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04/07/2016 12:01 AMWhen people ask me what I like about living in Stony Creek, in addition to the gorgeous views of the Thimble Islands, walking my dog on the beautiful trolley trail, and the overall small shoreline town charm, potluck dinners head the list. I think it’s because potluck equates with a sense of community I never experienced to this degree in any other place I’ve lived over my lifetime.
We moved here a decade ago and were immediately invited to big parties that seemed to include the entire village. Everyone brings something and it always works out that there are enough appetizers, main dishes, side dishes, and desserts.
There are also smaller, more organized parties like the Stony Creek Supper Club—or Dine-Around or Round Robin. In typical Stony Creek fashion, it goes by numerous names. Residents host simultaneous dinners three or four times a year attended by eight or so people as a way for residents to get to know each other on a more intimate level. The hosts make the main dish and guests bring everything else to go with it.
Since moving here, I’ve also participated in a monthly Scrabble group with some Stony Creek, Branford, and Guilford gals—no, not Words With Friends on iPhones. We play on a physical Scrabble board with tiles. And we all bring a dish to share. We get so consumed by the food and catching up on our lives, we often have to remind ourselves to actually play the game.
Growing up, potluck wasn’t a word in my vocabulary. We enjoyed a lot of family meals at my grandmother’s apartment in Brooklyn, but weren’t allowed to bring anything—it would have been an insult to the master cook—and she really was one. We were only allowed to bring our appetites and compliments to the chef.
And, I can’t recall ever being invited to a potluck in the New York suburb where we resided, but my parents also didn’t belong to any town organizations or houses of worship that may have been putting them on.
As a second-generation suburbanite and a Baby Boomer, formal dinner parties a la Martha Stuart were all the rage in the towns we lived in during our earlier years of marriage. The hosts obsessed and stressed about every detail of the meal and its presentation and insisted on doing it all. It felt like a competition and made me very nervous to host a dinner at our house.
What I’ve pleasantly discovered about potlucks, now that I’ve experienced so many, is that they’re all about the people, the conversation, the fun, without spending hours preparing a meal and bearing the whole burden of the cost. And, potlucks are such great equalizers. It’s not about inviting people just like you; it’s about welcoming everyone, and breaking out of your comfort zone.
Maybe the reason potluck seems to be having a resurgence among Boomers is simply the downturn in the economy—it’s a relatively inexpensive way to eat, drink, and be merry together.
But I would like to think it’s more about our desire to connect in our disconnected, self-centered world—a nostalgia for a simpler time when people spent more time together, enjoying each other’s company.
I Googled potluck and, according to Wikepedia, it goes back as far as the 16th century and originally meant “food provided for an unexpected or uninvited guest,” hence “the luck of the pot.”
For the Irish, it grew out of necessity at a time when groups of Irish women would cook dinner together. They only had one pot so they made a meal with whatever ingredients they had on hand that day.
The idea of extending the traditional meaning to “a communal meal, where guests bring their own food” probably originated in the late 19th or early 20th century in North America. In the United States potlucks were historically associated with crockpot dishes, casseroles, and Jell-O salads, but today they leave lots of room for the traditional, as well as more innovative, healthy, and ethnically diverse dishes.
In a 2009 Zogby Interactive poll of close to 5,000 adults asked what they thought was the legacy of the Baby Boom generation, 42 percent responded “consumerism and self-indulgence.”
Well, the good news is that negative perception seems to be changing, or at least it’s more likely to be attributed to the one percent than the general population of today’s Boomers, many of whom have been humbled by economic realities and/or weary of the shallow, show-off lifestyle.
So, maybe if we all just hosted and attended more potluck suppers, we’d continue to break down barriers instead of building walls. Maybe we wouldn’t see each other as so different and feel so divided.
Can you imagine if the candidates for president all sat down to a potluck supper together? They’d probably end up in a food fight. But a person can dream.
Great Recipe for a Potluck
Artichoke Dip
Total time: 35 minutes
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 25 minutes
Servings 8-10
Tangy and creamy, this artichoke dip boasts the colorful addition of sun-dried tomatoes. It’s simple to prepare and easily doubled or tripled for a large crowd.
Ingredients
2 8-ounce packages cream cheese
½ cup mayonnaise
2 shallots, finely chopped
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
1 (6 ½-ounce) jar artichoke hearts, roughly chopped
1 10-ounce package frozen spinach, thawed and drained
¾ cup Asiago cheese, grated
1 cup sundried tomatoes, chopped (can use dry or oil-packed)
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease a 2-quart baking dish with cooking spray.
In large bowl combine cream cheese, mayonnaise, shallots and garlic.
Stir in artichoke hearts, spinach, tomatoes and cheese. At this point you can either pop it in the oven to bake, cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight, or wrap in two layers of aluminum foil and freeze (for 2 months or more).
When ready to serve, remove from fridge or freezer and thaw (if needed) on counter before baking as directed.
Bake uncovered for 25-30 minutes, or until the cheese top of the mixture begins to brown slightly.
Serve with fresh vegetables, plain or multi-grain baked tortilla chips for dipping.
(recipe courtesy of www.tasteofhome.com)
Amy J. Barry is a Baby Boomer, who lives in Stony Creek with her husband and assorted pets. She writes features and reviews for Shore Publishing newspapers and is an expressive arts educator. Email her at aimwrite@snet.net or at www.aimwrite-ct.net.