The "What's In Your Fridge?" Dinner Party
After our somewhat disastrous first job experience in Seattle, Charles and I jumped back into a nationwide job hunt after trying to take a season to heal. We didn’t know where we were going to end up but we did know that I was now pregnant with our first baby and we needed a job and you know, health insurance and a place to live before he was due to arrive in January of 2012. In late September we had done several interviews and nothing felt quite right. No jobs were offered and we really didn’t know what door God was going to open. One day the phone rang and it was a dear friend of our’s from our seminary days. Kyle had just started as the associate pastor at a church in the Los Angeles area and they were in need of a youth director ASAP. School had just started and their youth pastor had just taken a job somewhere else and was Charles interested? It was kind of a whirlwind but after several phone conversations with the senior pastor and a weekend in town interviewing, meeting students and elders, and looking at the area it was settled. We were packing up our lives and heading back down to Los Angeles (that would be two moves up and down I-5 in one year for those keeping track…yes 2011 was quite the year for us…). We actually had several dear friends from seminary who were all working at this particular church so we knew we’d be walking into a place with some built-in community. It was a fantastic church for us, one that did bring a lot of healing and one that provided us with a season of the richest friendship group we’ve ever known in our married years. There were several younger families in this place, a thriving Mothers of Pre Schoolers group that I ended up leading for several years and people who made room to welcome us into their lives.
I don’t remember exactly how it happened but somehow after being there only about a month, Charles and I connected with Todd and Sarah and had our first meal together. They had a little one and another on the way and I was expecting Aidan within a few weeks. Somehow we clicked and after both of us had our baby boys we started getting together for dinner fairly often. That meant we tried enjoying meals together with three kids—a one year old and two newborns. It was chaos. Sarah and I would take turns leaving the table to go nurse babies, or sometimes we’d be so hungry we wouldn’t even care and we’d feed them as we shoveled food into our own mouths because mama needs to eat too!! Todd would be working on convincing little Sienna to take more bites of food and most of us ended up eating one handed as we juggled plates of food and squirmy babies.
About a year later, when Aidan was 1, we started spending more and more time with another dear family who also had a 1 year old boy. Karen was one of the pastors at the church and we had moved to live within a mile of her home which made getting together for meals so easy. We’d strap these toddler boys into booster seats and high chairs and assume that most of what we put in front of them was going to be thrown or smashed into finger painting masterpieces on the table. Dan and Charles inhaled dinners while we fed the little guys and when Aidan and Joshua would start screeching loudly enough we’d let them down and they’d go toddle off to throw trains at each other and scream about who wanted to drive Thomas. Karen and I would make the dads go sit in the play area with them so we could attempt to eat our dinners in some semblance of peace as the dads negotiated with the two one year olds about whose turn it was for which train and set timers to alert them when it was time to trade.
Over the 4.5 years we were in Granada Hills these two families were our lifelines. Dan and Karen added another little boy, Charles and I added baby Asher to our family and Todd and Sarah welcomed sweet Savannah into their lives a month after Asher was born. I literally cannot count the number of times we would be at one of their homes for a meal—toward the end of our time in Los Angeles we were probably having dinner with Dan and Karen about 4 nights a week, and Todd and Sarah as often as we could. Karen and I used to say “well if dinner is going to be loud and messy and chaotic at your house and it’s going to be the same way at my house we may as well just bring our chaos together and have company and extra hands to manage it!” And that’s exactly what we did. Sometime about 3 in the afternoon she and I would start texting. “What’s in your fridge? What do you have tonight?” and somehow meals would come together. We certainly never made anything fancy—we did more taco bars, pasta nights, grilled burgers and crock pots of chili than we could count. Our four boys would play, the dads would be sent out to referee and she and I would move around one another opening cupboards and cutting bites of food into toddler sized pieces. The noise level at that dinner table was sometimes deafening with one of them usually crying at any given time and the big boys who were now in preschool attempting to talk over one another. The same would happen when we’d head up to Todd and Sarah’s—the noise level and chaos and silliness would be deafening until we felt they’d eaten enough and could be sent out in to the backyard while the four of us attempted a real conversation. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as at home in anyone else’s house as I did in their two kitchens. We’d throw together meals with whatever we had, sometimes sending a husband to the store for a last minute purchase. Over the years we celebrated many birthdays, baby announcements, even some holidays together, but it was these last minute “what’s in your fridge?" "Do you want to come over?" or "I’m inviting myself over” dinners that I will never ever forget. There were many hard things about leaving Los Angeles but it was loosing our dinners with these two families that has still left a hole in my heart. Gathering with dear friends doesn’t have to be hard. We didn’t clean our houses for one another (we knew our kids would destroy them so why bother?), we didn’t cook elaborate meals, we simply brought what we had—whatever ingredients were in our refrigerators or whatever leftovers we had and made that work.
Do you have another family you’d like to get to know better? Be brave enough to say “come join us Saturday night” and see what happens. You can order pizza, throw ingredients into a crock pot in the morning, bring the ingredients for burritos and make a burrito bar or even a pot of noodles with some jars of sauce and frozen meatballs. I promise, no one will care. I promise they’ll be grateful for the invitation.
The meal we probably made the most often for various dinners was one that absolutely everyone at our tables would eat in some fashion. It’s a crock pot meal that can easily be doubled and frozen or doubled for a big crowd. It’s a chili recipe that’s called Kid Friendly Turkey Chili and has a good flavor but zero spicy kicks to turn off toddlers. Feel free to put a bottle of hot sauce on the table for those grown ups who like more heat and don’t forget the toppings! Our kids loved telling us what to put on their bowls—shredded cheese, crushed chips, chopped green onions, sour cream or diced avocado. Serve it over rice for an even heartier meal or on it’s own with cornbread on the side. This one is perfect for a football watching party!
Crock Pot Kid-Friendly Turkey Chili
1.3 lbs 99% lean ground turkey
1 teaspoon oil
1 medium onion, minced
1 red bell pepper, diced fine
1 garlic clove, minced
1 1/2 cups frozen corn kernels
10 oz can Rotel Mild Tomatoes
8 oz small can plain tomato sauce
1/4 cup low sodium chicken broth
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
diced avocado
reduced fat sour cream
reduced fat shredded cheese
baked tortilla chips
Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat, add the turkey, season with salt and cook, breaking up with a spoon until turkey browns and is no longer pink; place into the slow cooker. Add the oil to the skillet and sauté the onion, garlic and bell pepper over medium heat for about 4 to 5 minutes. Spoon over turkey into the slow cooker and stir in corn and tomatoes, tomato sauce, cumin, chili powder, paprika and salt, mix until well blended. Pour chicken broth into the crock pot and add the bay leaf. Cover and cook on HIGH 4 hours or LOW 6 hours. Serve with desired toppings.
