We had a pot luck Tuesday at work. I brought in some chicken chili, the only thing I ever take to any event involving prepared food. Why? Because I have a crock pot and the recipe involves 5 or 6 cans or jars of various things, some shredded cheese which I hand-shredded, and a teaspoon of something called "cumin". I looked up "cumin" on the internet and it is defined as "something you put in chicken chili". The hardest thing about this creation was remembering to dump it all together in time for it to crockulate overnight, which I did (remembered) at 11:30 the night prior, approximately 14 seconds before I nodded off to sleep. There's nothing quite like being comfortably settled into bed, finally getting warm, fading gently into blackness, then realizing you have to get up and go downstairs and crank open 3 cans of great northern beans. And it's a good thing there's nothing quite like that, because that thing would suck.
Our pot luck at work was so successful we put all the leftovers in the break room fridge, and reheated them today for another one! Which made me wonder... Why do people prepare so much food for pot lucks? If 20 people are slotted to bring something - and everyone who attends has to bring something - and if all 20 people make/buy enough food for like 5-10 people, then you have either a) food for 100-200 people; or b) 5-10 servings of food for 20 people. No wonder we did it all over again.
My favorite memories of pot lucks come from church when I was young. Several times a year a pot luck would be announced to celebrate some event or another; a church milestone, a sending-off of a missionary or pastor, maybe a softball league championship? The thing is, I can't really remember why most were held, I just remember the thrill of walking into the multi-purpose room, greeted by the sights and smells of so many various pots of meats and potatoes and gravies and indecipherable casseroles.
A good pot luck always had these items (from these people):
- 2 pepperoni pizzas from local chain (forgot about pot luck until en route to church)
- Bucket of KFC (didn't necessarily forget, but a dad was in charge)
- Green bean casserole with soggy fried onions on top (mother who thinks having greens is important)
- Someone's homemade fried chicken which lasted way longer than the KFC bucket (thinks they're a good cook and resents fast-food addicts)
- Cocktail wieners! (single mom who loves America)
- 2-pound bucket of store bought potato salad (didn't necessarily forget, but definitely can't cook)
- Au gratin potatoes which are so hot they burn your tongue and then you can't even taste the KFC (my mom)
And I haven't even gotten to the dessert table!
Pot lucks at church had several other attractions to me, like danger and sports. The multi-purpose room was carpeted but had basketball hoops (a rug burn lover's paradise), and there was always a group of us trying to get some shots in before the tables were all set. One of the more assertive mothers would always insist we "put those away before they knock something over", but we'd push it until something was knocked over, or until the larger, even more assertive father would just go ahead and grab the basketballs and say "Come on you guys!" in that midwesterny way.
Look, nothing says community like a dozen crock pots and a bowl of punch, so let's beat this topic up a bit! What else is a favorite or must-have item at a pot luck? Comment below or at Facebook.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
3 Questions You Should Just Let Me Ponder
If you use your child’s name as part of an online or network password, do you actually run the risk of forgetting your child’s name?
Like you’re sitting there one day, dying to check the spam building up in your “second” email account – which you use for retailer and airline spam and questionably tasteful picture-of-the-day subscriptions – and as you begin typing the password (starting with a month/day code of a child’s birth of course), you realize you don’t know which child’s name you used, or if you used the entire name (Samantha) or the abbreviated/nick-name (Mantha), and then as you rack your brain trying to work all this out, you realize…OH NO… the name escapes you entirely! To add insult to injury, you’ve just forgotten your password, too. Which, as we know, is inevitable. Later, you run into your child – also inevitable since you live with them – and all your flustered brain can manage to send through your mouth is “Oh hey there, uh, password to my Hotmail account. How was your day?”
If you lose your mobile phone, and nobody is around to call you, did it ever exist?
I was faced with this conundrum recently whilst on a sports-watching holiday in friendly Florence, Alabama. Florence is quite easy to find on a map: look at the dangling protuberance at the southwest corner of Alabama – call them Alabamacles? – and then go straight north all the way to the Tennessee border. It’s within 300 miles of there. OK, maybe not the most direct way to point it out, but I did get you to see Alabama in a whole new way. (Thanks, Matt, for the inspiration.) Anyhoo, I lost my Samsung Omnia touch screen web-browsing text machine, which places something called “telephone calls” from time to time, somewhere around the place in which we parked for the game many hours earlier. Inexplicably, we made it all the way back to the hotel in Decatur (again, Alabamacles, then straight north but a little further east) before I realized the device was no longer in my coat pocket, nor in a pants pocket, nor in the trunk, nor in my hand. And there was no chance of finding it now that it was dark and we were 50 miles away. Strangely, a sudden calm descended on me as I realized I no longer needed to compulsively check for new texts. I had no desire whatsoever to check my Fantasy Football scores the following day on my mobile browser. I spent less time in the bathroom since I didn’t have to start a new game of Jamdat Bowling. I even used a PAYPHONE. You remember those; they’re the silvery boxes where you put in quarters and get a friendly, female voice to let you know you have 5 minutes to place a call and you’d better get yakkin’ cuz you just used up 2. This oasis of personal freedom lasted a good 2 days, until my mobile’s insurance carrier zipped me a replacement, no questions asked. Now it’s back to—hold on, I have to go. Texts coming in.
If IKEA furniture were harder to put together, would we ever put up with its chipped edges and dodgy fasteners?
We have no less than 17 pieces in our home (including each dining room chair) which Annie or I assembled using the illustrated, non-gender monster guided instructions. Assembled well even, although it’s probably hard to do a poor job of assembling pre-drilled boards with wooden pegs and lock screws. It’s essentially Tinker Toys for grownups, let’s be honest. I shouldn’t really complain; our furniture looks great in our home and has afforded us some modernity and matching color schemes which we might not have otherwise achieved. In college, for example, my shared rented house had a set of donated couch, chair, and ottoman that matched (in lovely green plaid) and then 24 other miscellaneous TV stands, folding chairs, long mirrors, coffee tables, handy plastic crates, and upside down wastebaskets covered with a towel (end tables). Clearly I have experienced a major furniture upgrade in my life and for that, IKEA, I thank you. And for the Marabou chocolates and Daim candies, too. And Swedish meatballs.
Like you’re sitting there one day, dying to check the spam building up in your “second” email account – which you use for retailer and airline spam and questionably tasteful picture-of-the-day subscriptions – and as you begin typing the password (starting with a month/day code of a child’s birth of course), you realize you don’t know which child’s name you used, or if you used the entire name (Samantha) or the abbreviated/nick-name (Mantha), and then as you rack your brain trying to work all this out, you realize…OH NO… the name escapes you entirely! To add insult to injury, you’ve just forgotten your password, too. Which, as we know, is inevitable. Later, you run into your child – also inevitable since you live with them – and all your flustered brain can manage to send through your mouth is “Oh hey there, uh, password to my Hotmail account. How was your day?”
If you lose your mobile phone, and nobody is around to call you, did it ever exist?
I was faced with this conundrum recently whilst on a sports-watching holiday in friendly Florence, Alabama. Florence is quite easy to find on a map: look at the dangling protuberance at the southwest corner of Alabama – call them Alabamacles? – and then go straight north all the way to the Tennessee border. It’s within 300 miles of there. OK, maybe not the most direct way to point it out, but I did get you to see Alabama in a whole new way. (Thanks, Matt, for the inspiration.) Anyhoo, I lost my Samsung Omnia touch screen web-browsing text machine, which places something called “telephone calls” from time to time, somewhere around the place in which we parked for the game many hours earlier. Inexplicably, we made it all the way back to the hotel in Decatur (again, Alabamacles, then straight north but a little further east) before I realized the device was no longer in my coat pocket, nor in a pants pocket, nor in the trunk, nor in my hand. And there was no chance of finding it now that it was dark and we were 50 miles away. Strangely, a sudden calm descended on me as I realized I no longer needed to compulsively check for new texts. I had no desire whatsoever to check my Fantasy Football scores the following day on my mobile browser. I spent less time in the bathroom since I didn’t have to start a new game of Jamdat Bowling. I even used a PAYPHONE. You remember those; they’re the silvery boxes where you put in quarters and get a friendly, female voice to let you know you have 5 minutes to place a call and you’d better get yakkin’ cuz you just used up 2. This oasis of personal freedom lasted a good 2 days, until my mobile’s insurance carrier zipped me a replacement, no questions asked. Now it’s back to—hold on, I have to go. Texts coming in.
If IKEA furniture were harder to put together, would we ever put up with its chipped edges and dodgy fasteners?
We have no less than 17 pieces in our home (including each dining room chair) which Annie or I assembled using the illustrated, non-gender monster guided instructions. Assembled well even, although it’s probably hard to do a poor job of assembling pre-drilled boards with wooden pegs and lock screws. It’s essentially Tinker Toys for grownups, let’s be honest. I shouldn’t really complain; our furniture looks great in our home and has afforded us some modernity and matching color schemes which we might not have otherwise achieved. In college, for example, my shared rented house had a set of donated couch, chair, and ottoman that matched (in lovely green plaid) and then 24 other miscellaneous TV stands, folding chairs, long mirrors, coffee tables, handy plastic crates, and upside down wastebaskets covered with a towel (end tables). Clearly I have experienced a major furniture upgrade in my life and for that, IKEA, I thank you. And for the Marabou chocolates and Daim candies, too. And Swedish meatballs.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
99 Photos of Fall
According to Blogger, this is my 99th post. To celebrate, here are 99 photos of me, family, and friends from the past 3 months. They're captioned to tell you some stories.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
