Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Common meals

[Lynn Nadeau (welcome]

Laura Fitch wrote:
>We have a rotation of very simple meals with recipes all calculated and 
>simple instruction for alternatives (non-dairy, no peppers, etc.) These 
>recipes rotate through a three month cycle (2 meals/week x 4 weeks x 3 
>months = 24 standard meals).
How many of us would PAY for that compilation? We sure would! We're 
working our way through Moosewood Cooks for a Crowd, but after about 4 
months of Monday team-cooked  meals we would really see the value of 
learning from someone ELSE'S experience! I'm serious. You could photocopy 
or email at a reasonable cost and make money for your own meal/kitchen 
fund, with what you already have evolved. I imagine that many of us eat 
about the same sort of food, or could easily adapt what you have. 

At RoseWind, we're feeding about 30+ adults (for better or for worse, our 
kid room is so successful that the kids spend little time eating). Seems 
that 3-4 is the right number for a team. The team cleans up from prep, 
but gets a lot of community help in after-dinner clean-up. With 3 or 4 
cooks, often one or two people do their own piece (like people with day 
jobs), finding the best time to prep dessert, or salad, or make bread, 
perhaps the night before. 

In the live-and-learn department, I found that I could easily make split 
pea soup for 30, while hanging out at night doing my paperwork at the 
common house (I was astonished at how rapidly the Cuisinart handled 
onions, celery, and carrots). But what I hadn't anticipated was that I 
found I almost couldn't LIFT soup for 30, when at 10 pm I was ready to 
move the huge pot of hot heavy liquid to the fridge. I managed, but 
barely, and I'll plan differently next time. 

We have team-cooked suppers Mondays, potluck Thursdays (with great 
quality and variety), Happy Hour snacks verging on potluck Fridays, and 
Sunday brunch potluck (including cooking in the kitchen for waffles, 
pancakes, eggs, potatoes, lattes) at least once a month. Monday suppers 
are $4, with 50 cents of that going to a kitty. We're hoping to get a 
Tuesday Simple Supper, for $2, going, which will be able to include any 
Monday leftovers, as well as a menu like soup and bread (maybe salad 
instead of soup in the summer). When we first started using the common 
house, we made good use of the Bring Your Own Supper idea.

I'm curious to see if anyone responds to the question of whether anyone 
has tried hiring a caterer/cook for a meal. A professional might have 
good enough recipes to create a meal on our budget, and still pay 
themselves. 

Eating together is lovely. 
Now I have to figure out how to open the Grease Trap for the first time 
and gird myself for what I may find....yuck. 

Lynn Nadeau, RoseWind Cohousing
Port Townsend Washington (Victorian seaport, music, art, nature)
http://www.rosewind.org
http://www.ptguide.com

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