Food

Cohousing residents generally feel that common meals hold the community together, and usually serve two or three meals each week in their common house. Eating common meals is always voluntary. In a few communities cooking is also voluntary, but in most cases it is not. However, the cooking (and cleanup) responsibilities can be structured in a variety of ways.

A Veggie Dish Even the Kids Will Love

Here is a recipe from Douglas Larson, a single dad who has lived at Songaia for seven years now. He enjoys working in Songaia’s expansive garden. He has an almost 13-year-old daughter, Risa, who loves Songaia as much as he does. But the thing he likes the most is cooking for his community. “It truly gives me energy to bring healthy, nutritious and delicious meals to our community,” Douglas says.

A common meal at Swan’s Market Cohousing

This month I’m featuring a recipe, Yummy Tofu Salad, from a California cohousing community. This one is from Joani Blank at Swan's Market Cohousing in Oakland. Joani has been passionate about common meals even longer than I have. I remember going to one of her talks at a cohousing conference before we even had a common house!

This recipe was submitted by a woman with a dream of creating cohousing, and I would like to dedicate it to all those out there working to make that happen. Here are a few maxims about creating cohousing that you can think about. How the maxims apply to making the cake appears in parentheses.

Sandy Thomson is one of the founding members of Heartwood Cohousing, a rural community in SW Colorado, where she lives with her husband, Mac, and three wonderful kids. Her hobbies include writing, cooking, raising chickens, gardening, hiking and river rafting. Email her at cohorecipes [at] cohousing [dot] org

Here is a great and really versatile recipe from Linda Parsons of Bartimaeus Cohousing (Seattle, WA). It is so simple to make and easy to increase or decrease for different-sized groups. The recipe eliminates the need to cut butter into the flour mixture; the heavy cream provides the butterfat. Biscuit dough can be cut with a knife to form square biscuit shapes to save time.

In the summer here at Heartwood, common meals become more casual. Lots of people come and go on trips, so spontaneous gatherings often occur to welcome home weary travelers. The grill gets fired up, and people come to the terrace with something to contribute.

Lynne McGee

This recipe is a hearty winter pasta. It's not vegetarian, wheat-free, or dairy-free, but it sure is good.

Joani Blank

Your common meals aren’t frequent enough, or not nearly enough folks attend those meals. Or the meals are too much work, or the record keeping is frustrating. Or there’s something else about your common meals that just doesn’t work as well you'd hoped it would. Bring those challenges to the clinic and we will aim to come up with a diagnosis and treatment plan. Although this session is designed for people living in cohousing communities, those in developing groups will benefit too as they can learn in the workshop how to avoid common pitfalls in designing a common meals system.

One of Heartwood’s younger contingents enjoys a spring brunch outdoors.

I want to thank those of you who have sent me recipes. I really appreciate it and will try to use them in future articles. I still need many more, so don’t be shy!

This month I thought I would focus on “giving thanks.” I would love to hear from other communities about how they give thanks before meals or on other occasions. So if you have a nice blessing that your community uses before a meal or some other way that your community expresses gratitude, write to me at sandy [at] heartwoodcohousing [dot] com.

At Heartwood, we all gather around the food, hold hands, acknowledge the cooks, and introduce the guests. One of the cooks leads us in a blessing or a moment of silence.

Here are a few favorites:

The silver rain.
The golden sun.

The departments and columns in Cohousing Magazine include:

Cooking for Community
Cohousing Magazine is pleased to offer this monthly column of recipes and ideas that are picked especially to spice up your common meals.

Group Process Tips

Here are a couple of great recipes from Bonnie Fergusson. Bonnie, 64, works in the lab at the Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic in San Francisco. She lives with her husband Stephen, a technical writer, in the very urban Swan's Market cohousing community, located in the middle of downtown Oakland. She says, “There's a farmers market that happens every Friday morning just outside our door, which makes finding fresh produce easy. And living on the edge of Oakland's Chinatown means we have access to lots of Asian specialty foods, as well. Our common dinners are definitely a main part of the social glue that holds our community together. They are very well attended.”

Try these recipes together for a complete meal.

Smoked Cheese and Onion Quiche
(variation of a recipe from Tassajara, by Edward Espe Brown)

1 uncooked pie shell
Dijon mustard
½ cup grated cheddar cheese
½ cup grated smoked Gouda (or other smoked cheese)
½ cup grated parmesan
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 cup sliced mushrooms
3 eggs (or 1 egg plus 3 egg whites)
Tabasco sauce
½ cup milk plus ½ cup half-and-half

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Cook the onion in a little olive oil slowly until nicely browned.

Spread the mustard generously on the uncooked pie shell. Sprinkle the cheeses evenly over the mustard.

Sauté the mushrooms for a few minutes. Spread the cooked onion and mushrooms over the cheeses.

Beat the eggs in a bowl. Whisk in the milk, half-and-half, and a dash of Tabasco. Pour the mixture over the vegetables and cheese.

Bake for 15 minutes at 425 degrees. Then lower temperature to 350, and continue baking for another 25-30 minutes until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let stand at least 5 minutes before serving.

For another variation, omit the onions and sauté 2 cups of chopped fresh spinach with the mushrooms.

Caesar Salad for 4 to 6

Vegetarian eggless dressing:

½ cup good olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
¼ cup lemon juice
2 tbsp. Nayonnaise (eggless spread made with soy oil) or light mayo
3 tbsp. shredded parmesan cheese
¼ tsp. Dijon mustard
¼ tsp. salt
freshly ground pepper to taste

Croutons:

1 cup fresh bread cut into ½-inch cubes
good olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced (optional)

Salad:

Romaine lettuce leaves
Radicchio leaves
Thin red onion slices

Dressing: Mix the garlic into the olive oil. Let it sit at room temperature for at least one hour until the garlic flavor infuses the oil. Blend the remaining ingredients into the garlic-olive oil mixture at the last minute, just before using.

Croutons: Mix the garlic into the olive oil and let sit for one hour, as above (optional). Drizzle the olive oil over the bread cubes. Toss the cubes until they are evenly coated, then spread them on a cookie sheet and bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for 5-10 minutes.

Toss the salad ingredients with the croutons and dressing, and serve.

Dinner at Ecovillage at Ithaca

My plan with this column is to feature recipes from cohousing communities around the world to create a cookbook we can all use, with the proceeds going to the Cohousing Association. If that idea seems worthwhile to you, please take a moment to send me your favorite recipe for a common meal. If every reader would send one recipe, we would have a cookbook!