throw your own storytelling supper club

here's everything we made for ours

we recently held our very first storytelling supper club, and it was even better than we had hoped. we ate lots of home-cooked food, and listened to eleven very different stories on the theme of ‘god in a carpark - finding something (or someone) where you least expect it’. someone brought a piñata. we’re already plotting the next one.

but what does dinner have to do with publishing? in our opinion, everything - so many of the very best stories are told around the table, and we want more opportunities to listen to them. bog bodies press exists to gather people around unbounded storytelling both on and off the page because the whole point of literature is to connect us to one another by showing us new perspectives, experiences and imaginaries. traditional publishing falls short of achieving that because of the restrictions it places on ‘good’ or ‘proper’ writing - we’re on a mission to create platforms that celebrate the phenomenal stories it misses out on.

on the night, everyone brought a story around the theme - true, made-up, theirs, passed along, overheard, read aloud. as we went around the table, we went from laughter to stunned silence (and even the occasional tear) more times than we could count.

if you want to host your own storytelling supper club but don’t know where to start, here’s what we cooked - the recipes below are slightly modified from the originals based on what we had or what we preferred. this will make a lot of food - we had leftovers after feeding 10 people. so, without further ado:

starter

whipped feta and garlicky tomatoes from mob

blend 3 tbsp of olive oil, 200g feta, 4tbsp mascarpone, 1 tbsp honey, 1/4 tsp dried oregano, the juice of 1 lemon, a pinch of salt and black pepper until smooth and creamy. taste and adjust as needed - we added more lemon. roast 500g cherry tomatoes, 2 sprigs thyme, 5 cloves garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil at 180c for 30ish minutes. serve the roasted tomatoes on top of the whipped feta and enjoy with good bread!

dora’s baba ganoush

put two aubergines directly on the flame of a gas hob, turning them every so often until they’re burnt and blistered on all sides. set them aside and let them cool, before peeling off the skin and throwing that away. blend the soft aubergines with 30ml olive oil, a clove of garlic, 2 tbsp tahini, the juice of a lemon and 1/4 tsp of cumin. season to taste with salt and pepper.

halloumi skewers with sweet and smokey honey drizzle from yotam ottolenghi

slice 200g padron peppers in half, and cube up 2 blocks of halloumi. alternate skewering the halloumi and peppers - we put two pieces of each per stick. the recipe calls for the ottolenghi sweet and smokey blend but we did not have that, so loosely based on the ingredients list we mixed up the following - 2 tsp brown sugar, 1.5 tsp smoked paprika, 1 tsp chilli flakes, 1 tsp chipotle chilli flakes, 1/2 tsp salt, good shake of garlic powder, good shake of turmeric and some cracked black pepper. we mixed that blend with 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1.5 tbsp olive oil, 2 tsp honey and added some water to make it a drizzly consistency. fry the skewers on all sides until the halloumi is golden and crispy and the peppers are blistered, and then drizzle the sauce generously over everything.

main

the greenest risotto with pangrattato

we made the pangrattato in the morning by frying half a bag of panko breadcrumbs in plenty of olive oil with 3 cloves of minced garlic, the zest of a lemon, chilli flakes, black pepper and salt until it was all golden-brown. later, we blanched a big bag of spinach (kale would be great too) and fried up two packets of broccolini with chilli flakes and about 3 cloves of minced garlic. then we blended those with butter, a little bit of water, salt, pepper, some garlic powder and added lemon juice and zest to taste. we put the green mush to the side, and chopped two big white onions and minced another 3-4 cloves of garlic. we fried off the onions in some olive oil until they were caramelised before adding the garlic. then we toasted 800g of risotto in there for 2-3 minutes before deglazing with a generous amount of white wine. once the alcohol had cooked off, the risotto-making could start! we ladled in a little bit of vegetable stock at a time and stirred until it was all absorbed before adding more. we continued doing this until the rice was very al-dente, and then added the green mush and let it all finish cooking. here, we grated in lots of parmesan cheese and added a big knob of butter along with lots more fresh cracked pepper. serve with lots of crunchy breadcrumbs.

dessert

chocolate guinness cake from nigella lawson

this is one of the best cakes ever. preheat your oven to 180c, then pour 250 ml guinness into a saucepan and heat with 250g butter until the butter is all melted. add 75g dark cocoa powder and 400g caster suger off the heat, and beat until combined. in a separate bowl, combine 150ml sour cream, 2 eggs and 1tbsp vanilla extract. add to the chocolately beer mix, along with 275g plain flour and 2.5tsp baking soda. once everything is fully combined, pour it into a lined and greased 23cm round baking tin, and pop it in the oven for 45 mins. once its cooling, whip 300g cream cheese until smooth, and sieve over 2 tsp cornflour and about 75g icing sugar - nigella uses more sugar but we prefer it a bit less sweet so modify this to your taste! finally, whip 125ml of double cream, and then gently combine all of the icing ingredients. once the cake is fully cool, lightly swirl the icing on top to make it look like a pint!

we hope you gather people together and tell stories some evening soon - it really is the most wonderful thing. stay tuned for the announcement of our next storytelling supper club!

your bog bodies,

lilou & réi