A Dinner Co-Op

A few years ago, while in the throes of my seasonally hectic day-job, a friend called and offered to make dinner for my family so I wouldn’t have to worry about getting something healthy and delicious on the table mid-week. I gratefully accepted and four days later, a cheesy chicken parmigiana arrived at my doorstep, complete with a side dish of pasta and a crisp green salad. What a treat it was to sit down to a tasty homemade meal that I didn’€™t have to cook.
Fast forward three months, to her similarly busy work time, and I happily returned the favour by dropping off a vat of beef bourguignon to her family. She was ever so grateful, and to be honest I quite enjoyed cooking for her family. It was easy as I simply doubled what I was making for my family and dropped it off to her home with any required cooking instructions.

We carried on with this meal swap over the course of a few months, with no particular guidelines to follow. We ate what we were given. Some meals were bigger than others but all of them were hearty and appreciated.

I love the idea of families swapping meals with like-minded families. What a great way to expose our kids to the food philosophy of others, while trying new meals and flavours we might not otherwise try ourselves.

Would you ever consider a dinner co-op? Wouldn’t it be fun to have dinner co-ops popping up all over the place?