Photos courtesy of Gerry Blumberg
Andrea Molberg
The Dinner Club for SaddleBrooke Preserve residents has found a winning recipe. Start with great neighbors, add tasty food, mix, and you will have fun. The club, which started in the fall of 2009, has 83 members and is led this year by Ann Lange and Pam Frame. It meets once a month with four in-home dinners in October, December, February and April where members are assigned a recipe to make and share. The other eight months members take turns arranging dinners out, sampling and exploring Oro Valley and Tucson restaurants.
This April Pam and Tom Frame hosted the group on their lovely back patio and 56 attended. Often several in-home dinners occur simultaneously with everyone dining on the same planned menu and sometimes the group gathers in one in-home spot as they did at the Frames. Members raved about the delicious selections which included chicken skewers with a spicy yogurt sauce, broccoli bites, sausage stuffed cherry pepper poppers, shrimp ceviche, tortilla Espanola, flank steak with goat cheese, artichoke bites, meatballs, dulce de leche cookies, sopapilla cheesecake pie bites, and the list goes on.
Club members range from non-cooks to gourmands and gourmets who assist and mentor. Not only is the food plentiful and the conversation lively, members get the chance to try different recipes. All eat well.