The third installment of my start-up column finds me on my 50th birthday, realising that a big milestone birthday feels a bit like the millennium... massive build-up, sense that it’s looming over you and fears that the computers may stop overnight.

In fact it all feels fine. What I’m left to do is to cater for my birthday party in a couple of days. But with all the skills and sang-froid acquired from running Wolvercote Supper Club for eight months now, I think conjuring up Middle Eastern mezze, slow-roast lamb and tagines for 50 people is going to be easy.

Wolvercote Supper Club seems to be going from strength to strength. It’s lovely to see people coming because they’ve heard good things. I’m also starting to see people returning for a second or third time.

That’s not only due to my food of course, it’s about the special aspect of a supper club – sharing one table and the scope that offers for unexpected conversation and connection with new people. This is a random ‘Ingredient X’, which can’t be conjured up. May’s event, which I held last weekend, featured 10 guests ranging in age from 19 to 50 and over. And people got on famously. I’ve started offering some dishes served ‘family style’ on big platters for sharing, and moving people around at the cheese course so everyone gets a chance to talk to each other. Saturday’s group didn’t start to make tracks for home until nearly 1am – testament to how much they were enjoying themselves.

The food included Venetian sweet and sour sole, Iranian lamb and orange khoresh, and grape cake with grape conserve and olive oil ice cream. It was the ice cream that thrilled people. It’s such a weird idea but utterly delicious, tasting of extra virgin olive oil with wild flower honey and vanilla. I’ll be blogging the recipe on my website.

As the supper club gets better known, I’ve been attracting attention from national media. The big thrill in April was being featured in Waitrose Weekend. Okay, so they had Paul Hollywood on the front cover, but still. They did a lovely write-up of me and the supper club, together with a photo of me in the kitchen.

In one way the Waitrose feature was just the icing on the cake as bookings for the supper club are healthy. I’ve received messages from people interested in starting supper clubs of their own as far away as Southsea and Oban, as the supper club movement rolls out from London and the major cities.

Around the time Waitrose got in touch, a TV production company contacted me to invite me to be in a potential Channel 4 series. They filmed me in Oxford and it felt fantastically exciting, but I had second thoughts after finding out the format would involve three celebrities coming to a supper club event and then ‘comparing’ the three featured in each episode. I wasn’t convinced. This is about me and my life and my home and it matters to me – I’m not going to be humiliated or sent up on camera, I don’t want film crews interrupting the fun and camaraderie of the supper club, and I’m not sure what they’d be judging. As I’ve said, it’s not just about food. The nail in the coffin for me was newspaper columnist and food critic Giles Coren’s mooted participation – as readers of this paper will know, Giles is famed for his criticism of Oxford restaurants and his self-confessed grudge against Oxford as a city.

I’ll be interested to see if the TV series gets made – apparently the production company itself was having doubts.

They’d seen for themselves that supper clubs are not about serious-minded foodie excellence or fine dining (perish the thought). Each supper club is very different. The motivation people have for opening up their homes to paying guests for dinner vary from wanting to open food businesses later, to doing something gloriously creative on a non-profit basis like me.

So no TV cameras, just lovely food and company. June’s menu is proving popular and I’ll shortly be posting July’s, when I’ve recovered from my birthday party.

Come and see me soon!

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To find out more see the website wolverscotesupperclub.com or email wolvercotesupperclub@live.co.uk