Sunday 12 February 2012

Come Dine With Me? Don't Mind If I Do

Not sure if everyone is familiar with Channel 4's Come Dine With Me?  The basic concept is very simple; four strangers take it in turns to host a dinner party with the guests scoring the host; the winner being the one who gets the highest score and therefore goes home with the £1000 prize.

Well, my friends and I have been doing something very similar to this for a while now, in fact Friday's get-together marked our seven year anniversary - we know it as our 'Super Supper Club'.  The format is slightly different to Come Dine With Me but the principle is the same.  There are six of us in total and we all take turns to host.  The host generally makes the main course, someone makes a starter and another person the pudding.  Those that aren't making any courses are in charge of bringing the alcohol.  In the early days we did used to score the dishes (we even had a 'Super Supper Club' mug that was updated with the date, winner's name and winning dish!) but after about a year we decided this put too much pressure on what was meant to be an enjoyable night.  We get together every couple of months and everyone takes it in turns to make one of the dishes so that over the period of a year you get to make a starter, main and pudding too.  As the dinner party is shared, it removes all the pressure from one person to have to host a three-course dinner and the whole evening is very relaxed.  Needless to say alcohol does play quite a large part in the proceedings but the food is equally important!  In fact the standard of the food is really high as it has been since day one which I think is remarkable. 

We all used to work in the same team in the Council but over the course of seven years the team has disbanded, I have moved away and so the contact between us all has been broken on a day to day basis which is why it's all the better to get together as there is just so much to catch up on.  There has only ever been one change of member, in fact our founder (well, it was her idea) moved away after about a year and was replaced by another colleague.  I moved away for a year (although soon came back) but I was not replaced - I like to think that is because I am irreplaceable!  I do think it astonishing that we have managed to keep this going for seven years and I cannot see it ending any time soon as all the members are still really keen.  I now have to travel two hours to get back to Weymouth and then stay over but I wouldn't miss it for the world.    

As Friday night was our seventh anniversary, we started to reminisce about the early days of SSC and decided we really need to get the old gang together so an invitation was sent to our founder member which she has gracefully accepted.  Hopefully our next meeting will be in April and the whole gang will be together once more. I cannot wait. 

1 comment:

  1. I like this. Super Supper Club has a nice ring to it. I think if I were to set up anything similar (which is the most unlikeliest thought), it would be called the Average Snack Club. The strap-line (because we all need one these days) would be 'setting your expectations low and failing to achieve them'. Poached egg on toast, anyone?

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