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When we host our Underground Supper Clubs, the clientele varies. The younger guests often take out their phones, snap some pictures and enjoy their meals. I love it when I get to see what happens next...here are the perspectives of some of our guests at our January and February dinners.
All Natural Chicago hosts an Underground Supper Club on the 4th Friday of most months. Our communal seating and open kitchen space offer a wonderful culinary dining experience. We have had a few Italian/pasta driven events. Our first, PastaPalooza can be found here. Ravioli, lasagna, handmade pastas, oh my! The next pasta focus event was APastalype Now! They are not always Italian driven, but our dinners allow Chef Micky to have a creative culinary outlet. We love catering social events and corporate meetings, though Supper Club gives Chef a chance to exercise his culinary muscles. We want to invite you and your friends and family to participate in these dinners.
Our Underground Supper Club will return in January. We are offering gift certificates this holiday season. When you don't want to buy someone you care about more stuff, offer them an experience and have one for you to share at a discount! With the purchase of a gift certificate for $120, you receive 2 seats to an upcoming Underground Supper Club and 50% off your seat to the same or another dinner. Dinners range from $60 to $75 per seat, depending on the menu and offerings. Our exclusive email recipients are notified of these events. They occur on or around the 4th Friday of most months. Sample menus can be found here. Consider offering your friends and family an experience this holiday season...to be enjoyed in the new year.
All Natural Chicago Catering came out of two desires. Chef's dream was to cook in the honor of his Grandma Mary. She was his inspiration, motivation and guardian angel. My hope was to provide a place that we could create future dreams for our children. Going to work with my parents, which although infrequent, was really exciting. My father was an engineer at a fire alarm, sprinkler system company. When he would take me to work, I could hear the time clocks ticking and watch the guys fixing things. It connected me with what he did in a way I did not understand. My mom worked for AT&T and Motorola during the 70s and 80s. You can only imagine the exciting things going on at those places at that time. I would go to the computer room at AT&T and play a computer game that allowed me 2 word commands. There were no exciting graphics, it was all words and you created a map with your instructions, collected weapons and treasures, it was like a board game on the computer. I digress here to show how exciting those memories are for me. Cooking and food elicits the same response from Chef. We want that for our children. Our son is often coming up with recipes he wants to try. They are usually sauces so we don't have to worry about knives or heat yet. The experiences of being in our new kitchen can provide other exciting memories and help us relive old ones. A tradition in Chef's family was getting together in early December to bake cookies. They would all work together to bake dozens of cookies and everyone would go home with boxes of them. We would receive boxes of assorted cookies as gifts. It was like opening a box of chocolates. You never knew which ones made it into your box but there were always a few favorites. I got invited to bake one year. It is really a special memory for me. My husband wasn't there, it was just the ladies. My Mother-in-Law had a really great cousin that I loved. She was a scrapper. She never filtered her words. If she thought it, you knew it. I love strong women like that. She was the first family member to meet our son. We lost her last year so my memories are even more poignant. In honor of Grandma Mary, Aunt Geri and all the other Italian ladies that came before us, we are hosting a "Hands On Holiday Cookie Baking Party" on December 6th. The idea of this event came out of conversations of what people's favorite holiday cookies were. Everyone has that special cookie that their mom or grandma used to bake when they were little. Perennial favorites are the nut crescents with powdered sugar, Kolaczkis, sugar cookies with decorations, ginger snaps, window pane cookies, 7 layer bars and on and on. We decided that perhaps we should harness all of the excitement and capture those great recipes and allow people to come together in the family tradition to do it. If you are on our email list (if not, sign up now), you received your invitation last week. We have seen a really great response so if you are interested, get a friend on board, contact us to hold your spot and plan to get baking.
Here are the details, get yourself included.
When: Saturday, December 6, 2013
What time: From 11 to 4
Location: Our catering kitchen
$20 per person provides you with all of the essentials like flour, sugar and butter. If your recipe requires special ingredients, you will want to bring them with you. It would be fun if you brought a partner, but it is not necessary.
Each team will produce one type of cookie - we shoot for 1 dozen cookies for each person in attendance. All of the financial proceeds and the assorted cookies will be donated to the Illinois Hunger Coalition.
We will be providing snacks and food, one cannot live on butter and sugar alone. Email us at [email protected] for more information and to reserve your spot...Click here! We hope to see you there.
Chef Micky was fortunate, in his childhood, to have a grandma that shared long time techniques and traditions in the kitchen. He and his cousins got to pick tomatoes for sauce, stomp grapes for wine, stir the pasta to make sure it didn't stick, and watch while she tore the basil instead of cutting it. It may have seemed silly when none of his friends got to have similar experiences, but in adulthood, the impression those tasks left serve him well. I am discussing these things because we recently had an event that would have made Grandma Mary so proud. We had been wanting to have a pasta themed dinner for a long time. The name was created, a menu was constructed, the invitations got sent and the seats were quickly filled. Dinner time, the judgement hour, expectations fulfilled or not...Yes, FULLFILLED! Eighteen people gathered to socialize, meet new people, see old friends and break bread at PastaPalooza!
We began with some antipasti. A tray of pickled veg & cubed cheeses and two beautiful dishes were laid out for the guests. Heirloom tomatoes surrounding a ball of Burata, with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and grilled peaches around a ball of Burata, drenched in our peach bourbon jam were such a hit. When I explained that it was a cheese wrapped in another cheese, I had everyone's attention. I cut the Burata surrounded by peaches, the creamy cheese just oozed throughout the bowl creating true peaches and cream. 5 stars for bread and circuses in one dish. We sat everyone down, began with salad and proceeded to serve 5 distinct pasta dishes before ending with Tiramisu and lemon cheesecake cremeux. Three dishes contained hand made pasta; seafood manicotti, Vincigrassi lasagnette, and Pasta alla chitarrina with pomodoro basil sauce. Here is how the chitarrina gets made.
The dishes were both beautiful and delicious. Vincisgrassi pasta dough being rolled and cut. Vincisgrassi is a lasagna style dish layered with meat, vegetables and Romano cheese, then baked until the edges are crispy. This dish originated in Le Marche, the region Chef's culinary school was located.
Pictured here are some of the beautiful dishes that were served. Thank you, Grandma Mary, no one would be prouder than you, of Chef Micky's fantastic meal except his wife. That is me. My tummy and our friends - both new and old, were so impressed and satisfied.
All Natural Chicago Catering came out of two desires. Chef's dream was to cook in the honor of his Grandma Mary. She was his inspiration, motivation and guardian angel. My hope was to provide a place that we could create future dreams for our children. Going to work with my parents, which although infrequent, was really exciting. My father was an engineer at a fire alarm, sprinkler system company. When he would take me to work, I could hear the time clocks ticking and watch the guys fixing things. It connected me with what he did in a way I did not understand. My mom worked for AT&T and Motorola during the 70s and 80s. You can only imagine the exciting things going on at those places at that time. I would go to the computer room at AT&T and play a computer game that allowed me 2 word commands. There were no exciting graphics, it was all words and you created a map with your instructions, collected weapons and treasures, it was like a board game on the computer. I digress here to show how exciting those memories are for me. Cooking and food elicits the same response from Chef. We want that for our children. Our son is often coming up with recipes he wants to try. They are usually sauces so we don't have to worry about knives or heat yet. The experiences of being in our new kitchen can provide other exciting memories and help us relive old ones. A tradition in Chef's family was getting together in early December to bake cookies. They would all work together to bake dozens of cookies and everyone would go home with boxes of them. We would receive boxes of assorted cookies as gifts. It was like opening a box of chocolates. You never knew which ones made it into your box but there were always a few favorites. I got invited to bake one year. It is really a special memory for me. My husband wasn't there, it was just the ladies. My Mother-in-Law had a really great cousin that I loved. She was a scrapper. She never filtered her words. If she thought it, you knew it. I love strong women like that. She was the first family member to meet our son. We lost her this year so my memories are even more poignant. In honor of Grandma Mary, Aunt Geri and all the other Italian ladies that came before us, we are hosting a "Hands On Holiday Cookie Baking Party" on December 7th. The idea of this event came out of conversations of what people's favorite holiday cookies were. Everyone has that special cookie that their mom or grandma used to bake when they were little. Perennial favorites are the nut crescents with powdered sugar, Kolaczkis, sugar cookies with decorations, ginger snaps, window pane cookies, 7 layer bars and on and on. We decided that perhaps we should harness all of the excitement and capture those great recipes and allow people to come together in the family tradition to do it. If you are on our email list (if not, sign up now), you received your invitation last week. We have seen a really great response so if you are interested, get a friend on board, contact us to hold your spot and plan to get baking.
Here are the details to get yourself included.
When: Saturday, December 7, 2013
What time: From 11 to 4
Location: Our catering kitchen
$20 per person provides you with all of the essentials like flour, sugar and butter. If your recipe requires special ingredients, you will want to bring them with you. It would be fun if you brought a partner, but it is not necessary.
Each team will produce one type of cookie -1 dozen cookies for each person in attendance plus 1 dozen for Pacific Gardens Mission. All of the financial proceeds and the assorted cookies will be donated to this homeless shelter.
We will be providing snacks and food, one cannot live on butter and sugar alone. Use the "Planning an event" form at the bottom of the page to request more information or register yourself for the event. We hope to see you there.
