Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Standing exclusive-group dinners vs. standing community-group dinners

[Lautner, Patricia (Patricia.Lautner]

I am a member of this Wed night dinner group at Jamaica Plain Cohousing.  We 
started out as 4 households who ate together every Wed and Thurs evening, 
(after about 1 year, we went down to once a week.)  We take turns hosting.  
This group was set up for two reasons: 1) the members wanted a regular 
community meal and JPCohousing just didn't have the membership interest in 
creating a meal program that met regularly (one of my biggest disappointments) 
and, 2) at least one household wanted to practice making meals for a smaller 
group before going 'big time' to cook for the community at large.  The group 
was formed by anyone who wanted to join at the time.  It was difficult to 
attract members who would commit to a 2x per week program.

Over 3 years later this club has bonded, flourished, and expanded.  Two of the 
households are now regular rotating chefs in the larger (still very sporadic) 
JPCohousing common meal program.  At the Wed night meals any given week there 
are between 7 and 10 households eating together although it's still the 4 who 
rotate cooking.  The other households are either regularly invited by the host 
of the week, or more often, they bring their own meal.

The Wednesday night group does NOT have exclusive use of the commonhouse dining 
room or kitchen.  When empty, the host will sometimes use the kitchen but 
usually the host cooks at home and brings the food to the CH to be served 
(unless the CH is being used for some other purpose.)  Some of the best 
evenings have been when two groups cook and eat at the same time.  Our kitchen 
is big enough (thanks to the wonderful design of Kraus Fitch architects!)

Ideally if you have a community that really wants to share meals together 
often, that's the best scenario.  But if you are like JPCohousing, where 
despite several attempts using many different models, the wonderful "cohousing 
common meal" is elusive and sporadic at best (I say this as one of the regular 
chefs!), then I recommend this kind of dining group for the few folks who 
simply MUST eat socially often.

Patti