Intentional communities are hip. No, not intentional communities where seven strangers find out what happens when people stop being polite, and start getting real. I’m talking about people devoting their time and energy to living communally.
Not all of us are ready to chuck everything and go live on a farm somewhere in Vermont. But wouldn’t it be nice to share the responsibility for getting dinner on the table every night?
A unique co-op in Montreal brings diners together to prepare and eat meals communally. According to an article in the Montreal alternative weekly Hour, the nonprofit Montreal Urban Community Sustainment eventually aims to create a whole cooperative community. But it’s starting out with dinner. For $125 per month (cheap!) you can get an “all-meal” membership, which will provide you with 21 meals a week. Other plans that include fewer meals are even more reasonable. The only catch? You need to go to meetings and put in four hours a week cleaning, cooking, or shopping. Heck, it’s easy to put those hours in on one day of preparing meals at home.
But what about the food? Stephanie Childs, a co-op member, says that meals will likely include:
‘a vegan option and a meat or vegetarian option every night. Because all of the members will take turns preparing food, we expect to have quite a variety of dishes, everything from curries to stir-fry, pasta and quinoa salad.’
The co-op plans to begin serving in mid-July.
Not for me.
What an interesting idea. I suspect it’ll all end in tears because people won’t like the options on any given night, but it’s a pretty cool idea nonetheless.
Oh, man. I’ve always said I’d love another crack at going to college, but the dining hall wasn’t the reason.
I’ve been a facilitator for community kitchens usually run out of well-equipped church kitchens – usually the church charges nil or a very modest fee for their use. Community kitchens only work if a maximum of ten persons sign on – half will turn up regularly. The women I worked along with rolled with consensus decisions and shopped well for ingredients at budget supermarkets. Some stores will give a kitchen a discount – goodwill gesture. These kitchens are for: people who are learning to cook and budget, persons who need the twice a month socializing with their peers, especially stay-at-home parents who have little outside contact. We provided daycare if requested – a church volunteer often looked after childcare or we took turns with the children – in another room. Seniors find the kitchen a good way to prepare nutritious meals with the bonus of company. New Canadians came to learn “Canadian” meals that their school-age children wanted, e.g., mac and cheese, tuna sandwiches, sloppy joes, etc. Seniors and New Canadians had their own kitchens. I have help organize the latter group. Since I teached English as a Second Language, I used my skills to make the project a tool for learning English. Some participants directed cooking days where they taught the rest of us how to prepare foods from their homelands. As you can see, I’m a BIG fan of community kitchens. They can provide nutritious items to take home, provide social contact , can teach English as a Second language and are a great help in introducing participicants to supermarket shopping, etc. etc.