We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Laura Laird a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Laura, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
I’ve always loved to cook. Growing up in communist Romania, food and ingredients were few and we had almost no variety. There were months, especially during late fall and winter, when all we had were beef bones, chicken wings, old potatoes and the loaf of bread we would stand in line for daily, sometimes for hours. And there were no pre prepared or ready made foods. The times we did have more variety of ingredients, the women in my family cooked. In Romania, if you didn’t cook, you didn’t eat. I started watching my maternal grandmother in her ridiculously tiny kitchen when I was 6 years old and made my first full meal for myself and my parents when I was 12. I loved it! For me, cooking wasn’t something I had to do. It was something I loved to do.
12 years later an opportunity presented itself and I moved to the US. However, before that, I lived in Paris for 3 months. This was September 1992 and Paris was shocking, in a good way, and eye opening! Everyone in Paris was a “foodie”, the food was delicious everywhere. Little “whole in the wall” cafes on Champs-Élysées serving the most incredibly delicious food, with ingredients they plucked from their tiny gardens outside. The French onion soup was particularly extraordinary in one of those cafes and I tried and unfortunately have not yet succeeded to duplicate that particular soup, even after all those years. In Paris, my love of food and cooking blossomed into a passion and once in America, I started voraciously learning!
I started watching every cooking show I could, after realizing there were such things as cooking shows, I read cook books like novels, bought ingredients I did not even know what to do with, experimented in my tiny kitchen and taught myself technique and how to convert cooking times from Metric to Imperial. Years passed and in 2017, my late husband suggested I start doing something with my God given talent. I decided to seek the advice of someone from a non profit organization here in N Texas called Score. They have advisers from all walks of industry who donate their time to help people with a desire to start a small business put their ideas into practice. One of the gentlemen I spoke with asked if I knew what a Supper Club was. Of course I did, but I did not think something like that would take root in Texas. I was wrong. It was a very slow start, however, once one of my friends asked me if I would do her husband’s 50th birthday party in their home, an idea was born! I did that party which was a great success, and after, I started advertising my business as a “5 star multi course special events dinner party in the comfort of your own home”.
My late husband was very supportive and he encouraged me to follow my passion. Unfortunately, in January 2022, 5 years after I started the business, my husband of 25 years passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly. I was left with 2 teenaged daughters and a life I now had to provide for. However, I am a Christian believer and so I am extremely grateful for God’s help and for faithful, loving and supportive friends who have helped me through the last 4 years.
Today, through my Supper Club, I create 5 star, multi course events in my clients’ homes. 2 years after I started, another idea came to me when I realized one of my friend’s husband reminded me of the famous French detective, Hercule Poirot. I decided to create a Murder Mystery themed event, however, I did not want to do it in the usual way this was done in other places, by only serving finger foods and have the guests walk around searching for clues. So, I created a new way of participating in an interactive Murder Mystery. I would write everything myself, the plot, characters and secrets which connects everyone to the murder victim and makes everyone suspects, which I did. I would then choose one of the diner party guests to be the detective, in this case Hercule Poirot. This detective would know everyone’s secrets which he or she would reveal at the dinner table, “interrogating” the suspects one by one as a 4 or 5 course dinner would be served. At the end, after dessert, the killer would be revealed! That first Murder Mystery themed dinner was a great success and, since then, this particular theme has been widely requested by my clients. I still, to this day, create and write the mysteries myself, but that first mystery I wrote, which was inspired by Agatha Christie’s Poirot mysteries is still very dear to my heart!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I grew up in communist Romania where food was very sparse, especially in the late fall and winter months. Comforts which people in America and the West in general take for granted were denied to us. Freedom was non existent and we were all beholden to a criminal, totalitarian regime which terrorized and murdered their own people. In 1989, when I was 21 years old, revolution against Ceausescu’s regime broke out because of the efforts of the US and President Ronald Reagan. In fact, when President Reagan gave the speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Germany in 1987, in which he famously said “Mr. Gorbachev, tare down this wall!” I was behind that wall in Romania, not knowing what was going on! Despite the lack of food and ingredients, with whatever little we had, all the women in Romania cooked. I started watching my maternal grandmother in her ridiculously small kitchen when I was 6, cooked my first full meal for myself and my parents at 12 and fell in love with cooking.
Once in America, after a 3 month stop in Paris, a stay which solidified my love for food and cooking and transformed it into a passion, I started learning, teaching myself how to cook with the abundance of ingredients I had at my fingertips, some I did not even know what they were. Slowly I learned everything I could, continuing to experiment and improve. In February 2017 I started my Supper Club business.
Regarding discipline, I can tell you that it takes an enormous amount. To this day, I create every menu, prep and cook everything myself from top quality ingredients, organic, GMO, antibiotic and hormone free, etc. When you have to prep a multi course (3, 4 or 5) dinner for 15-20 people or more, the work and organizational skills must be stellar. I prep/cook everything I can at home before packing everything into my car, including my own plates and silverware to serve and everything needed to prep/cook finish each dish at my clients’ home and take it with me. My work day is usually at least 12 hours when I have an event!
I believe what sets my Supper Club apart is more than one thing. My dedication to do what I say I will and deliver exactly what I promised. My use of ingredients to make delicious, beautifully flavored food. My attention to detail and the elegance of my plating. Also, the fact that each of my clients receives a custom menu, the fact that I offer themed dinner events, especially my most requested, the Murder Mystery Dinner, the fact that I work one on one with my clients to make sure their dinner party is a success, those are also ways in which my Supper Club stands out.
When my clients are all smiles and they are happy at the end of the event, that is my most favorite part! I have had so many clients in the 9 years since I started my Supper Club and I am still friends with most of them!
I would like potential future clients to think of me as their boutique, full service chef! I provide everything for a dinner event. From working one on one with them, creating the custom menu to shopping, prepping and cooking, the plates and silverware for service and people I work with who serve, pickup and clean, the host of my Supper Clubs needs only to set the table, bring their favorite wine and enjoy an elegant, beautiful and unique dinner event in the comfort of their home. My team and I leave their kitchen as we found it, clean and clutter free! My 4 and 5 course events also include a “welcome” champagne cocktail which I serve before dinner, included in the price.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Resilience is and must be the name of the game in my business. However, there were a couple of instances in which I had to muster every bit of energy I could find and literally pray my way through.
Because I prep and cook everything myself, from scratch at each of my events, my workdays are usually 12-14 hour days. When your business offers multi course dinner events for people up to 25 in one sitting, the work is back braking and I must be extremely fast and organized. My events usually take place on Friday or Saturday nights. There have been times when I had back to back events on Friday and Saturday. However there were 2 instances I remember when those back to back were for very large parties on Friday AND Saturday and, one of those days in each of those instances was a Murder Mystery dinner for which I had to also write everything and send all the secrets to each individual. For both events combined, including the Murder Mystery work I think I worked a total of about 30-35 hours in 2 consecutive days with only a few hours of sleep in between. I remember feeling exhausted to the point of tears. Focusing was the hardest thing in those instances. My mind was so exhausted I could not remember anything so I had to make notes for myself constantly. My clients, of course, did not know I had large parties 2 days in a row and I did not want to do anything that would jeopardize either party. By the grace of God, I got through those events and the quality and delivery was the same as always. Those events were an exercise in strength, resilience, faith and determination! They took everything I had but I remember them fondly because in the end, everything worked out!
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
I believe it is my honesty, transparency, friendliness and consistency in delivering what I promised! I try every time I am blessed to be hired by a client, not just to meet their expectations but exceed them. I try to place myself in my clients’ shoes in terms of delivering what I would want to receive if I hired a private chef for a special occasion dinner party in my home.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.cisupperclub.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/culinaryimmersionsupperclub/
- Other: I am a Private/Personal Chef for my business, Culinary Immersion Supper Club.
As a personal chef, I provide 5 star, multi course, special occasion dinner events for various clients. Some events are themed, with the most popular theme being the Murder Mystery dinner event. The Murder Mysteries are unique, as they are interactive yet without the clients having to leave the table. I write everything for the Mysteries myself, the plot, character and secrets.
As a private chef, I am usually hired by one family to cook dinner for them several times per week. These dinners are served family style.
