More ‘cohousing lite’ – cooking parties

I was at the home of my friend/neighbor/acupuncturist Lisa on Friday.  One of the many things we share is our interest in localvorism (eating locally grown foods) and eating healthfully.

Lisa told me she has a new friend who is a master of getting the maximum use out of everything.  Her friend is “a starving artist” and like many such people, fueled by both creativity and ‘poverty’ (of funds only – obviously her friend is very wealthy with ideas and depth) she is a master at ‘using things up.’  Lisa gave the example of when her friend was over to help Lisa in the garden – the tomatoes were droopy so Lisa wanted to go buy tomato stakes. Her friend pointed out the plethora of sticks in the yard and said “why buy stakes?  your yard is full of ‘em!”.

So this friend is also a master at making use of all food.  Lisa and her husband are both busy professionals and they have 3 school age kids and 2 dogs and at least 2 cats – a very busy household indeed.

So Lisa and her friend cooked up a deal where one Sunday a month the friend will come over and she and Lisa will spend the day cooking – using up what in my family is called the “mustgo” – all the food that “must go” or it will spoil.  Lisa will get innovative uses for her food that might otherwise have gone to waste and the friend will get a week’s worth of meals.

I like that idea. 

I like the idea of communal cooking simply because it’s really fun.  I like to cook but there are parts of it that seem tedious to me – and chopping tons of veggies is just always more fun with companionship.

My Dutch/Scottish parts love the idea of “waste not/want not”.

And my cohousing/hippie self loves the idea of “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs” (thanks Karl).

So I was glad to get invited to that cooking party and I’m thinking of what else we neighbors can do this winter to be more neighborly/share resources/share our lives more fully.

How about you?  Do you have cooking parties with your family/friends/neighbors?  Split a CSA share?  Buy the “buy one/get one free” even when you won’t use the second one so you can give it to someone?  How do you ‘do’ food in a sharing way?

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