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How the Girls' Cooking Club Started

TESS: It all started because I was a show off. CHRISTY: Oy. TESS: Christy, Alex and I had planned to have Christmas Eve dinner at my place with our significant others. And by “significant others” I mean their husbands and my boyfriend of ten years. And yes, we’re very happy this way not that it’s any of your business. I had wanted to host for two reasons: first, I really loved how I decorated the house this year. And second, my boyfriend Chris and I make the most awesome braised lamb shank with mushroom risotto and I thought everyone should know. ALEX: Since they were offering their home, their food and mostly their wine, we wanted to contribute. I mean, we aren’t barbarians. Christy and Gary felt the same so Tess and Chris assigned courses and we shared the burden (read: joy) of food prep and presentation. TESS: Christy took dessert because she was trying to find a great chocolate pecan pie recipe. I then immediately rained on her parade and reminded her that I can’t eat nuts. I have a lot of food allergies so I’m always reminding people of what I can’t eat and spoiling their plans, but they’re at least polite enough to pretend that’s not the case. CHRISTY: I love Tess, but her allergies are an outstanding pain in the ass. She knows I think this, so it’s not like she’s reading me saying this for the first time. You should see her trying to order when we go out to dinner. The rigmarole we have to endure time after time makes me want to pretend to the waiter that I don’t know her and that we met on Friendster or something. TESS: Alex took appetizers, which she is very good at. Last Thanksgiving she made the most amazing sausage balls and was going to repeat them this Thanksgiving, only at the last minute… AEX: Let’s back up. In September I ran off to Vegas with a few friends and family members and got hitched to my fella’ of 11 years. (Thank you) When we got back, my sister came to hang and brought with her the black plague of Tulsa. I got sick and stayed sick for three and a half weeks that involved two very uncomfortable infections and rounds of antibiotics. I was well for ten days during which time I was genuinely looking forward to Thanksgiving. I love that holiday. It’s all about food and eating and sharing of food and drinks with charming toasts and more eating. So that’s why it was only fitting that I incur a nasty neck injury that rendered my right arm unusable and laid me up for the whole of November. TESS: When I told Chris that poor Alex couldn’t even get out of bed, he just looked at me and said, “So what are you saying? No sausage balls?” That’s how good her sausage balls are. (And how sensitive Chris can be.) Chris and I love food almost as much as we love wine. While at a wine tasting at the Colorado Wine Company Colorado Wine Co. we had a sparkling wine, Renardat Bugey de Cerdon Bugey. It was crisp and dryer that most sparkling wines and at $19.99 a bottle, a good deal. I love French wine so much I call the headache the next day a Freedom Hangover. Plus, Chris loved that it was red in color. He thought it would be really festive with Christmas Eve dinner. Then we got the idea to follow the entrée with a stilton and port pairing. I couldn’t do this with all of my friends. Some of them think Chris and I can get a bit pretentious. And they’d be totally right. But it’s my Christmas and I if I want to spend it with port and stilton like some English sea captain, that’s my choice. But I knew the girls were game to try new things. The night evolved from there. Christy decided to also make a salad with a homemade champagne cranberry dressingChampagne Cranberry Vinaigrette. Alex brought a crab dip. I made a batch of double chocolate espresso cookies Double Chocolate Cookies, the recipe for which I found on Bakespace. CHRISTY: When I was a child there was this old German woman that took care of me. She lived next door and her name was Oma. I have since learned that Oma means Grandmother in German, so I’m guessing that was not her actual name. I say “was” because she is surely long dead. Well, she had this recipe for German sugar cookies (which is basically sugar cookies with lemon extract) that my mother and I would make for Christmas every year. They are pretty labor-intensive: you must ice and sprinkle the cookies right out of the oven. It’s a 2-man job. I only made half a batch this year because my husband’s elderly father required all his attention. Because of the lemon, Tess couldn’t have any. No wonder she didn’t remember them. ALEX: I love Christmas in Los Angeles. My boyfr… uh, husband and I do not travel to see family during the holidays because one or the other of us always contracts some sort of life altering illness which tends to taint things. (he he he … I just said “taint”). CHRISTY: Good one! ALEX: What I look for in a celebration is good drinks, good food, good company, good weather (meaning “no snow”), good conversation, good times and an obvious and glaring absence of tension and obligation. I don’t find either of those last two things relaxing or in any way celebratory. I do, however, always seem to find them hiding in the corners of the homes of family. So we were happy to stay in LA and continue our own tradition of being with friends on the Eve. CHRISTY: Alex, you forget the “tension” of Tess maybe dying from food allergy, and the “obligation” we all have not to kill her with our food. TESS: Christmas Eve was wonderful. Alex and Matt walked in the door to the sound of a champagne cork being popped. As people arrived, we poured them a flute of the sparkling wine. For Chris and I, it was an important lesson in being hosts. Your instinct as a host is to be accommodating and offer people a lot of choices. “What can we get you? We have beer, wine, whiskey, tequila, rum, coke, juice, water – still & sparkling.” That is wrong. Are you hosting because you are a kind and warm individual who likes to invite people into your home? No. You are hosting because you are an exacting control freak who loves food and wine and knows exactly what should be served with what and when. And this is what happens when you give people choices. They ask for something you don’t have like Diet Dr. Pepper, and then you feel like a bad host for not having it, not that you would let them pair a Dr. Pepper with a mushroom tart. We found that we could easily avoid that by pouring everyone a glass of the Bugey when they walked in. It was a great way to get everyone to try something they might not have gravitated towards if we had allowed them a choice. Alex’s husband, Matt (yeah, I just said “husband” weird) is usually a beer guy. But he politely took what was offered and was the first to ask for a second glass. In fact it was such a hit everyone wanted seconds and unfortunately we had just the one bottle. But there was plenty more good wine to enjoy, and food. TESS: The night was outstanding. A lot of laughs, good wine, and great food. Alex’s sausage balls were, as always, a hit. Everyone raved over Christy’s salad. I got to show off my lamb and even more important, introduced my friends to the joys of port and chocolate. CHRISTY: I don’t remember any of this. Perhaps that is due to all the delicious wine choices that were offered and happily consumed by me. I know what you may be asking yourselves… how in the world is Tess allergic to grapes (and, in fact, all fruit) and not wine? Well, that’s a question for the ages. She was my maid of honor, everybody. ALEX: I mean, I couldn’t believe I had lived as long as I have (it’s not polite to ask) without trying port. I am a convert and I am trying not to obsess. TESS: It was as Alex had said, the modern embodiment of those old Lowenbrau commercials. “Here’s to good friends…Tonight is kind of special…” ALEX: I’m gonna try to sum up the night by saying the food and wine and company and experience was so freakin’ good that Matt and I kept commenting on it the next day and marveling about it the day after. TESS: I couldn’t stop thinking about it either. (And neither could Christy’s husband, Gary who had to have the recipe for the sausage balls.) And most importantly it had been such a fun night. That got me thinking and I sent the following email. “Given all of this - the dinner, the fun we had cooking, the love we all have of food and finding the perfect recipe, and the great new wine book I gave Chris - I would like to propose a dinner once a month. We split up courses, find fun new things, pair wines to go with it and alternate houses to host. Please say, ‘Yes.’ “ And the Girls’ Cooking Club was born.