THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 18, 1995 TAG: 9506150049
SECTION: FLAVOR PAGE: F1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BROWN H. CARPENTER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 141 lines
WHEN A guest told Joy Wotherspoon that he would bring a tin of Arabic coffee to the 20th anniversary dinner of the Gourmet Club, he was told absolutely not.
The cuisine that evening was Moroccan, after all. And while Syrians and the Lebanese may drink coffee, Wotherspoon said, Moroccans are partial to tea brewed with mint and sugar.
As a guest, she said, just bring your appetite to her Chesapeake Beach home.
Its 13 members just call it the Gourmet Club. ``It never entered my mind to name it,'' said Wotherspoon, one of the founders. ``Usually, we leave out the `the.' We just say, `We're going to Gourmet Club tonight.' ''
Wotherspoon, her husband, Mike, and the other connoisseurs of fine food sit down to dinner together every other month. They believe they make up the oldest continuous dining club in Hampton Roads.
Seven of the gourmets who established the club are still in it: The Wotherspoons, both public school teachers; Linda Fletcher, also a public school teacher; Sharon and Alan Stevens (she works in public relations at Doughtie's Foods and he's a social worker); and Paula and Ron Garrison, a registered nurse and public school teacher, respectively.
The group collaborated on an Italian meal in the spring of 1975 and decided to make exploring food a habit.
Even the membership's latecomers aren't really newcomers. The most recent additions, Roger and Cathy Crider, a public school teacher and homemaker, respectively, have been in the club 10 years.
Other participants are Paul Contrado, of the Norfolk Southern Corp.; Nikki Liberty, with Hampton Roads Radiology; and Charlie and Betsy Russ, a civilian engineer for the Navy and a real estate agent.
All live in Virginia Beach except Fletcher, who commutes from Wattsville, on the Eastern Shore.
Morocco was celebrated on a recent Saturday evening at the Wotherspoons'. The soup was harira, a hearty concoction of vegetables and chicken simmered with exotic spices. Moroccans traditionally eat harira after sunset during the Moslem holiday of Ramadan, when they fast during the day.
The meat was m'choui, lamb prepared in the Berber Bedouin style. It was accompanied by skayad, an orange, date and almond salad; tagine, a stew of meat in raisin and onion sauce; sweetened zucchini and minted sweet carrots; and couscous, a staple of North Africa.
For dessert, keneffa, a Sahara-style custard, and the aforementioned mint tea. TIME TO PREPARE
The secret to the club's success, Paula Garrison says, is that the members don't overdo it. They meet and eat every other month, leaving plenty of time to prepare. The next meal is planned at the end of the previous one.
In the early years, getting ready could be time-consuming. When Australia was selected, for example, the group sought a cookbook from Down Under. Luckily, one of the members had a friend who lived there. Many times, club members found information and recipes in an ethnic cookbook on a public library shelf.
The need for many spices and other esoteric ingredients lead to forages to Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. Or to a special order being placed with a local gourmet store.
The club keeps thorough records, including notes on every meal. No dish involves secret ingredients, and all recipes are freely distributed and filed.
Say someone wants that sour cream recipe served on Russia night. No problem; the recipe is in the files. The date was March 26, 1977, and all you need is butter, flour, sour cream, lemon juice, minced dillweed, salt and pepper.
A glance through the archives shows the Club has consumed about every ethnic food. The first year, the members ate their way through Italian, Chinese, German and French. By 1981, they were into Lebanese, Caribbean and Hawaiian.
During the summer, the men stage a picnic. Occasionally, the members go to a restaurant instead of fixing their own food. And on April 6, 1991, they diverged from form and used the ``Silver PalateCookbook'' as a bimonthly theme.
Not surprisingly, all that good food has had some other effects. ``Every single one of us has gained weight,'' Wotherspoon said. In recognition of that, the group staged a low-cholesterol, low-fat dinner Oct. 2, 1993.
The club has not neglected the variety of cooking in United States: Shaker, Pennsylvania Dutch, Old South, Cajun, Oregon, West Coast, soul food, Maryland's Eastern Shore, New Orleans and American Indian cuisines have adorned their tables.
Tidewater Virginia got top billing Jan. 13, 1990. GROUP LOYALTY
Wotherspoon says the members are a loyal bunch. A few early participants left because they moved away. One couple divorced; the ex-husband took custody of the membership.
Most members have elaborate cookbook collections and bring home recipes when they travel abroad. Not all recipes, though. Charlie Russ passed on a Jamaican cake made with hashish.
If the Gourmet Club has produced star-quality chefs, the members are not reluctant to discuss the flubs and a few hard gastronomic lessons:
When Burma was the theme, Paula Garrison waited until the last minute to buy bananas for the dessert. Every supermarket in Hampton Roads had only green fruit. ``I was told that once you bake them, bananas soften up,'' she recalled. ``Wrong! Wrong!''
A dog once ate a Mexican appetizer consisting of fried ham and cream cheese. The cook presented the recipe and asked fellow diners to imagine what it tasted like.
Centrifugal force will cause a flan to slide off the plate in a moving car.
Don't leave the mousse out on a hot summer day. It melts in 95-degree heat.
Hibernating sensitivities may erupt. Mike Wotherspoon is allergic to coconut. He developed a rash and had difficulty breathing after eating it on African night. He survived but made a trip to the emergency room.
And they have their favorite recipes, of course.
Memories of the khachapuri, or Georgian cheese bread, drew unanimous raves at the Wotherspoon home. It was served in 1977 when the republic of Georgia was still part of the old Soviet Union.
The Australian carpetbagger steaks, stuffed with oysters, also stirred mouth-watering memories.
The Austrian chocolate nut torte was magnificent back on May 13, 1978. As was the African White Elephants (watch out for the coconut). The Italian funghi alla parmigiana was superb. And the escargots were as buttery and garlicky as a serving at a Paris sidewalk cafe.
Perhaps the most original meal was the beach party and fish grill at the Contrado household Jan. 4, 1992. It was a miserable day, but Paul brought in sand and made a ``beach'' in his living room. Complete with plastic ants.
Sure they weren't canned ants? ILLUSTRATION: BETH BERGMAN/Staff color photos
Enjoying a Moroccan meal are Gourmet Club members, from left, Mike
Wotherspoon, Cathy Crider, Nikki Liberty and Ron Garrison.
Club members Ron and Paula Garrison prepare dessert while Betsy
Russ, right, enjoys the wine.
The club's Moroccan meal is authentic, right down to the
dinnerware.
by CNB