Patty's Dinner Club 帕蒂晚餐会

I am inspired!

Yesterday I walked with a very nice lady named Mary from the OLLI walking group on the McCabe Greenway. She is single, has no kids and has retired for about ten years. In our conversation, I told her that I'm feeling a great sense of void now that I don't have a job and my family is thousands of miles away. "How do you handle your retirement so well?" I humbly asked. She smiled and started telling me about her dinner club. She loves to cook but it's hard to cook for one. So she put a menu together and start inviting her friends to come over for dinner. The menu will be full of simple home cooked healthy meals. She does it three times a week and whoever wants to come need to sign up as the dinner is limit to four. And then she asked me if I wanted to try it. She'll do all the cooking, cleaning and we just need to bring some food over for the next meals in her menu. "Oh wow, absolutely," I grinned.

I attended a gourmet dinner hosted by a young church lady I knew many years ago when I first came to Nashville. She and her friend would design a 4-course menu for a table of 12. She would present and describe the details of the dish at each course before we tasted it. She asked $20 donation from each person to offset the costs and we gladly contributed. The dinner was simply wonderful! Unfortunately, she was getting married at that time and could not find time to host any more gourmet dinner and then we lost touch. Oh how I miss that!

The dinner with Mary was so delightful! We held hand to say grace, talked, laughed while we enjoyed Mary's marvelous home cooked healthy meal. There's something about having good food and good company. It is irresistible! I asked Mary for the recipes and I would never forget this meal. In case you wonder what we had, here's the menu.

Pan fried salmon cakes

Steamed broccoli

Steamed potatoes

Cole Slaw with Vinegar Dressing

Dessert: Roasted butternut squash and baked apple

I am inspired! I would love to do something similar except I will have a mix of Chinese and American dishes in my menu. I might not do it 3x a week but maybe once a week or every other week. I look forward to the warm hearted gathering and hope you would join my dinner club one day:)