Our Virtual Zone Zoom Potluck

We are trying to have a virtual social for our zone every other month.  April 26th was the day set so in the middle of boxes, we got to pause and have a virtual potluck with our zone.

What is a virtual potluck, you ask?  Well, we gathered recipes from our zone ahead of time and then on the night of the activity, we shared stories and tricks on how to make the recipe. It went like this:

We started with a "polling game" where we asked several questions of the zone members--all related to food--and they voted for their choice.  Zoom has a feature that will display the results of the poll so we learned that Mexican food is the favorite, chocolate ice cream, and Snickers bars were as well.  Gary always asked the ones that voted Other to explain their choice so we got to know each other in a slightly unique way.

One of our assistants did a food video on how to make her famous chocolate chip cookies with two of her little grandchildren in the area.  It was darling and made me want to film me making something with my grandkids.  What a priceless treasure to have.

Then, I had taken the recipes and organized them in the order of a meal that we would "share" virtually, starting with snacks and hors d'oeuvres and ending with the desserts.  It was fun to hear people talk about their recipe and why they picked it or what memories were connected with it.

This was my story with my 7-layer Dip.  "One year, Ben worked at Mrs. Field's cookies for the Christmas holiday.  They held a potluck holiday celebration and Ben asked me to make the dip for him to take so I did.  At the party, most of the employees had just brought bags of candy or donuts from the store, but Ben had brought the dip with chips and another employee, Sam, had brought a homemade dish as well.  Sam was Filipino.  The boss pointed out the two homemade dishes and said, "I am glad we could count on the two Asian moms to provide us some real homemade food."  Everyone laughed, and Sam leaned over to Ben and whispered, "She would be surprised to know that my mom is American.  I am adopted."  Ben laughed and said so was he.  They thought that was funny and became friends for a time as they worked there."  (Maybe that speaks to being an adoptive mom as much as being an Asian mom.)  Anyway, I think about that when I make this dip.

It was a fun activity and we got to see connections between us as we talked about food and memories of food and family.  One couple shared a recipe for ANZAC biscuits from Australia, another zone member is from Australia and loved that they talked about a special holiday connected to them which is related to World War II (look it up), and then a third zone member talked about being in Turkey and seeing the monument there dedicated to the Australian soldiers that died there.  Our Australian zone member had family members who died in those battles.  All this from sharing of one recipe together...it was quite powerful.

Then we had an after party game of "Which Would You Rather?" which was also fun.

Need to plan a party on Zoom---try these ideas.  They were fun and helped us know each other a bit better.

However, eating the food would have been even better!!!