Supper Club!!!! The Greek Dinner of the Year!

Tonight was the 19th Supper Club Gathering! Last month, my friend Scott and I attended the supper club at John & Ken's and had a fabulous time (well except for the $214 ticket we got when we left).

I decided to host the next supper club and that great event was tonight!

I've been in my house in Pleasant Ridge for 2 years and haven't thrown an official dinner party. I have had a couple of parties - but not DINNER parties.

The photo to the left is me sitting on the couch being fancy! Drinking wine (Diet Dr Pepper) and eating homemade hummus (mmmmm good). Don't I look fabulous?!

The photo below is the dining setup we had. Luckily I have a big L-shaped living & dining room so it worked pretty well with the help from Scott with his extra table and chairs. Also - please note the beautiful "Pepsi" blue of my dining room (thanks for painting sis!).

The menu for tonight was Greek! First up - Greek Salad by Scott. It was delish and everybody loved it. Of course I have enough for about 14 more people in my fridge.

Entree: Pastitsio

Scott is an improvising sous chef and he just kept adding spices and we made about 1.5X the recipe but it turned out fabulous. It weighed about 15 pounds! It's basically a Greek version of lasagne. Imagine penne pasta, meaty & tomatoey skyline chili, more pasta, covered with bechamel (cheese, milk, flour sauce) and then baked. Oh yeah - it's not healthy!

Next up, Green Bean & Tomato Salad

This is from the same website but not sure how "Greek" it is - but it was tasty enough. The pastitsio and dessert overshadowed this. BUT - we did get our veggies in!!!!

Here's a quick plate shot - doesn't look like much - but a lot of people went back for seconds - so it was GOOOOOOOD! Dessert: Chocolate Bread Pudding Cupcakes

Yeah - wowee! The blogger that helped provide that morsel is after my own heart - salt AND chocolate! These look so ho hum in this picture but they are amazing!!!! Everybody asked for the recipe. And they reheat well - just pop them in the microwave and voila! We served them with some fabulous Aldi vanilla ice cream (don't even get me started on Aldi!). I dug into my plate of dessert to quickly and forgot to photograph!

Next up - my centerpiece. Yes - giant isn't it - a juice glass. But it's got flowers from the bouquet the BF gave me...first flowers and all, mushy gushy. But what a fun picture!

Now there were pictures of me with each group of people...but this had the most people in it so I chose it - trying to get bang for the buck. That's Sandy, Me, Linda, Scott and Marla. We're a hot bunch!

Okay - and one note to Aldi (Scott and Edith are going to love this). With supper club you provide all the food and people bring what they want to drink. I went to Aldi and got everything for the meal and I mean EVERYTHING for the entree, bean salad and dessert for TWELVE people for...are you ready for it...$75!!!!

The whole party with appetizers, greek salad and sodas came in around $100.

But $75 for the main stuff!!! And it was all delicious! I AM NOW PROFESSING MY LOVE FOR ALDI! We just got one in Pleasant Ridge - so I'm giddy!

So there you have it - I too can host a dinner party and live to tell about it.

I also had the traditional "Kitty Parade" post-party. It's where all the kitties that were grumpily locked in the basement for the party duration are then let out to parade like big cartoon characters on Thanksgiving Day. It's fascinating and yes Edith, I have video of a couple of them...then the rest were being difficult. Scott scared them.

I encourage you to check out Supper Club - it's very fun and always a different crowd! They post when the next one will be and then there's a limit to the number of people. Once it's full - it's full. My friend Rachel has volunteered to host in February - she's much more experienced at this than I am.

But I'm pretty darned happy with the night. Now I'm tired...oh so tired...but hey - I have pastitsio and bread pudding cupcakes for lunch for 2 weeks!

Here are a couple other links about the night:

http://cincysupperclub.wordpress.com/2008/12/15/cincinnati-supper-club-the-nineteenth/
http://5chw4r7z.blogspot.com/2008/12/cincinnati-supper-club-nineteenth.html