A quarter-century after they started one, supper clubs the hot foodie trend

Contra Costa Times (MCT) - The rich aroma of bittersweet chocolate wafts across the room, its fragrance blending with the steamy spiciness of mango shrimp, a savory spinach dip, tarragon-sprinkled carrots and all sorts of delicious things prepared by this group of longtime friends.

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It's been more than a quarter century since Carol Lyke and her friends first gathered to sip a little wine, dish a little gossip and cook recipes from the latest Sunset magazine.

Some 26 years and 3,800 recipes later, they're still at it. The only difference is, now these empty nesters and retirees are trendy.

Cooking clubs have suddenly become all the rage.

Cookbooks are devoted to these informal foodie get-togethers. The Food Network has a show devoted to gourmet clubs. And Bon Appetit magazine's editors loved the concept so much, they launched a BonAppetit.com web page specifically for cooking clubs last year that includes a how-to starter kit, theme ideas and recipes for a "Party Thai" dinner, for example, and a "Pizza and Prosecco" party.

Some clubs take a formal approach, assigning and critiquing recipes from just-published cookbooks. Others, including Chantell Fithian's Antioch, Calif., MOMS cooking club, play it casual.

"Everybody brings an appetizer or a sweet," she says, "or we'll do a cooking-together thing. We bring a recipe for everybody, then we sit down and eat and let the kids play. It's fun."

Cooking clubs aren't restricted to the maternal demographic, of course. Napa Valley boasts a men's cooking club. Katherine Fausset and the other women behind "The Cooking Club Cookbook" and its sequel, "The Cooking Club Party Cookbook," were Manhattan singletons when they first started their monthly gourmet dinners.

But Lyke first heard about the cooking club concept back in 1983, when she was a young mother, up to her eyeballs in macaroni and cheese. The idea sounded like such fun, so Lyke called up 25 friends and suggested they try hosting a Sunset magazine-inspired party.

Thousands of empanadas, radicchios and brined salmon fillets later, the group is still going strong. They're a little more gray, says Lyke, except for those "still dying our hair." There have been births, deaths, divorces and re-marriages. Nine of the original group remain, and others have joined throughout the years.

Their silver anniversary last year was "quite the blowout," says Lyke, and Sunset magazine sent two editors to join in the fun.

On this particular sunny spring afternoon, 14 women are gathered in Margo Heath's dining room, high in the Hayward, Calif., hills, putting the finishing touches on recipes drawn from the March issue, the one with enticing small towns on the cover and a salute to Portland's push cart cuisine inside.

Lyke has made almond-crusted sole _ actually, tilapia, because it travels better. Terry Lavin has done a spicy mango shrimp dish, a colorful, Asian-inspired mixture of coconut shreds, fresh basil and plump prawns. There's a classic macaroni and cheese, augmented with bacon, herbs and a crunchy crumb topping, and those sumptuous Triple Threat Chocolate Cookies.

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The secret to the group's success, says Lyke, is the laid-back attitude everyone brings to the proceedings. The women meet in January to set the coming year's schedule of luncheons, dinner parties, ladies-only and spouses-welcome events. And no one takes themselves too seriously.

"We use a recipe from the current issue of Sunset," says Lyke, a Castro Valley, Calif., resident. "Sometimes there's just not things that lend themselves to buffet style for 12 to 24 people, so people will just bring whatever they feel like. We're guinea pigs for each other."

For some reason, the March issue was light on the confectionary front, so Marge Brans, the club's "Dessert Queen," has supplemented the buffet table with her own lemon tart, dusted with powdered sugar and adorned with thinly sliced citrus. She hands recipe copies around, as the kitchen crew dishes on which ingredients posed the most challenge.

"Sunset has a way of picking things _ blue corn chips! _ before they become fashionable," says Lavin, one of the original members.

Of course these days, every supermarket carries the unusual chips, but chickpea flour sent Barbara Lee Jackson scurrying to a health food store near her Clayton, Calif., home when she had to tackle the Spicy Chickpea Sandwich with carrot salad and a lemony mayonnaise.

The magazine's themes play out at the buffet table, of course. The article on Portland's casual lunch options translates into a pulled pork sandwich, as well as Jackson's vegetarian offering. The January spread, they recalled, was a tad soup-centric. But it all tends to even out, says Lyke, "and no one objects to having three or four chocolate desserts."

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© 2009, Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.).