Cohousing-L Mailing List: Shared Meals

[susanfries613 (susanfries613]

At PDX Commons we suspended eating together during the pandemic.  Now we are
back to preparing 2 meals/week, with about 2/3 of our 37 folks choosing to
dine together.  During COVID, several of our most enthusiastic chefs moved
away, so post-pandemic, we lacked enough folks willing to take the lead in
preparing meals.  As re moved back to shared meals, we sent a survey to
everyone.  Survey attached.  

What we learned is that sharing meals was a high priority for almost
everyone. We also discovered new chefs wanted mentoring and simple recipes.
Experienced chefs created a list of easy sheet-pan recipes and hearty soups
and stews.  More importantly, the experienced chefs partnered with newbies
for a couple of months to demonstrate all the steps from creating a menu,
where to shop, how to accommodate food sensitivities, etc.  We also held a
couple of training sessions for new volunteers doing clean up, since our
process is sort of complicated. In the last 10 days, we had 3 people test
positive for COVID (none seriously ill) so suspended shared meals, but
resuming meals tonight. 

Susan Fries, PDX Commons, Portland, OR