{"id":71,"date":"2009-06-15T09:46:45","date_gmt":"2009-06-15T09:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/homeshuling\/2009\/06\/the-ultimate-shabbat-dinner.html"},"modified":"2009-06-15T09:46:45","modified_gmt":"2009-06-15T09:46:45","slug":"the-ultimate-shabbat-dinner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/homeshuling\/2009\/06\/the-ultimate-shabbat-dinner.html","title":{"rendered":"The ultimate shabbat dinner"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-627\" src=\"https:\/\/homeshuling.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/06\/shabbatflyer.png\" alt=\"shabbatflyer\" width=\"258\" height=\"172\" \/>No, this is not a recipe post. This is about one of my favorite ways to spend Friday night &#8211; at a potluck.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve organized a few family potlucks for my shul, and every time I do, I wish we had them more often. Here are my top <span style=\"text-decoration:line-through\">10<\/span> 5&nbsp;reasons why, in no particular order.<\/p>\n<p>1. I love only having to prepare one dish. (I almost always bring <a href=\"http:\/\/homeshuling.wordpress.com\/2009\/04\/02\/using-up-some-more-chametz\/\" target=\"_blank\">this <\/a>noodle kugel.)<\/p>\n<p>2. I love trying other people&#8217;s signature potluck dishes. <a href=\"http:\/\/homeshuling.wordpress.com\/2009\/03\/28\/home-shuling-at-shul\/\">Last time<\/a> someone brought an amazing spelt salad, and this time, well&#8230;..we had three different kinds of pizza.<\/p>\n<p>3. I love having a chance to shmooze with a tableful of grownups. The conversation is exponentially more interesting than with just two couples, the maximum we can fit at our table.<\/p>\n<p>4. Everyone (or almost everyone) pitches in to clean up.<\/p>\n<p>5. FREE BABYSITTERS! (I insist on the shul hiring babysitters to play with the kids after dinner if I&#8217;m going to volunteer to lead the rest of the program.) This allows #3 to actually take place.<\/p>\n<p>A few tips for a successful shabbat potluck:<\/p>\n<p>1. Don&#8217;t count on someone to bring the grape juice and challah. The organizer should take care of the ritual needs, so you don&#8217;t worry someone not showing up.<\/p>\n<p>2. If your synagogue doesn&#8217;t allow its kitchen to be used for kashrut reasons, buy a few inexpensive serving pieces to have on hand for the people who forget to bring them.<\/p>\n<p>3. The only real downside to a potluck is the risk that there won&#8217;t be enough food, or too much of one thing (dessert, for example), and not enough of another. There are a few ways to help prevent this &#8211; either assign parts of the meal according to least name (A-F bring drinks, G-N bring entrees, etc.) or provide dessert and drinks and ask everyone to bring main and side dishes. There&#8217;s also a nifty online <a href=\"http:\/\/www.luckypotluck.com\/cgi-bin\/display\/index.pl\">potluck organizer<\/a> that works really well if you can rely on people to sign up ahead of time.<\/p>\n<p>4. Wine makes shabbat even better (in my personal opinion.) If you can&#8217;t write BYOB on the flyer, at least drop a few hints.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No, this is not a recipe post. This is about one of my favorite ways to spend Friday night &#8211; at a potluck. I&#8217;ve organized a few family potlucks for my shul, and every time I do, I wish we had them more often. Here are my top 10 5&nbsp;reasons why, in no particular order.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parenting"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The ultimate shabbat dinner - Homeshuling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/homeshuling\/2009\/06\/the-ultimate-shabbat-dinner.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The ultimate shabbat dinner - Homeshuling\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"No, this is not a recipe post. This is about one of my favorite ways to spend Friday night &#8211; at a potluck. I&#8217;ve organized a few family potlucks for my shul, and every time I do, I wish we had them more often. Here are my top 10 5&nbsp;reasons why, in no particular order.&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/homeshuling\/2009\/06\/the-ultimate-shabbat-dinner.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Homeshuling\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-15T09:46:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/homeshuling.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/06\/shabbatflyer.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Homeshuling\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The ultimate shabbat dinner - Homeshuling","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/homeshuling\/2009\/06\/the-ultimate-shabbat-dinner.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The ultimate shabbat dinner - Homeshuling","og_description":"No, this is not a recipe post. 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I teach, write, and try to create a vibrant Jewish home for my family while spending very little time in synagogue. I guess you could say we're home-shuling.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/homeshuling\/author\/ameltzer"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/homeshuling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/homeshuling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/homeshuling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/homeshuling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/homeshuling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/homeshuling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/homeshuling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/homeshuling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/homeshuling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}