The New Orleans Creole Cooking Club
As a transplanted New Orleanean (is that a word?) there is little more in the world that I love to do than get together with good friends for good times and some great food! Whether it is after church for a Saints game on a Sunday, camping out on the city streets waiting for Mardi Gras parades to pass, or just hanging out in someone's back yard, you will always find a spread of delicious eats at any NOLA gathering. It is one of the only cities where people line up outside of a restaurant for breakfast (shout out, Camelia Grill!) while talking about their plans for lunch and dinner. New Orleans has an undeniable soul in its city, and right in stride with that soul is a heartbeat that comes from incredible cuisine.
About three years ago, several of my girlfriends and I decided to start a cooking club. All of us were relatively newlyweds with stacks of cookbooks we had barely cracked open, and we were all living in a city (many of them from here) known for its delectable eats. In an effort to increase our kitchen apptitude and spend more time together, we created a club based on the idea of coming together once a month to share a meal for which we all participate in the preparation. Here is how our setup works: once a month, a different one of the ten of us hosts the gathering at her house. The responsibilities of the hostess are to set the table, prepare the main course, and choose the cookbook and/or theme of the evening. We have done traditional Southern and New Orleans cookbooks, celebrity chef recipes, and nights with themes like British Invasion (all traditional British/English recipes) or One-Bite Wonders (every course has to be bite-size). The rest of the ten members each takes a course in turn to add to the meal. We have everything from drinks and bread to salads and soups to sides and desserts. Because the hostess job rotates month to month, as do the other courses, no one gets stuck doing too much all the time, and we all share the responsibilities of preparing our lavish feast! With ten of us in the club, we take two months off a year. Typically, we take one month in the summer (lots of traveling with kids out of school) and the month of December off (holiday parties, etc, make it hard to all get together). We have had an amazing time doing this, and it has brought us closer together as wives, mothers, and friends in addition to giving us some pretty wicked skills in the kitchen! ;)
This year, we will be changing things up a little bit. Instead of our club getting together once a month to cook, we are going to take a year to get together once a month and go try a different, local restaurant spot in the city. New Orleans boasts literally THOUSANDS of local restaurant joints, and each of them is unique and great. We will be writing about our food adventures on our website to log our journey. I encourage you to check out our website and maybe start a cook club of your own. It really is a special time where we can get together, say "time-out" to the rest of the world, and just be sisters enjoying good times over a great meal!
NOLA Creole Cooking Club
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