Food For All: Dinner Co-op

Last night we had our usual food for all. It is a food co-op that has been so valuable in our family. We all love to eat well but eating well can be time consuming and expensive. At least I don't fancy cooking so much. My friend Lisa has been so detailed and careful about how everyone feels which at first I thought she was being silly but I'm really glad we put a lot of thought into organizing. Our friendships are precious and people can get their feelings hurt or be overwhelmed easily. The hosting days can be a lot but it's worth it to only have to cook a full meal every two weeks! It is so great i wish others would start their own as well. It really builds community and I think we would agree that we could consider all of us our best friends now that we eat together as much as four days a week and sometimes see each other on the weekends. Here's how it works: First we needed to find a group of 22-28 people that lived fairly close, had similar meal expectations and could handle the schedule. Our group has 25 people in it. Some are students and some are families. To make it fair, we paired students with families so they bring a side dish or something substantial enough to count as one third or one fourth prep. We do have one group who are all students and they take it to whoever volunteers their house for hosting. There is a website called takethemameal.com where we all sign up for 3 meals within 6 weeks at a time. We can choose any day and write what we are going to make to avoid us having Mexican or something every night. Two fridays during the six weeks are potlucks. We eat every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. If we don't plan on coming, we tell the host on our Facebook group wall or we can bring to-go containers and take it home to our family or eat it later. It's great because we eat healthier, there is portion control, we spend more time with friends, it teaches our kids to serve, it gives us a break from cooking all the time, we all eat out less, it saves money, it saves time and I'm pretty sure all of us are experts at planning dinner parties now:) Joy's birthday was Wednesday, so we went to Memphis to eat at "The Elegant Farmer" where they had regional and local food. One thing that is a minor drawback about our food co-op are our attitudes toward food have become quite snobby. Just driving by Wendy's sorta makes me sick to my stomach! At the restaurant I was very pleased with their catfish that was (big surprise!) not fried, pan seared, with a sweet homemade sauce, with summer greens and tomato basil farm raised dressed eggs. We went to Lisa's for some Alice made homemade ginger ale and chocolate mini cakes with hot fudge and raspberries Lisa made. Yummmmm