Dinner and a Book is supported by the Rex and Alice, A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.
A proper supper club meal begins with a free relish tray and a basket of bread, followed by a round of brandy, old fashioned and hearty cuisine with a fish fry on Fridays and prime rib on Saturdays.
For you, get the picture.
Let's welcome my guest, Jacqui Hughes.
As we discussed Saturday night at the Lakeside Supper Club by J. Ryan Strand.
Welcome, Jackie.
Well, thank you.
It's a pleasure to be here.
It's good to have you back.
Yes.
And I always enjoy this.
Where did you find this book?
About supper clubs?
Well, I was listening to public radio, which I always do as well as public television.
And they had a book review.
And this was the review.
And it just sounded like such a fun read.
You know, things have been heavy and it was just a fun summery and it was the style.
Jack really brought me back to my childhood, going up to Wisconsin, growing up in the Midwest and seeing supper clubs and going to supper clubs.
Right.
And, you know, before we start, let's really get an idea of what a supper club is when you think about it.
I can't picture it.
Really?
Well, usually they're almost always family owned and intimate.
And a well-stocked bar when you walk in.
Friendly bartenders, friendly waitstaff.
And the food is homemade and comfortable and predictable.
Yes.
Yes.
And but also ample.
Very.
Oh, yes.
Nobody goes away hungry.
And it just is sort of a nice vibe, you know, friendly vibe.
People in the area come if it's in a resort area, which it often is.
They will also have people this will be the place to be on Saturday night.
Friday.
Saturday night.
Right.
And I you know, I think I remember seeing some when we were up in Michigan and Wisconsin as well, because there's so many lakes, cottages.
And people like to get together, you know?
Oh, yes.
You know, and it's really you'll find them on those rural roads, you know, not the interstates, but the rural roads.
And it's always fun when you're traveling to get off the interstate and discover the suburbs and the suburbs.
Yes.
Well, this this has so many different discussions about different restaurants.
I mean, in the area, they talk about the majestic, which is sort of a down home bar, you know, little sticky bar maybe.
Well, it's it's a fancier place, you know.
Well, I was thinking about the Majestic.
That the Majestic is a fancy one.
Yes.
Well, and then which is the one with the sticky bar and.
Oh, that was.
Oh was a club or something like that.
That was in the town.
It was a neighborhood bar.
And it was sticky.
And you could just tell it.
But the men liked the idea of like, going there, you know, because it was just casual, you know?
And then you have George, it's brought in.
It's a it's a chain.
Yes.
Coming in and people don't like the concept of it because it pushes out all the mom and dad's restaurants.
And then you have this one, which is a little fancier.
They have the white tablecloths and the stem glasses for wine.
So you can have any mixture of this.
And you could.
Yes.
Depends on what you know.
You want to wear your pants, your fishing gear.
You go to the bar, you know, the first one.
Anyway, it's it's so interesting.
And we were talking about whether we have supper clubs in this area.
Well, we do still.
The Heston burial out in La Porte County still calls itself a supper club.
And it does have that vibe.
It's out in the country.
It's becoming a little busier out there.
Yes, but it's still rural and it is that atmosphere of you have the paneling on the walls, you have the big bar when you come in and you know it's well stocked.
Everybody knows them.
Yes.
Yeah.
And so it's just that I was there a long time ago.
But I think it's going to have to make a trip out there again, because we're studying supper clubs now.
And I just wanted to say that with all these things going on, there's a lot of work in the restaurant.
And from this book who's doing all the work?
Oh, is the women?
Yes, it's the women that are the heart of the the industry, so to speak.
You know, they are maybe maybe managing the books or, you know.
Yes.
Trying to hire the people.
But it's the women who are in there telling people what to do and also greeting people, making sure that the yes waitstaff is on target.
And this this book is just the same.
It's run by women and it's been a chain of women from the same family.
And I kind of started with Florence.
She's kind of a crabby woman.
Oh, she's had a hard life.
She's you know, Florence is probably the most interesting character in the whole book because she was so unpredictable.
Yeah, she's kind of angry.
She had she never got over being that.
Her mother just picked up and left her father, who she adored the father.
But the father was apparently abusive and the mother just picked her up and left, you know, and they were having a hard time struggling on their own.
You know what?
We're going to struggle if we don't get started on our own, going to cook.
We're cooking some food from this book and from what traditional supper clubs have done.
Why don't you talk about and get started on your what is it you're mouthing for dessert?
This is grasshopper movie.
Oh, we're do.
Yes, Yes.
And the reason I chose this is we're also going to be having brandy old fashions.
And I thought maybe we'd load the menu a little too much if we had grasshoppers for dessert, which oftentimes they did.
They started the meal with a cocktail, and they ended the meal with a deal.
And then more and more cocktails in between.
So today we have our special cocktail.
But you're starting on the mousse because it takes a little longer.
Yes, grasshopper mousse.
So you want to get started on that.
And I'm I'm going to get our relish tray ready in this first segment, so go right ahead.
All right.
Ahead this I need to put this in the microwave and melt it slowly.
I already have the cream whip.
It's cause for whipped cream and the white chocolate.
And be sure when you do this to get the white chocolate bars because the little chips are not real chocolate.
So you want the white chocolate bar that you're going to?
That's a good hint.
Yes.
Good tip right there.
And you want the buttercream and the in the chocolate.
And then I'm just I did this prior, so I chopped it up.
I'm going to put it in the microwave and watch it just for and melt it.
So looks like it's going to we can put it in.
All right.
And I'm getting this free relish tray.
You know, that used to be something special.
Today.
They barely give you bread.
I mean, you have to ask for bread.
You have to ask for lots of things I'm going to do.
How many minutes are you doing or.
I'm doing 30 seconds at a time.
Three.
Oh, just put three.
Okay.
And then.
Okay.
And start.
So.
Okay, good.
There we go.
And so I'm getting this ready.
And can you imagine today going in to a supper club and or it's almost like a bar, but a little more fancy and having an opening with a gross tray.
And I want to thank my friend Janice, who she loaned me her relish tray.
So here we go.
First course and actually, we're going to have our drinks with this, too.
I have some extra left over here.
What I want to do is start the potatoes.
They take about 20 minutes, so we're going to have some roasted potatoes.
They would have had a baked potato, probably.
I see pictures of that.
You look at the website or the Heston bar, there's slabs of meat and baked potato and it looks wonderful.
It really does.
Yeah.
So this supper club is almost 100 years old and it's been managed, as Jackie said, by women in the family and their characters.
But at the same time, they get along.
I mean, they've had years to work out all these relationships.
And then we have the discussion of who is going to own this place in the future.
I mean, it's been women and women and women in Florence, the oldest one right now.
In this episode, she doesn't want her granddaughter to run a restaurant.
She says it's too much work, just too much work.
Are you all melted?
It's melted, but I have to let this cool before it goes into the rack.
Oh, that's true.
Because you'll have curdled.
I will love melted whipped cream again.
That will go back to its original state.
So.
So when Florence hears that her granddaughter wants to go to college, I mean, wants to own it after her mother, Florence is so disappointed.
Why does my granddaughter want to stay here?
She should go and get educated, learn other things.
Now, that's just the family.
Those are some of the family issues and problems and discussions.
And we also have a very special the mother of the last person that's going to run this place.
Her name is Mary.
Yeah.
And she and Ned are running it together.
And Ned kind of comes in and out of the story.
He does.
He does.
And, you know, it's interesting, the evolution, because you start out with Floyd, who is this man running it, and then he marries Betty, who is Florence's mother, and Betty is into it.
But Florence was sort of pushed into this and she didn't want it.
No, she didn't want it.
She didn't want it.
And she always is complaining.
And when she finds out these women coming after her want it, except the last one who would be her great granddaughter, right?
Yes.
So her jewelry was more like she was more modern.
She wanted to get out and learn about her things.
Yeah.
Now we just have a few seconds here.
We're getting started.
I've got the first course here.
You are working on your dessert and then your drink, and we're ready to move on, and we're going to show you some pictures of some supper clubs and see if you recognize them.
And you might say, Oh, I know what a supper club is now.
It's just a special kind of place where everybody wants to go.
It's almost like that.
That old fashioned TV show.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's like that.
Okay, we'll just take a break and we'll be right back.
Jackie and I are in the kitchen.
All of a sudden, we're helpers.
There we are.
We're there.
We're right there in the supper club.
Yeah, And I've got to keep my bathroom because we're not doing or not doing the fish fry kind of things.
And I like salmon, and I know that we have salmon in the Great Lakes, and I got some excitement going on here and I'm going to turn this off and we'll start again.
Um, I so I'm doing salmon and I have some roast potatoes and some tea.
Simple, simple.
But you know what we don't want Elmer complaining about the food getting too fancy.
That's right.
Yeah.
Somebody else.
I'm fine.
I know.
And so tell me what you're doing there.
All right.
I know.
Is the chocolate in the microwave and let it cool a bit, because now I'm putting in whipped cream off, mixing a little person.
Go to cream in this originally.
Get this going.
I like that concept.
How can you go wrong with chocolate and whipped cream?
I don't know.
That's always a winner.
And then I just also lightly beaten a little egg whites.
You can use pasteurized eggs too, if people are concerned about eggs, you can use a pasteurized egg whites that you can get in the grocery store.
But I used a regular egg white and I'm going to pull that in.
And my my salmon are I they're very thin.
So I'm going to be very careful about what I do with this.
The Peas, again, all three of these take a little different time.
And if I were in the kitchen, I wouldn't be talking to anybody.
I'd be watching what I was cooking.
But, you know, we have all kinds of things going on.
There's even the topic of female infertility.
And Marielle wants to have a child and I don't it's kind of a sidebar.
And she and Ned work in the Saturday Night Supper Club together, and they get along very well.
Um, but Ned also works for a here.
He works for chores for joy.
I mean, yes.
And it's, you know, I like and I liken it to a Denny's.
Yes.
You know, I was trying to think of what would be of a of do you think it's like a Denny's is they started these chain restaurants and they they move in both traded in to this little town and everybody was excited about this.
But I set out to except the restaurant owners and you can see why they were.
And it was like, why did you come here?
Well, and he he thought he was going to be the owners of all the juries.
His sister got that position.
And she's very good at managing finances.
So you see, you have all this going on floor then.
Oh, Ned and Mary all do have a baby.
She's a little girl who spends her life growing up in the supper club.
Yeah, she's helping out to find a place to meet.
He does all kinds of things.
Um, and.
But then she wants to go to college.
Yep.
And her dad is kind of an easy says.
You know, you don't have to go to college.
You can manage a restaurant without going to college.
Well, he's.
You know, Muriel, her life was the supper club until she had a child.
Yeah.
And and really working her being able to raise a child and the supper club.
So that took over a lot of the child raising and but then when, when he needed to, he totally stepped up and became so engrossed in the restaurant, it was almost addictive to me.
And then to this restaurant.
He's like, good with people.
They met with him at the bar, and I think I will turn this kid off.
You know, every time I come, I have to relearn this just like I would know after 22 years, wouldn't you, about this?
But anyway, so they have a daughter.
Her name is Julia.
Mm.
And she does go to college.
She does.
And she comes back.
She knows she's going to inherit the supper club.
She comes back and what does she do with the supper club?
He sells it and she pays her college debt and she takes care of any of her expenses.
And she meets interesting some Native American women who want to buy the restaurant and turn it into a special restaurant, native foods, native produce, and becomes the brand new place.
Yes, it this is how things changed.
It was just a really it's an interesting book in terms of you go through the life of all these families.
Yeah.
The supper club was it was at the crux of it.
So I'm I'm putting these this let's go on to our cocktails so I'm going to put the mousse in.
So this is what your mousse looks like.
You just put a little dish.
Isn't that pretty?
Yes.
Yes.
So you have.
I've handed the cream to men.
So wonderful.
Wonderful.
So I'll put this in the refrigerator for now.
All right, You do that, and then we'll start our cocktails.
Because, of course, a visit to the supper club.
You have to have this special dress to have.
So Jackie's making this special drink for starting off the evening with the relishes and the cocktail.
And, you know, some people don't come.
They just come to be at the bar.
They do this, the older couple having their anniversary, and they ask, Well, would you like to be seen?
You know, we just came to drink.
And so, you know, there's no problems with anybody getting inebriated.
And and and I don't know how that all works.
I think it would be I think it would be a very hard life.
And everybody else.
Is the boss telling you what to do.
And so let's see how.
All right.
Yeah, I'm taking a little I taking a sugar cube, a few dashes of bitters.
Wow.
I can smell the bitters.
Yes, that's what aromatics smell.
Very good.
I'm going to muddle this and I need a little spoon.
Right.
Well, let's see.
A little spoon.
Yes, right there in front of me.
This.
This is going to be fine.
I'm going to.
She's going to muddle none of us.
A bit like a bartender.
I might even add a little water to soften this a bit so that you can more sugar.
I think I will add a little bit of orange because orange is part of this, too.
Oh, good idea.
Good idea.
And a little orange juice to this to muddle this.
And then we'll also garnish this with orange.
So there you go.
All we want to do is dissolve those sugar cubes, muddle them down, all of them go there.
Muddle.
That's a term for people that like to go looking for things in the lovely tub at the Thames River level.
You remember things and you're modeling your dream model in the sugar cubes.
All right.
So then we are adding to that some ice cubes.
Here we go.
Ice cubes.
Lots of ice cubes.
Oh, it does.
It does take a lot of ice cubes because it's a strong drink.
Yeah.
So I'm adding the ice cubes quite a few because it's okay.
We're going to pour a jigger of brandy into each one of these.
The jigger of brandy.
So the difference oftentimes the brandy is really popular in Wisconsin and Minnesota at these supper clubs versus a regular.
Oftentimes people use just a bourbon or a whiskey, but the brandy is significant to this story.
So we're doing that right here and we're taking some maraschino cherries.
Well, we're getting good maraschino cherries.
And you had trouble finding some.
Yes.
So a couple of good maraschino cherries.
There we go.
Excuse my fingers, but.
All right.
I have been washing my hands.
Oh, my goodness.
Yeah.
And I would assume you don't down this.
No, these are sippers.
You were sipping at the supper club.
Okay.
And some more ice cubes.
And I will.
Little more.
And I'm going to take an orange peel.
I'm just doing this, making it fancy.
And in a little orange peel.
Mm.
Oh, there we go.
You are something so orange people peel and we're going to stir this up and top it off with a little, little spritz of a lemon, lime soda, whatever you want.
You can use water, but the lemon lime soda seems to give it a little bit more, just a little spritz, little damage to take a simple meal and try to make it look elegant.
Some more ice cubes, whatever I did with those.
Okay, this way.
We'll put this up like this.
And this could be a dish, a dinner for one.
Or a dinner for two.
Yep.
And here's our first.
Our second course Garnish with a little more orange.
There you go.
Fancy.
Oh, my gosh.
We're going to get I don't know if I'll be able to go to bartender school, but there you go.
We're going to take a few minutes, get ourselves organized.
We invite you to the supper club.
This is the Jackie Supper Club, one of the most popular in the Midwest.
And cheers, Gayle.
Cheers to you, Jackie.
And we'll have our friends come back.
Well, I think we'll just stay.
Why don't you just stay with us?
You don't have to leave.
Let's have a drink.
Yes, again.
Let's see.
This is a winner.
I've never had this.
Never, Never.
And I do have my food ready to serve here.
And you are?
Oh, why don't you get your mousse out?
I guess.
Right.
So I'll bring out the other other little juice with Ms.. And so here we are, people.
We are here.
Our dinner is ready.
We're having.
We're having our mousse.
Yep.
And this is.
We're getting toward the end of our dinner at the supper club.
Jackie's supper club.
I think it'd be a lot of work, frankly, don't you?
Yes.
This was good.
Unless I had one job.
Sorry about this.
The ice cubes in the drink.
Beautiful.
Jack, I need to.
I need the person who.
Perhaps the food here.
You know we go.
Doesn't that look nice?
A grass hopper mousse.
And here's our dinner.
I, my husband and I would share dinner like that.
But there's our fish.
Here's our reserves.
We have some extra potatoes.
And what was your favorite part of the book?
Really?
The favorite part of the book was actually Florence in the church.
And it just made me laugh out loud because she was so headstrong and her daughter was so headstrong and they locked horns.
And the fact that she became an icon of the community and made national television for the standoff just made me laugh out loud.
Well, Florence was supposed to be picked up by her daughter, and your daughter didn't pick her up.
So her daughter, the mother, was very stubborn.
Florence.
She stayed in the church waiting for her.
For, what, two months?
Oh, yeah, two months.
And she became a national celebrity.
She interviewed up in the national news, picked it up because the church was supporting her, and everybody in the community was supporting her.
And Mary.
Mary, it was like looking like the bad guy.
Well, she sent flowers to bad woman, I mean, food to her like tangerine.
But in any case here, you've been to the Saturday Night Supper Club.
We are so glad you came.
And maybe we can.
Maybe you'll try the Heston virus.
Yes.
This is servant.
Yes, it is for them.
All right.
And cheers.
And cheers.
Yes.
This is an evening at the supper club.
Great drink.
And thank you for joining us.
Remember, good food, good friends, good books and good.
Yes, great life and a great show.
We'll see you next time.
This WNIT local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.
Thank you.
Dinner and a Book is supported by the Rex and Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.
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