In case you've not picked up on these dining events, they are:

Burgher Burger, a guerilla dining experience where an established Edinburgh chef cooks his/her ultimate burger meal in a greasy spoon cafe in Leith.

There is Create:Eat a collaborative dining event featuring the very best of everything.

There was The Disconsolate Dandie which took place in a palladian manor in Selkirk back in June. We'll be hearing more from him early next year... he really needs to sort out his kitchen first!

I am also working on another interesting collaboration with a popular Edinburgh chef, this is called #spicebomb.

You might want to ‘like’ the Jelly+Gin Facebook page because this is where all the information about tickets etc for future events will be.

I cannot see myself having time to host a supper club again in the foreseeable future. As intrepid gastronauts, I'm sure you'll be joining me at one of the above event soon enough (if you haven't already).

~small bites~

potato cakes with herring roe and beetroot salad

gravadlax with horseradish cream

veal & pork meatballs with cowberry compote

homemade caraway seed bread

~main~

poached salmon
potato and celeriac bake
sweet pickled beetroot
fennel slaw

~dessert~

sesame milk pudding with salted pistachio praline

Another Scandi-inspired menu. I did a menu similar to this for a private event back in February and it went down very well. Wine matching with all those pickles and beetroot can be a bit of a nightmare so have a look at my friend Nikki’s blog, she did a wine tasting at the last Scandi supper club and came up with these great choices.

Looking forward to seeing you at the weekend. I'll send out address details tonight.

P.S. odd choice of photographs I know, I’m playing around with Instragram to see if it will work as a way of recording photos for my blog. My other camera is just too big and heavy, so I never end up taking photographs. Hhhmmm... need to work on technique.

I’m getting lots and lots of emails via this website at the moment, so many that I can’t quite keep on top of the responses. I’m sorry that I haven’t responded, I’m not being rude just very, very busy! These are the most frequently asked questions.

How do you set up a supper club?

Everything you need to know about setting up a supper club is in Kerstin Rodgers’ book Supper Club. It’s not that expensive and if you are planning on setting up a supper club it’s definitely worth the £12 or so. This book was my bible when I started, as was Kerstin’s blog. You can also read this blog from the start if you wish because I’ve pretty much documented most of the highs and lows of the past year here.

I can’t advise on the legalities supper clubs. Every area is different, and there are lots of grey areas too. You will have to make these decisions yourself, and seek advice from your local authority.

Can I come to your supper club?

My May event (it’s booked up) is the last one for a while. I may do another one or two later in the year but at the moment I’m focusing on Jelly+Gin (do 'like' on Facebook to keep track of dining events) and Burgher Burger.

Can you recommend another Edinburgh supper club?

Follow these two blogs for up to date information on the Edinburgh supper club scene:

My Monkfish

Edinburgh Spotlight

I haven’t been to all of the Edinburgh supper clubs, for the sole reason that I’ve been running mine so frequently. I was on the verge of being black-balled by friends if I went supper clubbing on my weekends off too! I have been to Crescent Dining and Chai Lounge, both are excellent. I’ve also been to Tealicious an afternoon tea pop-up which is the most divine treat on a Sunday. There’s a supper club for everyone, each is as unique as the host/s so try them all out!

Finally, if you’re thinking about starting a supper club, just do it.

A tea inspired menu

green jasmine tea bubbles
~
chicken liver parfait
~
mushrooms in aspic
melba toast
~
hibiscus marinated lamb
potato flowers
mint tea steamed greens
~
chai cream pudding
rhubarb sorbet

Here’s the menu for Saturday’s supper club. Inspiration for some of the recipes has been drawn from The Vintage Tea Party book - it is a lovely book. Things may change slightly depending on the availability of ingredients. Do let me know if you’ve got an allergies/ serious aversions. I already know that there’s a pregnant person and a non-fish eater; I hope this menu is okay for you both! I look forward to seeing you all on Saturday...my second last supper club... sigh.

Changes afoot. You’ve probably figured that out what with the change of my twitter tag, avatar and the Facebook diddling. Whodda thunk? A year ago I wasn’t even on twitter and now I’m having what feels like a momentous change of twitter tag (for those of you not on Twitter - it really is a big thing!).

So what's the big news? Well my 1st anniversary supper club on the 12 May, is also going to be my last home supper club for a while. Not because I want to give up having dinner fun with new and interesting people, no because I’m taking this show on the road.

Since starting Burgher Burger back in February I’ve been offered lots interesting opportunities to do pop-up dining events and I feel that I’ve got to grasp these with both hands. I love new things... (that’s why there’s never been the same thing on the menu twice in a whole year of supper clubs) - so I have found that I really can’t say ‘no’.

And, as with the supper club, these bigger dining events have also allowed me to collaborate with some people that I just love being around, people that are so inspiring that you just can’t help but feel creative yourself. And so to Jelly+Gin. The name might sound a bit funny but really it’s just me organising dinners with my good friend Carol Soutar. Carol is a freelance creative director, designer and all round aesthete, and she has been instrumental in helping me develop the look of both Burgher Burger and My Home Supper Club - now we want to do more lavish/unusual/bonkers dining events together. In addition we’ll be collaborating with some of the many brilliant chefs on the Scottish food scene; home-cooked dinner for 12 and I’m fine, anything above and over would be panic stations for me!

This blog has always been about the story of my home supper club, so I’ll continue to write here while the supper club is still up and running. Also, Carol and I will be working on  www.jellyandgin.com and making that look good (it’s a work in progress at the moment) and populating it with information about upcoming pop-up nights, secret supper clubs, and guerilla dining events in very unusual locations.

You might want to ‘like’ the Jelly+Gin Facebook page because this is where we’ll be talking about the very special country manor secret supper club hosted by the mystery man that I’ve yet to meet (have you ever read a sentence with so many enticing words?). The Facebook page is where all the information about tickets etc for this event and future events will be. In short, it’s the place where all the Jelly+Gin action will be happening. Get ‘liking’.

I few weeks ago I received an intriguing email. No, it was not a Nigerian business man wanting my bank account details in order to transfer lots of long lost dollars. It was from a lawyer. This was the gist of it. “I am a lawyer. I have a client. He has heard about underground dining and supper clubs in Edinburgh and likes the idea. They remind of him of his days in London a long time ago. He has a very large house. He would like you to organise a supper club for him. He wants to remain anonymous for the moment.”

Hmmm. I said to myself. Hmmm. I said again. Then I decided that I would ignore the email.  After I couple of days, I could ignore no longer. I did a bit of research. The lawyer was definitely legitimate. With a real office and a real client list. There’s nothing to be lost from meeting a real lawyer in a real office?

A few days later, myself and my good friend Carol set off on a car journey heading out of Edinburgh. We drove, we got lost, we got found. And in the end we found ourselves at the end of a long winding driveway, with a wooded area on either side. Was this where we were going to meet our grizzly end?

No. Here I am. And I can assure you that I did not offer Carol up as a sacrificial lamb either. She’s most definitely at work today. What did happen was that we met a very nice lawyer (but still no client) in the most amazing country manor. It’s full of faded grandeur, full of tokens of a life well-lived. Oh and it has a lake in the back garden...

How could I resist? So hold the date in your diary. 30 June. There’ll be transport from and to Central Edinburgh. There’ll be food cooked by a fabulous chef, and wine matched with the food. There’ll be mystery, even I don’t really know what’s going on. Are you up for it?

UPDATE: Sounds like more than a few of you are up for this. Tickets (£80 incl. transport) will be on sale in a few weeks. Keep watching the blog for more details.

Lots of fun! Sore heads the next day... which is why it's taken me a week to upload the photos! And as you can see, the party was well and truly underway by the time I remembered to take photographs on the night.

Paddy's Day Menu

black velvet
(a guinness and champagne cocktail)
~
smoked salmon
homemade Irish brown soda bread with homemade butter
~
collar of bacon cooked in cider
leek champ
parsley sauce
~
carrageen moss pudding with rhubarb compote
~
Irish cheese course
ardrahan, durrus, cooleeney
~
Irish coffee with Innis & Gunn whiskey cask ice-cream

I’ve had a surprising amount of fun putting this menu together. It was a real trip down memory lane.

Boiled bacon and colcannon (cabbage mixed with mashed potatoes) may be the Irish national dish but I can count the number of times I’ve eaten this in Ireland on one hand. I’m not a huge fan of cabbage but bacon... who can resist? This is a dish I usually cook at Christmas. In fact, it’s become a Christmas eve tradition to have bacon, mash and parsley sauce with some steamed greens, it’s very comforting. On this menu, I’ve opted for leek champ - a less controversial dish than that cabbage-y old colcannon.

I’d almost forgotten about the existence of carrageen moss, an Irish seaweed that is also found on the west coast of Scotland. It’s similar to agar-agar in that it has gelatin-like setting qualities. In Ireland carrageen moss is boiled with milk and cinnamon to create a pudding very like pannacotta. It’s also made into a drink by boiling it with lemon, honey and cloves. I used to be sent to school with a flask of hot carrageen moss, a thick gelatinous drink that my mother swore would ward off any colds and coughs... oh, how I wished for Kia-Ora in a carton just like the other children!

For me rhubarb is a key component of an Irish dessert. My granny used to have huge crimson rhubarb stalks growing in her back garden. I’m sure my memory is playing tricks on me, but all I can remember eating in her house where rhubarb based desserts; rhubarb fool, rhubarb crumble, rhubarb tart.

For the Irish coffee, I’ll be making my own Innis and Gunn whiskey cask beer ice-cream; an Irish affogato.

If you’re coming along and you’re a veggie, please let me know as soon as possible!

On the 18 February, we held a private supper club event for sixteen wine loving friends. It was a birthday celebration combined with a desire to understand a bit more about food and wine matching. Nikki Fletcher and I have been talking about doing an event together for some time, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to test out our ideas.

For me, after a winter of cooking hearty comfort food, I knew that I wanted to have a fresher menu. I’ve been reading a lot of about northern European food and watching too much Borgen so I had my heart set on a Scandi menu. When we met to discuss the wines and the menus, Nikki gave me an overview of the types of wines she wanted to serve and what food might match well with them. It tried to choose food that hung together as part of a whole menu as well as going well with each individual wine (much harder than you would imagine). Then I got pickling and purchasing industrial quantities of beetroot. Little did I know that these are amongst the most difficult foods to match with wine and Nikki had to work very hard to come up with good matches. In the end, she came up with the most amazing selection of wines that complemented the food perfectly.

Rather than sitting at a dining table, guests gathered around three coffee tables. The food was served on small plates, seven courses in total. Nikki gave each person two glasses of wine to taste with each of the starters, and conducted a blind tasting of three wines with the main course of poached salmon, potato and celeriac bake (my version of Jannson’s temptation), pickled beetroot, and a fennel and dill slaw in a swedish dressing.

The food highlights were the potato cakes with herring roe, beetroot and creme fraiche, these went down a storm with everyone asking for seconds and the recipe. The controversial dish of the night was my home-pickled herring, on rye with a herb remoulade. I knew as I was assembling this, that it would not be...um... popular... I also said to the dude, “I bet there’ll be one person that absolutely loves this, and everyone else will politely decline after one bite”. And so it came to pass, as I offered seconds around each person, politely as possible... with a little hint of panic said “no! Thank you, I’ve had one already!”. Apart from two people in the corner that grabbed the plate off me and tucked in heartily.

I joined the fun after the main course was served. I loved the Moscato d’Asti with the rhubarb trifle, but my absolute favourite combination were the chocolate truffles and Elysium, a Californian black muscat. I will be indulging in that again and again. Nikki has details of all the wines, which can be purchased at Vino Wine Shops, on her website here.

The evening was a relaxed and fun affair. I think the guests were genuinely surprised at how so much wine knowledge could be imparted without having a stuffy, bossy wine buff speaking down to them. The feedback on the whole experience was great and this is something that we’d like to do again, so if you’re having a birthday or just want a special night out with a group of friends get in touch.

~small bites~

potato cakes with herring roe and beetroot salad

pickled herring with herb remoulade on rye

veal & pork meatballs with cowberry compote

~main~

whole poached salmon
potato and celeriac bake
sweet pickled beetroot
fennel slaw

~cheese~

swedish blue served with honey and gingerbread thins

~dessert~

rhubarb trifle

~

bitter chocolate truffles

This Saturday Nikki Fletcher and I are jointly hosting a private supper club event. In a change to usual proceeding we're having the food buffet style, and Nikki will be bringing along some great wines to taste with each of the courses.

I've been feeling the need to freshen up my menus after a winter of pastry, pies and potatoes, so I've been researching Scandinavian food. I would like to say that this is driven by a deep intellectual need to understand our Northern European friends better, but in reality it's down to my current obsession with Borgen. Very deep, me! I think it's quite challenging food for wine matching too, all those vinegary pickles, but Nikki is the woman for the job.