Underground Supper Clubs

[talon]

I've always been interested in the concept of the underground supper clubs (USC)but never had the fortune to be invited to one or to even find a local one.

I keep hoping the internet will turn one up, but people keep telling me that Oklahoma is not a culinary haven, that there are foodies in Oklahoma but they are of the consumer variety and not the creating variety. Those who are cooks have chosen to become professional chefs, so there are few amateur cooks who might start a USC.

That means unless I happen to luck into one on my travels, I may never get to eat at a USC.

My only other alternative is to start one myself.

I currently have one major hindrance to doing it: my home, while large enough to host a small USC, is currently the repository of someone else's stuff. When my daughter moves out, over half of what's in the house will leave with her, freeing up the room to host said USC.

It would be a very small USC and I'm fine with that.

I think I would like to do it for a number of reasons: I like cooking. I need guinea pigs to try out new dishes. I like having guests and feeding people. I like meeting new people, but not too many and not in unfamiliar settings. I have a large kitchen capable of turning out gourmet meals and I hardly ever use it for that. I have the table and linens for it, and I think it would be cozier to have mis-matched place settings and drinkware (although I now have tumblers and goblets that match, enough, I think, for a small USC) and flatware. It would add to the charm.

I would need to get chairs, but the flea markets and garage sales can fix that quickly enough and relatively cheaply, too.

Planning out the Thanksgiving dinner for my new daughter-in-law re-awakened thoughts about this. Planning a meal out for a stranger (my daughter-in-law whom I only met briefly at the wedding) triggered the desire for a supper club, so I went looking again, and still found nothing local. It's been years since these anti-restaurants appeared, but they haven't made their way to this part of the country.

So, yeah, I want to start planning one and getting one started up locally. It will be a while before I can actually implement it due to my home being a storage unit. But I can plot out potential menus and collect the dishes and chairs and flatware and serving dishes and other little things a supper club would need.

And to find a name for it.

Scandelicious.

Subversive Suppers.

Fork Fantasies.

Long Table Nights.

The Supper Stars Club.