A New Kind of Club
Do you love to entertain but don’t have the time or knowledge to roast a chicken? Are you tired of serving the same boring chateaubriand time after time to your dinner guests?
If you answered yes to either of those questions, you may just be ready to start a tasting club. That’s just what author Dina Cheney suggests in her new book, Tasting Club: Gathering Together to Share and Savor Your Favorite Tastes.
While I have exaggerated the tone of the introduction to her book, I was a little put off by the hint of condescension in Ms. Cheney’s opening words. But I have forgiven them for two reasons: 1) She is just trying to sell her concept, and 2) It’s a darned good concept.
With so many exotic types and foreign brands of foods available to us these days, it was inevitable that our tastes would expand and our palates become more sophisticated. What better way to take advantage of this new abundance of choice than to bring together several samples of a particular food and compare and contrast them? And if your friends are as opinionated and discriminating as mine are, it can certainly make for a lively evening.
In Tasting Club, Dina Cheney provides everything you need to hold tastings for wine, chocolate, cheese, honey, tea, extra virgin olive oil, cured meats, balsamic vinegar, apples, and beer. If you hold one tasting a month, you almost have a year’s worth of tastings right there. And the way she presents her suggestions, it would be easy to come up with an unlimited range of foods for future tastings.
Each section is thorough. She begins by giving an in-depth background for each food, describing how it is made and providing a run-down of different types, and telling you how to locate and select your choices. Each section offers a sample menu, with recipes, for possible accompaniments, and provides a Tasting Grid (unique to each tasting) to show what to look for in the tasting, and a glossary of terms related to the item.
So even if you do have the time and knowledge to cook and are not running out of ideas for dinner parties, a tasting club can be a lovely way to spend an evening.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Dina Cheney provides everything you need to host a successful tasting for a range of foods.
Cons: The tone is a little condescending, especially in the introduction.
Tasting Club: Gathering Together to Share and Savor Your Favorite Tastes, by Dina Cheney (DK Publishing, 2006).
