meals with friends

It wasn't until this last year that we started to really celebrate small holidays with friends. Dave and I have always enjoyed entertaining and never needed much excuse to invite friends over for a meal. I grew up celebrating the major holidays with family members from afar but I don't recall a single Memorial Day picnic or a Labor Day BBQ. This last year it was Jacki and her family who we celebrated with. Sometimes at her small farm or our old cottage near town. We both have children the same age and in the same class at school. The chemistry between our families is perfect. She doesn't eat dairy and I don't eat wheat/gluten and we look after each other's allergy when we cook. This has never stopped us from eating a delightful meal together.

The BBQ was at our house and we provided the organic grassfed steaks, the wine and garlic sauteed mushrooms. Jacki brought the marinated squash which we grilled on the BBQ, a delicious tomato and cucumber salad (from her garden) and an incredible peach and berry cobbler.

 

These flowers are from my onions and leeks. If you are an onion/garlic love these flowers leave a lovely scent in the room.

 

Last spring we started having weekly meals together. We chose Wednesday because it was the one day Keiran had the afternoon off from school. On the day the meal would be at my house I would pick up the two younger boys from school and take them home. She would pick up the older children after school and bring them to my house. Her husband who works in Seattle would walk from the ferry to our house about the same time that Dave was ending his work day in his home office. Jacki and I would visit while I prepared the meal. The children usually eat in the kitchen together before running outside to play while the four of us enjoyed the meal in the dining room where we could actually have a conversation. We found this midweek meal to be the highlight of our week. It was relaxing to eat slowly, discuss actual adult topics and just savor the taste of good food in our mouths rather than gulping them down quickly to move on to the evening routine with the children.

Here are some tips to start your own weekly meal with friends:

~Find a friend who might be interested in sharing a meal together. I think this person's name should naturally come to mind as you read this. The more relaxed you are with this friend and their family the more relaxing these evenings will be. I think it helps to have similar parenting methods too. We both have spirited, creative children (who let the hamster out last night but luckily stayed close to the cage) who get along very well with little arguing between the four of them.

~Pick a night of the week that works for both families. Maybe it is Friday night when you can really relax and look forward to the weekend ahead. Or maybe Monday night so the meal can get you through the rest of the week.

~Keep the meals simple. We started out by sharing our staple meals. The simple ones that we don't even have recipes for because we have memorized them from eating them so often. When I served our favorite rice dish they were very impressed. What might be staple to you is a sensational taste to your friends. It's fun to share the stories behind the recipes too. Jacki has this Asian dish that she used to make at The Grateful Dead concerts when she was a dead head.

~Work in the kitchen after the meal. As you continue to eat together you will start to learn the way around their kitchen. Help set the table and clear the dishes after a meal. Relish the after meal conversation as you help fill the dishwasher or dry the dishes. 

~Read Sandy's blog about how not to be a reluctant entertainer. She has insightful tips on cooking, hostessing, spur of the moment meals and so much more. It was through her blog that I actually felt inspired to do these weekly meals with Jacki. 

School starts next Monday and I think one of the exciting prospects of this will be the fact that our weekly meals will start up again. It's a bit of warmth as the cool Autumn nights greet us with the darkening of the year.

Comments

[kate]

Oh I really love this. I wish we had family friends that we could do something like this with ... but the ones I think of don't live near us. In this town there is a lot of shift work, etc, so schedules are notoriously hard to mesh. As to similar parenting styles ... hard to come by. You are very lucky!

[Monica]

I too love this idea but most of my friends that I would consider live on the other side of the water and have opposite work schedules. We only get together a few times a year.

[Tonya]

Your table looks lovely!
We don't do a lot of small holiday meals (yet), but we're planning a small soup-themed get together to celebrate the beginning of fall. Thanks for the tips. I'll let you know how it all goes.

[blair]

Peter and I are always telling ourselves that we need to have friends over to share a meal once a week. We get the good fortune of spending time with our friends, we clean the house, we make/eat good food, what's not to love?!

[AJ]

Sounds like a really nice and relaxing weekend. Shawn and I are always talking about having friends over for dinner more often. I think we really need to make it happen.

[sandy]

Your meal looks DELIGHTFUL! Mmmm!

You gave some great tips here for your readers, Selena. I hope many are INSPIRED by your delcious meal and getting together with another family.

Love to you and inspiring so many around you.

[Tania]

These kind of things are THE things that make me kinda sad for not having friends like that... Being 22 I know i should get along with people more often but I lack a lot of social skills... That's a recent thing but oh well... What a great way to have a meal! With your friends and their children... :) Hope you have a lot more and enjoy all of them!

[Betts]

Mmmmmmmm! It all looks so good, and I love your pink flowered tablecloth. I want to do a weekly meal with you, however, 3000+ miles is a tad inconvenient.

[Tammie]

What a beautiful post. The food looks great and I love the tips at the end. I wish the friends I would choose to do this with lived closer to me. You are incredibly fortunate.

[Dawn]

This is such a great idea. I would love to do something like this although I'm having a hard time thinking of anyone who lives close enough. The food in your photos looks so delicious!

[Lorilee]

Your food looks delish! I love the idea of a weekly meal. Our schedule is too unpredictable right now. (teacher, truck driver and middle school student in sports). We do get together with my brother and sister-in-law periodically though. She and I know each other's kitchens pretty well! This last summer, we started our batches of sauerkraut together!
Blessings,
Lorilee

[Mary]

That looks wonderful! such a great idea, too.

[Lynn]

Great post..... lovely pictures! :)

[Christine]

The food looks delicious! I love the idea of eating together, I hope to do it more often in the future, but today with children so small, it's not a success. They still need too much supervision, I can hardly sit down sometimes.

[celia]

Love the table setting and also the food! Yummy!

[djc]

The pink flowered cloth you used as a tablecloth brought back memories. I grew up in the UK and I seem to remember having the exact same one as a bedspread. Is it edged with white yarn fringing? Fun to see it again.