Summer is the high season for potluck. In summer, the circle-up circle extends around the entire courtyard, the shared dishes include plenty of locally grown and raised food, the conversation lasts well past dusk and into the dark, and if we’re really lucky, there’s some live music serenading us as the sun sets.
Christina, here, writing about the lentils, tomato salad, and why potluck is so important.
It’s always entertaining for me when I see a Facebook memory post from before we moved to Dancing Rabbit—back then when I was often looking for something that I have actually found here.
It was ten years ago that I posted to see if any of my local friends at the time would be interested in starting up a regular informal potluck. This was one of many of my failed attempts to create more community and connection. I mean, we had plenty of lovely friends back in New England, but we didn’t really have community. That weekly potluck never happened.
Having regular potlucks seems like one of those things that shouldn’t be too hard, right? Like using a bike instead of a car when possible, recycling, or buying local food, it should be a no-brainer, something that people can do anywhere they live.
And yet, there are also some major systemic issues that make it nearly impossible for many people to build the kind of community that they need and want.
On a week when we have not one but two community potlucks, I thought it would be fitting to write my guide to having weekly informal potlucks—including, unfortunately, some of the elements that I think most people cannot access.
Here are my top five tips for a successful weekly potluck.
- Invite people but don’t worry about what they bring. This is one of the best and worst parts of potluck, in my opinion. Having survived the infamous all-lentil potluck of March, 2018, I know what can happen when there is no control or planning in terms of what people bring. On the other hand, if we had planned it out, would we have had three different tomato salads on Tuesday? Probably not, and how sad would that have been! I should also note that sometimes we do have special, planned potlucks which are also lots of fun. Having a spreadsheet with taco ingredients or toppings makes for a more pleasant dining experience in the end, though it is more work.
- Get a volunteer to clean up and a volunteer to set up. I suggest not letting anyone eat until you find cleanup volunteers! We used to do this at the weekly meeting, but it seems easier and more likely to actually happen when we find clean-up people at the actual meal. Giving those volunteers a big cheer and lots of appreciation also helps.
- Hold the potlucks at a community house that is cared for and paid for by the group. And… this is about the point where my tips and tricks for holding weekly potlucks falls off for most people. The thing is, when you are hosting a potluck at your own house, it’s a lot of work! It’s possible to rotate or trade off hosting, but I highly recommend a community house for potlucks. Having shared third spaces that we are all equally responsible for taking care of is fairly essential to community building and human connection.
- Hold the potluck at a location that is walking distance for most attendees. Having just spent two weeks back in Massachusetts, I was once again sort of shocked by how much time I spent in the car just to visit friends and family. This is a major hurdle for sure, and really makes it hard to build community. Sitting alone in a big plastic and metal box for an hour and merging onto different highways (so much merging!) isn’t really what I want to be doing with my time, and yet if I was going to see the people, that was what was needed. And so this is something else that I take for granted living at DR, and that I wish could be more available to people in the world at large. But it’s hard to get past the fact that car culture makes community building more challenging.
- Invite friends and neighbors to the potluck who don’t work 40+ hours per week. Yep, this is another one that is just not replicable and yet in many ways it is so essential to community building! When I think back on my former life, when I and everyone I knew worked 40 hours a week or more, the thought of sharing a meal on a Tuesday night and actually sticking around to talk, or play music, or play a game afterward would be unthinkable—unless I wanted to forgo sleep that night. And yet, again, I think that having enough time to really gather is so essential to community. Living somewhere with a low cost of living where I don’t have to do the multiple hour a day grind is important.
So what’s my takeaway here? It’s not actually that easy to build community when you live in a society that is designed for people to go to work and drive in their cars. It’s hard to get to know your neighbors when you and they have to work 40 or 50 or 60 hours a week to pay the bills.
It’s almost as if people getting together to share some lentils and tomato salads on a Tuesday night is dangerous to the status quo or something.
Christina Lovdal Gil has earned the right to expound on all things social. As she mentioned, she was traveling the last two weeks and DR was way too quiet. Plus we missed her! Welcome back, Christina.