I’m so pleased to share that one of my favourite websites - Food52 - recently highlighted our meal co-op experiment

Friendships have changed my life. 

Sometimes all we need is just ONE small next step... we don't need some complicated new strategy….

This week I’m making Urvashi Pitre's "Now & Later" Instant Pot Butter Chicken

After a ridiculously late and long kiddo bedtime I groggily realized that I’d forgotten to get the groceries…

This recipe was inspired by a combination of a few different recipes - none of which I can find online right now.  I guess that just shows lazy googling skills, doesn’t it?

“Village Up, People!” It’s our rallying cry of what it means to have each other’s back and our manifesto proclaims more of what we have learned together.

Remember those easy nights of calling friends and saying, let’s just meet up? And then ambling towards your agreed spot…

With change comes opportunity and also grief.  Recently I’ve found myself missing Jenny and her meals a lot.  So this week I’m making the first meal that Jenny ever made for us - more than three years ago.

There are times when life just sucks.  There are times when you don’t know what to say or do to make things better for people - because there’s nothing that can really fix things.

This week I made chicken stew and dumplings, this recipe was inspired by a Martha Stewart meal and adapted to work for me, as I often don’t have time to have chop up a bunch of hot chicken.

Years ago, when I was going to group therapy on a weekly basis I told the group that I’d been knitting socks for everyone in my family, a big task, and I wanted to be done by Christmas.  I was knitting on the bus, anywhere I could find time. It was methodical and a bit mesmerizing. I know I looked pretty kooky too. I liked to think about the power of each stitch, that these little actions repeated would create something new.

 At that time in my life I was rebuilding almost everything. …

It’s fair to say I’ll do almost anything for butter. We got home late Sunday night after 10 days in Maine and about 12 hours of travel - car, then bus ride to Boston, then plane flight back to Seattle - it was a successful bout of travel because my low bar of “no bodily fluids” was met by all members of our family.  

This is the story of how I found my people and how we built a village.  It's simple and deep at the same time. And it's a huge part of how I get everything else done in my life. I cook once a week.  I cook once a week for 5 families. And then we all divide up our big batches so we each have a week's worth of meals.