Easy Cheesy - What's Not To Love?

It was La Querencia’s first Common Meal by the kids! It was George’s idea. After consulting with the parents, who all agreed, George asked for volunteers, got many enthusiastic participants, and the planning began.

The first task was creating the menu. All easily agreed on mac and cheese, chicken, salad and dessert (the last one was easy!). George googled “Easy Mac and Cheese,” and, lo and behold, up popped up a very easy recipe! There are just four ingredients: macaroni, cheese, sour cream and one egg. None of this Kraft box stuff for our community! George proposed ice cream sandwiches for the dessert, and everyone enthusiastically voted for those.

Prep work started yesterday after school, with the kids coming to the Common House to bake cookies. Fortunately, we had an abundance of cookie dough that had been sold to community members by several of the girls for their school’s fund raiser. Armed with ice cream scoops, trays and parchment paper, all took turns scooping the dough onto the paper, putting the trays in the oven and then, not so patiently, watching the cookies bake.

After a break for dinners at their homes, the gang reassembled for the great Ice Cream Sandwich Assembly Project! It got a little messy here and there, as the ice cream melted, but all was completed without a hitch.

George did the grocery shopping while the kids were at school. It was an early dismissal day, so when the kids arrived home, they all trooped down to the Common House to set the tables (34 people had signed up!), and combined the ingredients for the mac and cheese. It was off to play, then, with a return to the Common House at 5:00 p.m. for the finishing touches: filling the water pitchers, putting the salad greens in the salad bowls, putting all these plus the bottles of salad dressing on the tables and sautéing the chicken (already cooked and in bite-size pieces from Trader Joe’s) briefly in olive oil and mixing Trader Joe’s pesto sauce in with it.

Still a half hour to spare before 6:00! Belinda and Lilly, to fill up the time, choreographed a dance to do for dinner entertainment. The girls also practiced taking a group bow to acknowledge the “Three Cheers for the Chefs” that was sure to come from the impressed diners!

Show time! There was a special Chefs’ Table reserved for the crew. The food was hot and delicious, and everybody raved!

It was a fun evening, a great collaborative meal—and one that we’re all looking forward to having happen again!

Submitted by resident Pat L-B
Stop by for Open House Sunday 1-3

Hawaiian Marinara, Peach Upside Down... Fit for a Prince and Princess

What’s it like to cook dinner for 35 people? Well, actually it’s not bad—and to be truthful, it’s exhilarating and I’m coming down from a high! George and I cook twice a month (the community expectation is once a month, but we love to cook….), and I feel like this each time after we prepare a community dinner. Tonight we had spaghetti with a special marinara sauce (a recipe I got from a Japanese woman I worked with in Hawaii—go figure!), regular meat balls and veggie meat balls (thank you, Trader Joe’s, for both), tossed salad with veggies from the community garden, hot garlic bread, freshly grated parmesan cheese, and fresh peach upside down cake baked this afternoon by George.

Usually we do a lot of the prep work a day or two before the dinner, but this week our schedules were packed and we just couldn’t do it earlier. I did most of the grocery shopping yesterday on my way home from work and then started in on the sauce this morning around 8:00 a.m. I chopped the garlic and onions here in our house and then took that to the Common House to load into a big pot. Once I got the sauce put together and simmering, I set the tables while George picked the veggies from the garden and made another trip to the grocery store (eight more people had signed up after I had done the initial grocery run—fortunately, TJoe’s is just around the corner!). I showered and went to work, returned home around 3:30 and even got in a 45 minute nap before heading back to the Common House to finish the last minute things. George baked the cakes while I was napping so that they would still be warm when we served them.

Almost everything was ready when people poured in at 6:00 p.m. Michael helped George get the spaghetti in the serving dishes and tossed with olive oil while I ladled out the sauce. Without a shred of modesty, I say that it was all delicious! There were good conversations going on at each of the four tables. George plated the “late plates” for Joe and Heidi before Michael, Cindy, Jenny and Candy took over the kitchen for clean-up. I saw Chris wiping down the tables, even though he wasn’t on the clean-up crew.

People strolled on the walkway after the dinner, chatting. Jeff pulled Kara and Sean in Kara’s wagon, with the two of them looking like the Prince and Princess of La Querencia! The evening light started to fade, and Venus was lit up brightly up in the western sky. The squadrons of geese took off from the ponding basin (our own “Lake La Querencia,”) passing over our houses, with another squadron coming in for a landing. What a sight!

George and I went down to the pool about 8:15 to join a smaller group of residents, ranging in age from 15 months to 81 years old! Four year old Tessa wanted George and me to stand in the pool “right there” so she could swim over to us. Addie urged George to do an underwater flip—and he did! I tried it, too—and couldn’t!

So—that was my day in cohousing—and I know there are more to come! I can’t imagine living anywhere else.

Written by resident Pat Looney Burman
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