Hello!

I forgot who is in the dinner coop, but I would like information on how it started and is operated. I'm thinking of a "potluck" or coop type of thing for the single women in my area and need some advice.

I don't know if anyone is seeing where I'm going with this, But I Hate Cooking For One!!!!

Any suggestions???


Barbara :-)

bump for Steph... I don't have time to answer today... but if you have questions... ask and I'll be back tomorrow.

Hi Barbara,

We do a full meal (minus dessert - my family would be soooo happy if we had joined the cake and pie every night co-op!) For example, I’m making Thai curry, rice and Vietnamese Salad rolls on Monday.

If I do something like chicken, pilaf and steamed broccoli - I don’t do salad. I would do a salad for something like enchiladas.

We try and arrange the menus by the season. None of us have AC and nobody wants to be baking when it is 80-90 degrees. I almost never change the menu but I did this spring when I was scheduled to make Mac and cheese and it was 97 degrees. I switched it to teriyaki salmon and a sushi rice salad.

We have little half cup containers. These work well for salad dressing or dipping sauce or sour cream, etc.

Sometimes I include salad dressing. If I’m doing an Asian kind of salad or a Mexican Salad I will include a special salad dressing (I don’t want anybody putting Ranch dressing on Chinese Chicken Salad.) Otherwise, for a run of the mill green salad with vegs, I assume that everybody has salad dressing at home.

Sometimes people will do something special (if they have time and energy). Like one person delivered Margaritas with Mexican food one time. I’ve sent Thai Ice Tea with Thai food or a couple of pieces of baklava with some Greek food. One of the co-op people likes to make something cute for Halloween. One person delivers a special jar of mustard when she delivers bratwurst. Sometimes people will throw in a few green tea bags with a Chinese dinner. But mostly it is an entrée and a salad/veg.

Denise
PS Also, organic produce probably falls under health concerns. I try and buy organic but don’t always 100%. Everybody in the co-op pretty much goes by this.

Thanks Denise!

I do have a question or two, though.

Are they complete meals or just the entree? From your description it looks like complete meals.

I'm actually trying to get my apartment complex, with 5 single females into this.

If not, I might try adding my mom's complex with several singles, also.

I don't think any of us is into a "special" diet, except my mother--she's just a picky eater. I think we all just want to eat healthier and cut down on the "I don't have the foggiest" of what to fix tonight.

I watch the specials at the grocery store and usually buy what is buy one get one free or buy one get two free and freeze the extra. I'm not sure a whole month of menues would work into this, but I might give it a try.

The other thing I might try is listing a menu for the week on the bulletin board, and see if anyone in the complex would like to $buy$ into a serving or two for themselves. I love to cook---I did graduate from a culinary school. I just hate to cook for one person, it seems like such a waste of time and energy.

Thanks again Denise!!!


Barbara :-)

Hi!

My dinner co-op has been going for 7 years - I've been doing it for 13 months now. I've often thought that a dinner co-op would work really well for single people.

Here is how ours works.

We cook dinner 4 nights a week. I cook on Monday and then dinner is delivered to me on Tues, Wed, Thurs.

We've got 6 sets of "Rubbermaid" containers. Each set has six containers of various shapes and sizes. The sets live in shopping bags. Since it is the weekend - Monday's person has 3 sets (or shopping bags), Tuesday's has 2, Wednesday's has 1 and Thursday's has 0. On the day it is our turn to cook we have 3 sets.

I cook on Monday. I cook 12 servings. I put 3 servings into each of the three sets and drive around and deliver them to the three other families.

(Hope you understand...)

Once a quarter, we get together for bagels and coffee. We go over the menu for the past three months (any dinners that were winners? Any that were not too good?) and figure out the menu for the next three months. We also plan a potluck or dinner with spouses/children once a quarter.

After the meeting, we plug the menus into a Yahoo calendar.

One of my co-op partners belonged to a co-op that disbanded after 3 months. It might help to think of all the little things that might make you resentful… Here are some things to think about:

1. It helps if all of the families are about the same size. (I've got one older kid and they all have 2 little kids). The co-op that fell apart had one family with 6 kids and one with one kid. I think that economics played a part in it's break up.

2. You need to make a decision about how much you will spend for food every week or month. You may become resentful if one person buys less expensive food week in and week out. In my co-op, we don’t spend the same every week. We all have our bean chili weeks and we all have our salmon weeks and it evens out.

3. If you have spouses and/or children - you need buy in from them. I had a problem for a few months were my family became picky eaters. We had a good talk and they got over it. I know of one family that never got over it and left the co-op.

4. It can help if you all have the same health goals. Two of the people in my co-op cook low fat and the other two use more olive oil than I would but it is not a huge excessive amount and I just plan my day and portion my serving accordingly. In a way, it has sort of worked to my advantage. I would never make ham and cheese croissant sandwiches - but my family LOVED them. We do brown rice sometimes and white rice some times.

At one point one of our members went on the SB diet. (I now know first hand why people lose weight on that diet - talk about some yucky recipes… Even the meat loaf was the worst thing I’ve ever tasted.) Luckily, it only lasted 4 weeks. We had one person go on Weight Watchers for a while and asked us to email her calories, fat grams, fiber, etc. I was ok with this but other people might not want to. It obviously wouldn’t work to have somebody “Low carb and loving it” and somebody trying to lower their cholesterol in the same co-op.

5. You have to be able to give and get criticism. Part of the reason the other co-op fell apart was that one person made ice berg lettuce salad every week and wouldn’t change. My friend said that she could handle it if there were a tomato and cucumber or something else in it but it was just iceberg lettuce. I’ve had people say that they didn’t care for something that I made (no big deal - I didn’t care for it myself).

6. All of the people in my co-op are very responsible. Dinner always shows up between 5-6pm. Once in a very rare while somebody will have a disaster and dinner will be late. It would really bother me if dinner was late with any regularity. In 13 months, I’ve only had one person forget to make dinner one time. We had done some switching of days and we were all a little confused.

7. How far are you willing to drive?

8. You have to be sort of flexible. It is sort of like eating in a new restaurant. For example, we did the planning meeting and I knew we were have some kind of wrap and I was told more or less what was in it. I looked at the menu 2 months later and King Tut’s Treasure wrap is being delivered. I had no recollection of what was in King Tut’s Treasure. I could have called and asked - but generally, any food that shows up and I don’t have to cook dinner that day is fine with me!

Hope this helps - let me know if you have questions!

Denise

Denise is "goingsking"

Denise is in the coop.