A Progressive Dinner & Other Progress
Last Monday night I enjoyed a delectable four-course meal, but only had to prepare the salad.
It was thanks to three of our closest neighbors that my family ate abundantly well and inexpensively that night, in a lingering meal spiced with much socializing. Have you guessed how? Yes, we held a “progressive dinner.”
This was the fulfillment of a pledge I made to myself—and all Leader readers!—when I told a reporter in early September that one of the ways I intended to “go sustainable together” was to organize a progressive dinner “as a way of becoming better acquainted with [my] neighbors.”
“It’s a small thing to have a supper with your neighbors, but it’s money in the bank when you need to borrow a tool or ask them to water your garden or call upon them in an emergency—or they need to call upon you,” I was quoted as saying. (Read the article.)
If you’ve only heard about progressive dinners but never attended one, the concept is simple. Get a few neighbors together (four couples is a good number, easily accommodated around the average dining room table), each household cooks up one course, and the neighbors “progress” from one house to another, in turn sampling each neighbor’s food and hospitality.
Start with appetizers, end with dessert. In between, get to know each other!
Beyond the front door
There’s something about getting beyond the front-door threshold that engenders trust. I’m chagrined to say that two of the three progressive-dinner couples had never before stepped inside our home. But now they have—and they know the story of how we came to Port Townsend, and I know their stories.
At my suggestion, the hosts at each house shared their story of how they came to this town and this neighborhood. We found that we all valued its walkability. “Cars are good, but not for going to get a loaf of bread,” as Mike put it. We uncovered other commonalities, too, from shared southern roots to Volkswagen vans in our pasts.
It was clear by the end of the evening—after consuming the local cheese plate, my signature caramelized nut salad, eggplant moussaka, and blackberry pie, plus drinks with three of the four courses (!)—that everyone had had a wonderful time.
“Let’s do this again!” was the rallying cry. I’d like to see the concept spread, fanning outward down our streets until all our neighbors know each other better than they do now.
Progress update
In addition to the “progress”-ive dinner, I want to tell you about some of the other progress I’ve been making toward my own eco-challenge of diving into my community’s sustainability movement in the three months since I launched Sustainable Together.
I have come to terms with the fact that keeping up this blog is ancillary to taking action. The blog is the means, not the end. So if I don’t post for a week or so, it’s because instead of typing at my computer, I’m attending committee meetings, making phone calls, and allowing extra time to bike to events, plus taking care of “housekeeping” duties like swapping childcare with my mama friends, baking bread, duck-sitting my neighbor’s flock in exchange for the eggs—or perhaps sponging vomit splatters off the walls, as I was this past weekend when Soren suffered a virulent 12-hour stomach flu. And then my husband got sick two days later. But that’s just life.
- My volunteer work with Local 20/20 continues to expand in satisfying ways. I attended my fourth monthly steering committee meeting this past week and helped make the case that the organization should become our county’s official Transition Town Initiative. The vote was unanimous that Local 20/20 apply to the national organization to become Washington State’s 11th “TT” and one of only 110 or so in the U.S. Local 20/20 is in transition itself as one of the founding members steps back after being elected to our city council (hooray, Deb!) and another moves away. There are leadership roles to be assumed, and I am stepping up where I can.
- I’m really excited to attend a regional sustainability conference coming up Feb. 2-4 hosted by the Whidbey Institute. It’s the first of five annual Thriving Communities conferences exploring the critical issues facing small communities. The focus of this first year will be food and how we nourish ourselves as communities. I had a long phone chat with the Institute’s program director, Heather Johnson, who turned out to be my same age and helped found Sustainable Connections in Bellingham, Wash., that led to BALLE (The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies). In addition to wanting to network further with Heather, I was convinced it would be a detriment if I was not at the conference. So I’m going! We’re looking to gather a team of Jefferson County residents to attend together. Wanna come? Click here for more information and registration details.
- I’m also recruiting parents of young children to join me for a Northwest Earth Institute (NWEI) discussion course for 8 weeks in January and February. I am co-convening the course with NWEI veteran Robin Purnell Mills, a former Adventuress shipmate who married a local shipwright, settled in Jefferson County, and now has three children. She is definitely someone I want to learn from. We are excited to share ideas and actions for raising children inspired by the course Healthy Children, Healthy Planet. Our kids are welcome at the book club-type discussions, which will be followed by optional lunch potlucks. If you can meet eight Wednesday mornings starting Jan. 11 and can afford $22 for the course book, and want to deepen your parenting community, contact me!
- Another upcoming opportunity I want to plug is the training for the new Farm and Food Producer Survey produced by Citizens for Local Food (a spin-off of Local 20/20′s Food Resiliency action group). With more than 200 local food producers, many volunteers will be needed to conduct in-person or phone surveys. The training will be scheduled on either Saturday or Sunday, Jan. 14 or 15, in Port Hadlock. RSVP to citizensforlocalfood@yahoo.com with your availability for training on these days. I hope to volunteer for this interesting and important effort to collect data on our farms and lobby for more farm-friendly regulations.
- Emergency preparedness is a subject that has been much more on my mind since Soren was born—it’s one thing to take care of yourself in a disaster, but children add a worrisome and complicating layer. So I have resolved to spearhead the organization of my neighborhood for such an eventuality, using an existing model forged through a partnership between Local 20/20 and our county’s Department of Emergency Management. My neighbor Ron agreed to be my partner in this endeavor, and the two of us attended a regular meeting of emergency prep neighborhood organizers on Dec. 8 to learn more. Then we floated the idea at our progressive dinner and received an enthusiastic response. We’re on our way!
- Partly out of curiosity, partly
out of respect for what the international movement has accomplished so far, I attended the first General Assembly held by the Occupy Port Townsend group on Dec. 3. I have not yet been inspired to join a sign-waving “demonstration”—these are periodic events, as there is no space actually “occupied” (yet) in Port Townsend. But I was impressed by the energy and new ideas that came out of the well-run meeting on the 3rd (attended by about 80 people), and I feel Occupy groups will continue to be vital protest outlets for the injustices wrought by social and economic inequality in our world.
Yes, it feels like I have a lot on my plate, but I also feel invigorated by the new people I am meeting, the new causes I am joining, and the new ways my talents and skills are being utilized.
And there’s so much work to be done. How are you working toward greater sustainability in your community? Leave a comment and let us know.
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
Thanks for your post Shelly! I live in a co-op house with three other people. We share food, host events together, and provide support for each other. When we first moved in the summer before last, we hosted a neighborhood potluck. It was great! We feel so connected to our neighbors after having that initial potluck. How funny that it only took one potluck to feel that way! I am inspired by your post to ask the house to host another potluck. It’s important that we see the positive results of such actions and decide to continue those same behaviors. Sustainability, the “health” of a community, is so much based on connection and sharing. I find that the more “sustainable” I am, the more connected I become. And the more connected I become, the happier I am! YAY! Merry Christmas EVERYONE!
) 
)!!! 
)