Out With The Old, In With The New: Start a Potluck Circle
Throughout the month of December, The Simple Dollar is posting a daily series focusing on specific activities you can do right now to set the stage for a great 2011. Out with the old, in with the new.
22. Start a potluck circle.
One of our favorite social events is the potluck dinners we have with our friends. At these events, everyone in our group congregates at someone’s house, the host makes some sort of main course, and all of the attendees bring some sort of supplement to it – beverages, side dishes, desserts, and so on. Since everyone’s together, we usually make a long evening of it by watching movies, playing board games, or doing something else socially together.
Having these events as a regular part of our social calendar cuts our entertainment budget significantly while often reducing our food budget a bit as well. If you add on top of that the fact that we’re building our friendships while also having a very enjoyable evening with them, then you can easily see the value of a potluck circle.
A potluck circle is simple to start. Just host a potluck dinner and invite some compatible people. Tell them what you’re going to serve and invite them to either bring a side dish, a beverage, or a dessert of some kind.
What should I serve? Keep it simple! Don’t worry about having some perfect seven course meal for a potluck dinner. Prepare a huge cauldron of soup. Make burritos or enchiladas. Serve up a giant batch of chili. Whip up some homemade pizzas. Focus on main dishes that can easily carry an entire meal with minimum accompaniment and you’re likely in the right area for this.
If you want, you can get very complicated with meal selection and preparation, but there’s really no need ...
