Bon Appetit!

Photos by Chad Bremerman

Today’s foodies might find themselves in a bit of a pickle: loving to cook, yet lacking the time it requires to don an apron, turn to the dog-eared page they’ve been salivating over for weeks and get chopping.

Enter the dinner club.

New idea?  No.  Great idea? Only if you like to cook and eat amazing food with some of your best friends.

Yakima’s Lisa Reinhart, 42, and Tahni Kalina, 38, formed their “Bon Appetit” dinner club in September 2001.

“We had this vision of what we wanted — of getting back to basics and entertaining in your home,” said Lisa, who with Tahni recently sat down with Yakima Magazine to discuss the group.

During those first dinners, getting the silver polished and the house cleaned to spotless was important, they said.

“None of that matters now,” said Tahni.  Now their Bon Appetit dinner club is about friendships forged over some of the best meals they’ve ever cooked — or eaten.

“It’s that relationship that you develop. You know you could call any one of these people for help,” Tahni said.

“And we have,” Lisa added.

The group now includes 10 people, including Lisa and Tahni, as well as Sandra and Jim Peterson, Michelle and Al Perales, Chase and Stacy Kellogg and Kevin and Kim Kershaw.

To ensure that every experience was a good one, the club created rules for participation.

First, all meals come from a specific issue of Bon Appetit magazine, and are assigned by that month’s host, who makes the main course.  This way, no single member or couple is saddled with making an entire meal.

Second, if a member cannot attend one of the monthly dinner clubs, that member must still make his or her component of the dinner.

And third, everybody brings wine.  “We go through a lot of bottles of wine,” said Tahni.

It’s a recipe for success.  And really delicious food.

Members of the group were chosen carefully, based on how well they enjoyed cooking and how dependable they were—after all, if the starch doesn’t show up, the meal isn’t complete.

Lisa and Tahni reminisced about the meals they’ve eaten through the years … mouth-watering food like roasted mushroom and garlic soup; gorgonzola and bacon potato salad; hazelnut gelato profiteroles with warm Kahlua sauce; chocolate this and chocolate that.  Greek-inspired menus, Italian-inspired menus, BBQ.  They’ve done it all.

“We shot for the moon a couple of times,” said Lisa.  “And we got it.”

Lisa quipped that they were way ahead of the curve when it comes to today’s pear/gorgonzola/caramelized onion craze.  They were putting those ingredients together years ago, she said with a wave of her hand.

“We’ve never had a bad meal,” insisted Lisa.  Tahni raised an eyebrow.

“Except for one salad,” Lisa added.  “That I made.”

They both laughed, showing how close they’ve grown over the years.

Lisa insisted that Tahni’s talent is the real thing, calling her an “amazing, over-the-top cook.” Tahni has had some training from the French, through a Provence cooking tour in 2000 and a two-week turn in Paris at L’Ecole de Cuisine Alain Ducasse in 2005.

Tahni’s education at Ducasse taught her a lot about culinary science, with each day focusing on some new food group.  One day she spent making nothing but chocolate desserts — something of a foodie dream. Several years ago, it was Tahni who gave Lisa’s baby daughter, Grace, her first taste of chocolate.

Some meal assignments are introduced with elaborate invitations… some with a quick Evite. Meals have required scavenger hunts for ingredients not readily available locally.  Members comb the farmers market, local grocery and specialty stores and even local restaurants in search of that one elusive item.  No matter the culinary challenge, each cook rose to the occasion and delivered, month in and month out.

“We always knew that if it was Bon Appetit, it was a priority,” said Lisa.

Over the years, however, the dinner group evolved, some couples dropping, replaced by others.  Life’s inevitable dramas and scheduling conflicts dealt the club some blows, and it actually stopped meeting regularly at the end of last year.  Lisa and Tahni missed it terribly.

The friendships proved too important, however, and in October, they resumed their club with a dinner at Tahni’s house — the first in more than nine months.  Lisa described her anticipation for the Oct. 2 event as “giddy.”

That evening at Tahni’s house, everyone—even special guests—dressed to the nines and crowded into Tahni’s cozy kitchen.  They cooked, ate, drank and caught up.  Laughter was infectious.  Music filled the background, coming from a stereo in the dining room, where a long table was set with a harvest theme, candles glowing, and place cards set just so.

The menu was from the October edition of Bon Appetit magazine, and sounded delicious.

Kim was in charge of the appetizer: Greenmarket Beans and Chard on Grilled Bread.

The Spiced Pumpkin, Lentil and Goat Cheese salad was made by Michelle.

Tahni cooked the main course — a New York Strip and Fall Vegetable Roast with Mustard Cream Sauce.

To accompany the roast, Sandra made Sauteed Kale with Garlic, Shallots and Capers, and Stacy made Crème Fraiche and Chive Mashed Potatoes.

To finish the dinner Lisa made a Chocolate Stout Layer Cake with Chocolate Frosting.

After saying grace with “I Will Survive” playing in the background—Lisa’s shoulders betraying her laughter—the group’s conversation bounced between home, work, and of course, the food.  At one point, they discussed the validity, indeed the very reality, of the cranberry bean.

“Are there really cranberry beans out there?” Lisa asked.

“I mean, I’m sorry … why would you call that a cranberry bean?” said Stacy, while Chase filled wine glasses. (According to foodreference.com, there is such a thing as a cranberry bean. It is reputed to taste like a chestnut.)

“That’s the neat thing about this is that you get to sample food that you wouldn’t normally try,” Chase said.

Each course was met with jokes, memories relived, and laughs that can only come from the depth of true friendship.

Everyone agreed that the food was amazing, too.  But that was to be expected.