And the Oscar Goes To......

The first Cooking Club of 2012 was held on February 22nd at Michele's home. The theme was Oscars since the award show was the following day. Every dish had to be inspired by current Oscar nominess or past winners.

Of course Michele had a lovely table setting.

Fresh flowers from her yard.

Our lovely host preparing the hors devours.

Michele's first dish was inspired by Woody Allen's 'Midnight In Paris." Fried wonton wrappers with a generous dallop of veganaise topped with a slice of cucumber. Paired with some bubbly. A great starter for what was to come.

And here I am showing off the immersion blender I got for Christmas.

I prepared a soup based on 'My Week With Marilyn.' If you haven't seen the movie-rent and watch. Michelle Williams was nominated for best actress and was positively outstanding.

I made a cream of artichoke soup-lots of artichoke hearts, soy milk, and vegan cream. The connection? Marilyn Monroe was once crowned the Artichoke Queen in nearby Castroville.

Elizabeth prepared a tropical salad that she hacked from a fancy restaurant when she recently visited New York City. Her movie was the Descendents which takes place in Hawaii. Mixed greens, pomegranate seeds, fresh pineapple, and fancy burrata cheese-tasted as awesome as it sounds.

Here's Elizabeth showing off her serving skills in anticipation of the main course.

Michele prepared hot dogs with her own homemade apple leek slaw. She even grilled some Tofurkey dogs for the vegan! Her inspiration came from the movie, 'Moneyball," which is based on the Oakland A's baseball team.

For dessert I threw together a chocolate stout cupcake with a crumble topping. Yep-this was inspired by the excellent book and movie, "The Help." Inappropriate to go into a detailed description about this but there was an issue with a chocolate pie.

Get your hats and flasks ready for our next CC-Kentucky Derby! Hosted by Elizabeth in SF on April 28th.

Better Late Than Never-Urban Picnic

I hosted Cooking Club on May 21, 2011 and yes, I'm just now getting around to putting up a post 7 months later. I'd like to explain the lack of post by telling you that I'm very busy and important but seeing that Janet has two children, moved from CA to TX last year, and is still able to keep her blog updated with multiple postings per week, I know that won't go over well with the group.

Since I live in a tiny one-bedroom apartment and am still recovering from when I hosted, "Organic and Under $20.00," when ELEVEN people decided to attend that CC, I felt a picnic was most appropriate and would hopefully keep my anxiety low. I chose the theme, "Stacked and Stuffed," which allowed for creativity. Plus-there was this mock tuna fish sandwich recipe that I've been dying to try out.

I live across the street from Lake Merritt in Oakland and as luck would have it, May 21, 2011 was a gorgeous day. It was a small group that day-just me, Heather, Michele, EV, and Ashley. However, these are the CC members that tend to drink the most so while our other members were missed, we had a blast that included a few bottles of bubbly and some great whites.

First dish was prepared by the ever-fashionable Ashley who came decked out in Kate Spade. Ashley prepared chilled stuffed tomatoes.

Next up came by tuna-less sandwiches served on different artesian breads with freshly grated carrots, mixed greens, and dill pickles. The "tuna" filling was made out of chickpeas, celery, and blanched almonds.

Michele prepared a classic-potato skins with homemade pesto, cherry tomatoes, and a sour cream drizzle. While most people serve potato skins heated, serving them at room temperature really brought our all of the fresh flavors.

Heather out did herself with not one but two stuffed sandwiches. One vegan and one vegetarian (main difference was that the veggie had cheese slices). She hollowed out a loaf of bread and layered on everything you could think of from roasted peppers, artichoke hearts, avocado to sun dried tomatoes and hummus. Then the sandwich was foiled wrapped & pressed for a few hours until we attacked it.

EV chose dessert and channeled her inner Martha with these adorable cherry lemon muffins. Not only were they a perfect end to the meal but they were fun to pick up by the stem and drop into your mouth.

After our picnic we posed for some pictures and practiced the teapot pose.