On a Dinner Group

In 1999, we were 1 of 4 couples grouped together with the task of getting to know one another by hosting a simple meal in each of our homes. Meeting 4 times over 9 months seemed like a reasonable undertaking in order to expand our church family.

Ten years and 55 dinner-gatherings later, we’re still meeting. Since we initially clicked, we continued to meet and began sharing cooking duties for theme-oriented events. Whether cultural nights as Italian, Japanese, Scandinavian, Greek, or Lebanese; or celebration themes as Mardi Gras, Christmas, Thanksgiving, St. Patrick’s Day, Valentine’s Day, or Fourth of July; or food themes as wrapped, stuffed, on a stick, yellow, or homemade pizza; or many others including Gilligan’s Island that introduced the world to Mrs. Skipper – we’ve eaten well, drank many bottles of wine, and developed meaningful friendships.

Within the group we’ve experienced deaths of parents, high school and college graduations, marriages, birth of grandchildren, surgeries, buying & selling of homes, difficult health issues, significant professional changes with 7 of us, and many other personal events. Life events and demands continue to change everyone, yet we still continue to meet – and the next one is at our house with the theme of Julie Child recipes. If we would have only kept the recipes of all our feasts … wow! Nonetheless, bon appetite!