Food Upstages Film at Senior Center's Movie and Potluck Night

Dropping by the in El Cerrito recently, I saw a sign for their monthly potluck and movie night. Although I won’t be a senior by the center’s definition—50—until later in the year, Ellen Paasch, adult programs supervisor, said I was welcome to take part.

I’m a sucker for potlucks, which I attribute to the five years I lived in Northeastern Pennsylvania farm country, where community eating was, and still is, a way of life.

After printing my name next to “entrée” on the sign-up sheet, I saw there were some movie recommendations jotted down, namely Meet the Fockers, Bread & Tulips and Central Station.

I noticed with no little regret that there was a check mark next to Meet the Fockers.  I put my own check mark by Central Station, and went away thinking, “Please—let it be anything but Meet the Fockers.”

On the appointed evening I hauled my massive Le Creuset French oven full of cumin-laced, no-bean, Texas-style chili over to the Senior Center and into the TV/exercise room, which was outfitted with a little sofa and some comfy chairs, auditorium-style.

As I placed my chili cauldron on the long table the staff had set up with a nice cloth and fresh flowers, a gentleman in a lariat tie introduced himself as George, and set out a clamshell container of homemade peach cobbler.

Ellen was there with a cauliflower gratin she made out of two heads of cauliflower from the Senior Center’s own garden. Pat brought pasta salad. Staff member Nousheen came with a vegetarian basmati rice dish, and others set out salad and chocolate cookies.

We turned out to be small but mighty group of about 10.

I was informed by center employee Mariah, who produced a tasty platter of spiced chick peas, that the movie for the evening would be Meet the Fockers—but that wasn’t the worst of it. No one knew how to hook the DVD player up to the huge flat screen television on the wall, so the staff rolled in a small TV on a cart, à la elementary school science class. The DVD itself was not up to snuff either, because the film froze and advanced some number of frames every 5 minutes.

Technical problems didn’t matter much because the food was the main attraction, with everyone eating throughout the first half of the movie and then drifting away to pack doggy bags by the beginning of the second half.

I kept going back for “a little more” of the neckbones and collards, brought in by Mary, along with a side of corn muffins. “I’m Portuguese and black,” she said, “so this is the kind of thing we eat and what other people seem to like.”

Not one person came with store-bought food, so our laid-back group ate very well that evening.

If you like feeding others, which is a cook’s stock-in-trade, and want to try new things yourself, you can’t do better than a potluck.

In honor of the collards, I provide here one of my greens recipes (see attached). Spanish-style Brown Rice with Swiss Chard travels well and is a flavorful way to get brown rice and nutrient-rich chard into your family. Use Jamine brown rice for this dish—it’s fragrant and delicate but stands up to the beating of a stir-fry. It’s also easy to disguise with infused flavor and color, as I’ve done here, which helps when feeding those who have a problem with brown rice.