Join the Shine Supper Club!

Shine Supper Club
Shine Supper Club

You're invited to the Shine Supper Club: our real-life, down and dirty blogging community for people who love to cook and eat--novices, experts and everyone in between. Each month, we give you a theme, and you bring your best dish. It's a place to commiserate and encourage, inspire and kvetch. Think of it like a virtual potluck.

For our inaugural edition of the Shine Supper Club, we're going to take the band-aid approach and jump right in the deep end: What's your scariest dish? What recipe has long intrigued you but has seemed too intimidating? Together, armed with whisks and pot holders, let's stare down that fear. It's just a recipe, right?

This cheese souffle is gorgeous.
This cheese souffle is gorgeous.

My scariest dish has long been soufflé. With its purported potential for failure, it feels like culinary terrain rigged with land mines and booby traps: experts only. Plus, it's French, and a little fussy, and far fancier than my usual cooking. Every year I say I'm going to make one and every year...I don't. But what's the worst thing that could happen? Am I really going to let a mixture of egg whites and cheese continue to torment me like this?

This month's theme is inspired in part by Julia Child's episode of The French Chef entitled, "The Potato Show," during which she attempts to flip a pancake ("a rather brave thing to do,") and winds up with half of her pancake flying out of her pan. "When you flip anything," she advises, "you have to have the courage of your convictions. I didn't have the courage to do it the way I should have." At the end of the episode she tries again. With a confident flick of her wrist, she succeeds.

This month we invite you to have the courage to face your scariest dish. Look up that recipe, assemble the ingredients. Try. Write about it. Let it plague you no more!

To join the Shine Supper Club all you have to do is participate. We're looking for brave and willing cooks to take on our monthly challenge. Blog about your dish here on Shine and be sure to include "Shine Supper Club" in the title (or blog on your own website). Tweet @yahooshine with the hashtag #shinesupperclub. Have a Pinterest account? Pin your photos to our community Shine Supper Club board on Pinterest. At the end of the month, we'll write a round-up post linking to your blog posts. Got a question or a suggestion for upcoming Supper Clubs? Leave a comment here.

This is a community effort is dependent on one thing to make it a fun, exuberant success: you. Are you in? (Say yes!)