After so many evenings sitting in the pub talking about everything that we really should try cooking just once, we’ve decided – just once – to found a cooking club. Thus, since February 2010, every third Saturday (or Sunday) is the VetteLettersCookingClub.

The club currently consists of five cooks, but guest participation and/or eating is always possible. Read on for the upcoming cooking themes and just email us. Oh, and we’re no haute cuisine amateur chefs, about to cook something really nice – for once – now. We’re all about experimental cooking and curious challenges.

[Theme ToDo List]

• Dutch products that Dutch people don’t eat [done]

  Dutch people certainly eat goat’s cheese but not the goat itself. At Turkish butchers, there’s great organic goat meat for sale. Goat tastes of lamb.

• Supermarket vs homemade [done]

  Homemade Dutch croquettes vs Van Dobben, cheese and onion bread vs the Albert Heijn stuff, fresh cream of tomato soup vs Unox, homemade ketchup vs Heinz, ‘filet Americain’ (by us, the butcher and from the supermarket), Friesian sugar bread, cheese pastries, ‘vlammetjes’ (little fires), almond-filled shortbread and herb butter. All tested, concluding that supermarket versions are tasty but so much sweeter.

• The McDonald’s menu but tasty [in April]

  Junk food but out of your own kitchen and eaten while enjoying a film; a culinary film of course.

• 3 courses for 3 euros pp [ ]

  The challenge is, can we make a three course dinner for just three euros per person, and also nutritious of course?

• The Euroshopper dinner [ ]

  Only Euroshopper ingredients. Euroshopper have to get their products from somewhere too, but the chance is higher that the products come from Unox than that they have their own tomato soup factory.

• Mystery bags [ ]

  Everyone buys products for around 5 euros. Then we come together, take everything out of the bags and see what we’re going to make together.

• Just desserts [ ]

  Usually you're so full after a good meal that there’s no room for dessert, so then why not just once have nothing but desserts and a cheeseboard?

• ... [ ]

  We have to go to the pub again to think of new themes.

kookclub[at]vetteletters.nl