Or,
"You can't always eat what you want,
But if there's pie sometimes,
You get what you need!
At 1715 there are still people arriving... a contingent has hiked up to the pavilion David is building to use for dancing a and other functions.
Dinner is a potluck event. David provided a beef stew. The table was fleshed out with the usual suspect items.
There is one rug rat present. Unfortunately, its parent parked it next to me, most likely the least kid friendly person at the gathering. It is operating between whine and moderate manic. It is fed and now occupying the choke point that divides the two halves of the room. The better thing would have been to park it on the other side of the room.
1838 Rockwood Ferry to the stage.
Begin 7 January 2013 input:
Cassi Creek:
The musical portion of the evening was pleasurable. I lost the vocals in the instrumental output and the ambient sounds of the house and crowd. The instrumentals seemed to incorporate tonal qualities of Native American music. The violin did extra duty as a wing bone flute while the double bass provided percussion elements. While there was instrumental give and take the level of improvisation was less than I had hoped to hear. To what remains of my hearing, the attempts to open the instrumentals up and out resulted in more repetition than expansion.
Still, the band seemed eager to please, its audience and played with decent levels of energy and interaction as was suitable to the micro-venue.
David did a good job of arranging the event and both Gloria and I were pleased to be among those invited for the evening.
Note on potlucks: Growing up in the 1950s-60s and being a Boy Scout for many of those years, I’ve experienced many, many potluck dinners. The nature of the table has changed markedly. If the event was an outdoors event, there were normally hotdogs and hamburgers provided by the sponsoring organization and prepared by the older boys or the fathers present that day/night. It was not uncommon to find baked beans offered by 25% of the families in attendance. There were bowls and bags filled with chips of some type. Three-bean salad often made an appearance. There might have been a meatloaf or two. Working mothers often, submitted dishes based upon canned vegetables and canned soup. The quality of baked beans varied widely. It was understood that the dish carried in to share was the same recipe that made it to the home table. Some families simply poured “pork and beans” into a baking dish. Other than strips of under-done bacon atop a soupy liquid, no seasoning was apparent. Other families made and brought actual baked beans with a thick, well-seasoned sauce and crisp strips of bacon. Casseroles lined the table and, again, the canned soup base and canned vegetables varied in flavor and consistency. It was not that hard to fill a plate with familiar food as many of us went immediately for our family offering. /There were often jello dishes thick with carrots, peas, pineapple, cottage cheese and less interesting things. Jello surfaced again in the dessert section along with fruit pies and fake whipped cream. Proteins played a major role in any potluck.
Last night, the primary dish was a large pot of beef stew provided by the host. Other than a small plate of sliced cheese and sausage; and a dish of fried chicken, proteins were not evident. In evidence, rice, a mac and cheese dish with very little cheese, breads of various sorts, crudités, hummus, and baba ganush rounded out the table. Desserts were present as sliced fruits, an apple pie, and a key lime pie. Missing from the table, beans of any sort, hot dishes were absent – given the vegan nature of many of the attendees, I suppose we were lucky to find what we did. Gloria found some salads and a piece of fried chicken. I chased some macaroni around, hoping for cheese as well, and settled for bread, broccoli, and the cheese/sausage offering.
Potlucks have changed markedly since I first gazed at a long table and planned which dishes to avoid.
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