First Rule of Cooking Club

… is tell everyone about it on your cooking blog.

Ditalini and I are Hash House Harriers, members of a notoriously disorganized hare & hounds trail club with chapters all over the world. After a recent trail, while eight of us were cooling off at a local pub, our friend Magret de Canard told us about the weekend she spent escorting a cookbook author who’d been a speaker at Tucson’s annual book fair. The author was Hugo Ortega, and he’d given Magret a copy of his new cookbook, Backstreet Kitchen. She had the book with her and we passed it around. Somehow the idea of starting a cooking club popped into our heads.

We’re calling ourselves the On-On Gourmet Hash House Harriers, even though the only trails we’ll follow will be culinary ones. We’re going to cook and consume dinners together, once every other month. Our idea is to pick a chef with an online or print cookbook, then draw lots for who’ll prepare an appetizer, salad or soup course, main course, and dessert — all from that chef’s repertoire. Whoever draws the main course will host; everyone else will prepare their assigned courses at home and bring them to the host’s house for dinner. After dinner, we’ll pick a new chef and draw lots for who’ll prepare what for our next meeting, two months down the road.

Our inaugural cooking club meeting was two nights ago, and we started with — who else — Hugo Ortega and his Backstreet Kitchen cookbook. Ditalini and I drew the main course (Slow Braised Short Ribs, pg 164), so we hosted. We were joined by the Spezzatinos, Manzo & Anitra, who prepared the dessert (Pear Tarte Tatin, pg 184); the Ceviches, Tiburón & Camarón, who prepared the appetizer (Mushroom Escargot with Pesto, pg 119), the aforementioned Magret de Canard, who prepared a side dish (Garlic Mashed Potatoes, pg 152), and another single member, Houskový Knedlík, who can’t cook for squat but that’s okay because we named him our resident provisioner of wines & spirits.

All hail Hugo Ortega! The On-On Gourmets Hash House Harriers is off to a great start. Here we are, setting off on our inaugural gastronomical trail (which, I admit, looks very much like sitting down to dinner):

I don’t remember who’s preparing what for our next meeting (Ditalini wrote it all down, thank goodness), but our next chef is Mario Batali.

And now that I’ve talked up Hugo Ortega and his great cookbook, you’ll be pleased to learn that I’ve posted his Slow Braised Short Ribs recipe, along with some photos of its preparation, directly below this entry.