Men’s cooking club celebrates 20 years

There’s an exclusive club in Wimberley, a limited-membership club discovered through word of mouth and joined through personal connections. And after existing for twenty years, the club may find itself homeless.

The Wimberley Men’s Cooking Club was founded by Edgar Miller in 2003. He had been a part of men’s cooking clubs in the past, largely in his home country of Germany. For Miller, the clubs offered a sense of community — a way to get to know the people around him. They also served the more obvious purpose of providing an opportunity for him to express his love of cooking.

Finding himself in Wimberley, Miller set about putting a cooking club together. The numbers have fluctuated over the years, but the group currently maintains a membership of about 10 men, with age differences as large as 40 years.

“The numbers changed as people got busy, moved away, passed away,” Miller said. “Whenever we need a new person, we just ask the other members for suggestions of men they know.”

For twenty years, that’s how the club functioned. Members would come, members would go, and every month, a group of men would meet to cook dinner.

While the membership of the group is somewhat casual, the cooking club is the epitome of organization when it comes to its meals. Members are put on a rotation around different kitchen stations, including drinks, appetizers, salads, main courses, side dishes and desserts. The chef cooking the main course is responsible for putting together the menu for the evening, so each meal tends to have a different theme.

In February, the theme was “meals from Mexico,” featuring different dishes that one member had come across on his travels in Mexico. The menu included a spicy margarita, mahi mahi ceviche, tableside “El Gaucho” caesar salad, pork tenderloin with salsa verde and blue shrimp arriero potatoes in addition to broccoli and cauliflower and a coconut pie.

With such an extensive and complex monthly menu, the club requires a commercial kitchen for its monthly dinners. Over the years, the group has rotated through a number of Wimberley kitchens, including Wimberley Cafe, Longleaf Craft Kitchen and Bar and, most recently, at 7A Ranch. But with the busy season returning to the Wimberley Valley, the club doesn’t know how much longer they will have their current kitchen for. And when they leave, they don’t have a place to go next.

“We have lost our kitchen that we used for years and are in search of a permanent home away from home to continue our 20-year cooking tradition,” Miller said.

To contact or to learn more about the Men’s Cooking Club, visit mccwimberley. com.

EDGAR MILLER, FOUNDER OF THE WIMBERLEY MEN’S COOKING CLUB, POURS A GLASS OF WINE. PHOTO BY MADI TELSCHOW.