A supper club isn’t anything without brilliant guests prepared to join in, have fun and take part in whatever treats are devised, and we couldn’t have hoped for better guests for our Bonfire Feast. Yes, granted, it was ambitious, the plan to serve rum laced hot chocolates and mushroom risotto outside on the terrace. Outside… in Manchester, in November. That’s fate-tempting enough, without the rain-inducing risk of banana leaf marsala sea bass cooked on the firepit and giant sparklers to round off the evening.
Fate was indeed tempted but sometimes fate is on your side isn’t it? It’s entirely possible that chef Claire Woodier is a lucky charm, which is such a good job as she’s now officially part of Team Moregeous. Whatever the reason, our feast was blessed with a clear night and all the fun dreamt up could be realised. Take a look…
Thank you to our fabulous 25 guests, who pulled on their big coats and gathered on the terrace to drink their warm rum welcome drink, scoff earthy risotto and get into the bonfire spirit. Claire absolutely nailed her menu, which is below for your interest, even managing to teach Mr M how to caramelise pears along the way. First time I’d ever eaten cooked pears and enjoyed them – a revelation with the ham terrine.
Nothing ever runs perfectly smoothly though does it?! During the evening I manage to totally mess us on the Airbnb front, so we lost our two star waitresses to chamber-maiding duty for two courses, dashing off in the car to West Didsbury around the terrine but making it back to Fallowfield in time for the sea bass. I was not popular. No idea how we got through that, but we did. Thanks Kira & Jade x
Sea bass by iPhone torchlight – is there a better way to cook it? I think not.
My new favourite obsession is now pickled beetroot, after watching Claire bubble it down red, yellow and stripeys with vinegar and sugar to accompany her game stew. One of the perks of hosting supper clubs is definitely picking up tips by shadowing our expert chefs!
The other perk is blatantly obvious of course – EATING THE GOODS. We need Claire to mess up on her portioning far more next time so there’s much, much more left over for us at the end. Not sure that’s going to happen to be fair, given her expert background ordering for and running a restaurant. Maybe next time I’ll fib and tell her two extra places are booked…
We did pilfer a couple of generous portions of the incredible cheesecake however. I nearly missed out on another life changing fruit revelation too. After avoiding cooked plums for my entire adult life, utterly convinced they’d really not be my bag, I immediately became a spiced plum convert.
Much wine was quaffed, much laughter was had and it was every bit the the Fawkes Feast I’d imagined. Such a shame though, that at the end of the evening all our guests were far too grown up and sensible to play outside with the giant sparklers….
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