyone brought one or two of their favorite cookie recipes and we all settled into the process of bringing our confectionary creations to life while listening to the festive sounds of Elvis singing Christmas classics. My first batch was my now famous Grape Nut cookies - which I managed not to burn this time (see my mini-blog on when good cookies go bad). As is my Christmas tradition I also made sugar cookies and cut them out in traditional holiday shapes - Santas, reindeer, and stockings did abound. After baking, we commenced with the decorating. This is where the true Martha Stewarts of our crowd emerged - those who can decorate and those who try. My skill set focuses on sprinkle usage and bringing simple designs to life - such as Christmas stockings (white frosting for the fuzzy top and red icing for the foot part) and Christmas trees (multi-colored icing for the Christmas balls and green icing for the tree outline). I left the more complicated designs to those with a steadier, more artistic hand. Soon enough jubilant reindeer were a leaping across the table while serene angels looked on. Additional cookie varieties included gingerbread, pumpkin spice, brownies with mint green frosting, Rice Krispie treats, and Italian wedding cookies. By the end of the day everyone left with a sugar hangover and bags of cookies. It was a wonderful way to bring this year of Cooking With Friends to a close and left us all looking forward to a 2013 filled with more food, friends, and fun.
Every Cooking With Friends has been a bit different, and not just because the meals varied so widely. Everyone had their own teaching technique, some went step by step, others just let us use our imaginations and others tried to provide some guidance while still allowing for culinary creativity. No matter what the process, the food was always delicious and the company joyful. After all, what more do you need then good friends and some reindeer shaped cookies?
"A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness."
Elsa Schiaparelli
