Saturday, January 24, 2009

PotLucks

The baby boomer generation revitalized the potluck. For more years than I care to count, I have been invited to pot lucks…dinners, lunches, celebrations, weddings, graduations and sacred ceremonies.

A lot of times, I made huge salads, including grated beets and raw mushrooms, different lettuces, cukes and tomatoes. I made my own dressing until Goddess dressing became so popular.

In later years, I brought a pasta and broccoli stir fry with tumeric and cardamom and large sliced sweet onions.

For one wedding reception, I made a huge deep dish apple pie with cinnamon flavored crumbled topping.

Sometimes I brought a cucumber salad with minced green onions and sour cream and vinegar. This was a family food from Austria/Hungary that my paternal grandfather handed down. People liked the thin shavings of cucumber in the slightly tart sauce.

My kids usually found finger food and treats to munch on, especially chips and salsa or cookies that would have been purchased enroute by the single, non-cooking among us.

There would be tabouli salads, vegetables and rice, several casseroles, and artichoke dip when that became trendy with chunks of hearty bread to dip in it.

One summer potluck I attended, I brought a tomato salad with Italian bread on the side to dip into the generous juices of the tomatoes soaked in olive oil with chopped garlic, basil and oregano, and a good amount of sea salt and Indian pepper (pipali). This was a recipe that survived my first marriage along with lasagne, which cut like cake.

Someone always brought a pot of soup, sometimes tasty, or a pot of chili sans meat.

Desserts were brownies, pies, attempts at raw cookies, or health food oreos.

I attended potlucks for years, even long after my kids were of the age to not want to do my thing. By then I was stopping at the store and purchasing chips and salsa enroute to the potluck. I don’t attend many of them anymore. Got burned out, and entered a phase of life where I was not as sociable. I stayed home more and wrote.

Now, when I go, there’s a great raspberry crostata that Sunflower Market sells with a shortbread cookie dough crust and raspberry filling. This I love to share!

Jyoti

1 comment:

Sonya said...

a blog about food! my favorite. i'm going to a potluck/housewarming tomorrow where everything has to be made with root vegetables... i'm thinking carrot cake or potato samosas