Someone wrote me with a reasonable question:
What do I even bring to a potluck?
-Ready for the Challenge
You have been invited to a potluck of freedom fighters Saturday. You have possibly never met the people you are about to be having a potluck with.
Quite naturally, you are asking yourself, “What am I supposed to bring?”
I am going to toss out a few options. I think any of them will do the job. I think the most important thing is that you bring something you really like so that if no one else likes it… well, then you haven’t lost a thing, because you will happily nibble away at it all afternoon and will take any leftovers home with you after.
1.) Make a plate of your favorite cookies or brownies or whatever you like eating for a treat. Put the brownies on a plate that will easily allow a person to grab one or stick a spatula in the brownies so they can be removed.
Bringing some kind of serving utensil is important, since we are at a park and not in a person’s home with a fully stocked kitchen.
2.) Go to the grocery store and get a tub of your favorite salad / side / snack — put a serving spoon in it.
3.) Buy chopped fruit or chop some fruit fit fruit salad. Put a serving spoon in it.
4.) Make a kind of garden salad you like. Toss it in some dressing. Stick a serving utensil in it.
5.) Make your favorite Super Bowl appetizer / mix / trail mix / nut mix / candy mix/ bring a big bowl of it. Put it out with some kind of serving utensil.
6.) Go to the dollar store and buy ten boxes of Milk Duds and leave them on the table. The home school Weston Price Foundation parents might not forgive you, but their kids will remember the addictive taste of the caramel goodness for three days at least.
7.) Go to a fast food place you like, asks them to do enough plates for 5 or 10 or 15 people. Unless it’s finger food, bring some kind of way for people to serve themselves.
8.) Grab one or two of your favorite pizzas on the way over and put them out for others. Or call in a delivery to the park.
9.) A superstar I know shows up with his home-smoked pulled pork sandwiches sometimes. Homemade coleslaw. Homemade sauce. That guy becomes the life of the party, an unexpected surprise and something that people talk about for months (or years) after. One day I want to be like him.
Now the next few aren’t food but it seems like the kind of logistics that the people who think of them are always beloved for contributing.
10.) Bring 100 or 200 plates and 100 or 200 napkins. There never seem to be enough.
11.) Bring some drinks on ice for people and pass them out.
12.) Bring some folding card tables in case we run out of space on the buffet.
13.) Bring some chairs for people to sit on. Just show up and set them up. Maybe folks will use them, maybe they won’t.
No one is keeping score of who brings what. It is just good to surround yourself with people who are proud to give more than they take. That is the kind of person I hope I am always modeling and the kind of person I am encouraging others to be.
And I know that is the kind of people we are going to need alongside us to retake freedoms long lost — the kind of folks with a spirit of generosity for others.
That is the biggest reason I think it is good to show up to a potluck ready to give, it gives you a chance to exercise that sense of generosity and to proudly take a little bit of ownership over the group and the event — since you have just invested into both.
Suddenly, even if you are a new person, you really do start to act like one of the group a little more quickly, just because you went the extra mile and did something to make it a little more special for others.
That is one reason potlucks can be such a good fit for a group of grass roots warriors. The generosity of a potluck is the same kind of generosity that makes a group work — no one is keeping score, but the ones who go the extra mile just kind of take a different sense of pride in it all.
And for whatever reason that really works.
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If you are a freedom fighter, I’d like you to join up with an organization that offers an important insurance policy. When you’ve gotten the wrong people mad at you, you might need some backup. People’s Rights exists for that. The goal of the organization is to be able to deliver ten neighbors to your door within ten minutes of you putting out that call. You can sign up with them at PeoplesRights.org.
Excellent!
This is undoubtedly my weakest area. Sigh...