Dinner Club Ideas
- Dinner clubs provide opportunities for good food, company and entertainment.Dinner table image by Laima Penekaite from Fotolia.com
Weekly or monthly dinner club meetings offer people time to socialize and enjoy sit-down dinners together. If you have a passion for good food and want to share it with others, consider starting or joining a dinner club in your area. Whether you are an experienced chef or new to the kitchen, a dinner club allows you to express your culinary creativity and learn more about the art of cooking. - Running a dinner club can get expensive, considering the host provides meals and drinks for guests on a regular basis. According to a 2010 article in The Huffington Post, author and chef Tamara Reynolds spent about $1,000 a month hosting dinner club parties every Sunday evening. Members of a dinner club can lessen the burden of costly cooking ingredients and drinks by creating a traveling dinner club. For a traveling dinner club, members meet at one person's house for drinks and appetizers, then travel to another member's house for the entree and end the meeting at a third house for desserts and coffee or tea. This method also reduces the stress of one person preparing an entire meal and cleaning up afterward.
- Dinner clubs provide an opportunity for a learning experience in addition to the social aspects of a club. Members can expand their culinary horizons and taste new flavors by having themed dinner club parties that cater to a particular cuisine, such as Mexican, Italian, Asian, Thai, Indian or even vegetarian. For example, a dinner club meeting focused on Indian cuisine would include traditional Indian spices, ingredients and cooking methods. Share recipes for regional cuisine by handing out printed recipe cards after the meal. Themed dinner clubs can also focus on seasonal food items or holidays and special events.
- A shared meal creates a friendly, open atmosphere among people in a dinner club. You can take advantage of this environment and use a dinner club as a networking tool. Hosting a dinner club with business associates can help expand and improve your friendships with co-workers. College students and recent graduates can benefit from dinner club meetings with alumni to discuss future career paths and get valuable advice, reports Lehigh University. Dinner clubs for networking may be formal and less frequent, considering these meetings are focused less on food and more on building relationships among colleagues.
