I was reading in MacLean’s about a new trend: cooking meals at home and charging the guests. The case in study was preparing an extravagant 8-course dinner that included such items as “Foie gras soaked in red-wine”, “pan-fried striped bass with lemongrass” and “rice-milk flan with white-chocolate-pistachio emulsion”. His ingredients consisted of the finest product he could find and multiple cooking trials and tasting experiences leading up to the day of the serving. Included in the meal was wine, so for $50 in this case, a guest was receiving an 8-course 4-star (at least strived for) dinner with alcohol. That is very reasonable assuming the ‘chef’ was able to pull it off.
This concept appeals to me in several ways. First and foremost, if I am able to convince some friends to buy in, it allows me to experiment and put my skills to work to see if I show any promise in high culinary cuisine. The cost of acquiring the finest ingredients will be defrayed so the expense on my part is simply the labour and time invested – which is more of a passion to me anyway. Secondly, it adds a pressure element that kicks it up a notch over simply cooking a meal for friends and family. With money being paid, it implies an expected return. The guests will be there for the fun, but there will be an expectation of quality no doubt. And as the article explains, if a guest doesn’t like it, he won’t be able to send it back.
So my first objective is to come up with my first menu. It may seem like a cop-out, but with spring coming into bloom, I would like to show off my wizardry on the bbq. I’ve got some ideas floating around but I think the meal will be broken out into a Tapas course including lots of surf and turf that is prepared on the grille followed by a sort of sausage feast with plenty of different types of grilled sausages and an abundance of unique sides (unique pickles, sauces). Perhaps even a ‘seafood’ sausage of a sort?
Anyway, I’m opening this up to you: would anybody be interested in shelling out some coin to enjoy a night of restaurant calibre dining? I would charge an amount that covers the cost of ingredients. But these ingredients would be of the finest nature, implying that the cost wouldn’t be akin to a plate of burgers and fries. But the meal received would run for at least thrice more from a restaurant.