{"id":15768,"date":"2019-02-22T10:07:21","date_gmt":"2019-02-22T15:07:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=15768"},"modified":"2020-07-02T10:15:21","modified_gmt":"2020-07-02T14:15:21","slug":"contributing-writers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/contributing-writers\/","title":{"rendered":"Contributing Writers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"issuuembed\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px;\" data-configid=\"37604829\/68739703\"><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"\/\/e.issuu.com\/embed.js\" async=\"true\"><\/script><br \/>\n(Next month: Vicars and Tarts?)<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">By Kate Christensen<\/p>\n<h5 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>NOT YOUR MOTHER&#8217;S POTLUCK<\/b><\/span><\/h5>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-15854\" src=\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/FM19-Hungry-Eye.jpg\" alt=\"FM19-Hungry Eye\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/FM19-Hungry-Eye.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/FM19-Hungry-Eye-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/FM19-Hungry-Eye-200x134.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/>B<\/span><span class=\"s1\">y the time late February rolls around, I\u2019m visited by a sinking suspicion that the past months of bone-deep chill, rock-hard snow, calcified ice, and knifelike winds will actually never go away and that Maine has somehow slipped into a brutal, permanent glacial micro-climate, a mini Ice Age of its own, while the rest of the world heats up. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">Summer was so long ago, it feels like years, decades even, since I\u2019ve gone barefoot in beach sand or picnicked in sunlight. Was that actually me dancing under the stars at that wedding last July? Who was that carefree, lucky person who did those things? Not this hunched, pale, blinking hermit swathed in a thick wool scarf and down coat, my hat\u2019s earflaps frozen to my cheeks, feet insulated in snow boots. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">Feeling thoroughly sick of the isolation, hunger, and cold, and itching for some social fun\u2014enough hunkering down in pajamas with my warm dog and husband in the glow of Netflix\u2014there\u2019s only one thing to do: throw a dinner party, fire up the stove, and fill my kitchen with warm bodies to cheer the place up. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">But dinner parties are expensive and a lot of work, and I owe people payback invites for meals at their houses over the past year\u2014how to narrow the guest list down to the six or eight people who will fit around our dining table? <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">Then I hit on the perfect solution, the Tom Sawyer of dinner parties: a potluck. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">Back in the 1970s, when I was a kid growing up in Arizona, potlucks were the cool, festive thing to do in my mother\u2019s hippie\/boho friend circle. I have visceral memories of tables draped in Indian bedspreads, groaning with pottery bowls filled with turgid lentils and rubbery tofu casseroles next to platters of zucchini, banana, and carrot bread. Think Seals and Croft on the stereo, wind chimes, incense and pot smoke, plenty of facial hair (men), chunky necklaces (women), and unleashed dogs (and kids). Potlucks always made me a little queasy. I hid in a corner with a book, picking at a greasy slab of banana bread, anxious to go home.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">But this is 21st century Maine, a place of scrappy practicality, community-mindedness, and respect for tradition. A potluck dinner happens to fulfill all of those regional mandates. I decide it\u2019s time to get rid of the cobwebs\/wind chimes and reinvent the whole concept.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">So I send out emails, inviting about 20 of my favorite people over on a Saturday night, and telling them to bring food. (Full disclosure: our friends are all good cooks. If you\u2019re going to throw a potluck, this is a huge and indispensable plus. In other words, I wasn\u2019t worried.) \u201cThe theme is \u2018surprise me,\u2019\u201d I tell them. \u201cThe magic of potlucks is that it all works out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h5 class=\"p6\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>THINGS HEAT UP<\/b><\/span><\/h5>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">To follow the general rule of thumb in hosting potlucks\u2014namely, that you should provide a protein and a green\u2014I go to the South Portland Hannaford to stock up on ingredients. I\u2019ve decided to make a big pot of <strong>Hoppin\u2019 John<\/strong>, that traditional good luck Southern New Year\u2019s dish, with black-eyed peas, golden Carolina rice, and Andouille sausage. It feels appropriate\u2014the year is still fairly new, after all\u2014and it confers a literal meaning on the \u201cluck\u201d in the party\u2019s name. Also, it\u2019s a hearty, nourishing, savory one-pot meal that feeds a crowd and is delicious for days afterward. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">For the greens, I make <strong>Braised Savoy Cabbage<\/strong>, which tastes like sophisticated-but-homey haute cuisine. It\u2019s an addictive alchemy of sauce-coated, velvety leaves but has only five ingredients besides cabbage, salt, and pepper: Dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar, chicken broth, olive oil, and onion. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Once the kitchen is warm and steamy from the pots bubbling on the stovetop, my husband, Brendan, and I set up two long, cloth-draped tables in the dining room and plenty of chairs in a circle in the living room. We clear counter space in the kitchen for prep assembly and a bar. On the tables, we arrange stacked paper plates and bowls, plastic cutlery and cups, napkins, tea candles, and snacks for the centerpieces\u2014potato chips, pistachios, clementines, and chocolates. On the side countertop, we assemble an array of beer, wine, sparkling water, cider, kombucha, ice, along with bottles of rum and whiskey for anyone who can\u2019t even with winter anymore. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">By seven, the couch is heaped with coats, and the whole downstairs is full of warmth and conversation. The tables look like a gourmet buffet, an intentional balanced meal of starters, soups, and salads and plenty of hearty main dishes. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">Olivia Gunn and Meaghan Maurice bring cheese, bread, and flowers, the classic \u201cthere was a Rosemont on the way\u201d offering. Mary Pols plunks a heap of fresh wild <strong>Snow Island Oysters<\/strong> on the counter, some as big as a fist, grown by Quahog Bay Conservancy in Harpswell, purchased at Gurnet Trading in Brunswick. She starts shucking them into a plate of ice, with a mignonette alongside, as Dan Abbott flourishes his wife Monica Wood\u2019s signature <strong>Deviled Eggs<\/strong> with an air of marital pride. Two beautiful soups arrive, a <strong>Creole Callaloo Soup<\/strong> that Rick and Barb Russo have made (\u201cThe recipe calls for crab, but I always substitute shrimp,\u201d Rick says, \u201cand warning, it\u2019s got a kick,\u201d so I dive right in), and an equally piquant <strong>Orzo and Andouille Soup<\/strong> courtesy of Ari and Breana Gersen. There are two complementary salads, a <strong>Shrimp and Artichoke Vinaigrette<\/strong> from Allison and Lincoln Paine, and a <strong>Citrus Salad with Cardamom Honey<\/strong> from Desi van Til and Sean Mewshaw. As Desi puts it, \u201cIt\u2019s vaguely Moroccan, full of the vitamin C we need in winter, and oh so pretty.\u201d Yes indeed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cWhy is it always the same damn people at these writer parties?\u201d my friend Bill Lundgren mock-grouses as he arrives. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThey\u2019re called our friends, Bill,\u201d I tell him, and we both laugh.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">I\u2019m sensing a theme here (besides local literati), and it\u2019s Southern\/Mediterranean, full of spice, citrus, sausage, and seafood. For the mains, besides my Braised Cabbage and Hoppin\u2019 John (which I set out with a few bottles of Frank\u2019s hot sauce), there\u2019s Bill\u2019s pot of rich, fragrant lentils, decidedly not the 1970s hippie mush of my youth. I\u2019m happy to see Ron Currie and Lisa Prosienski\u2019s classic <strong>Tamale Pie<\/strong>, which warms my Arizona-bred heart. Ron confesses that he researched the perfect potluck dish, and this is what he came up with. One bite and I\u2019m transported back to the Southwest. And Rachael and Seth Harkness have made a luscious chicken dish with oranges and fennel from an Ottolenghi cookbook. \u201cYou can actually eat the oranges,\u201d Rachael says proudly. And I do\u2014more vitamin C.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5 class=\"p6\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>IN FULL SWING<\/b><\/span><\/h5>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">A couple of hours in, I find myself on a chair in my own living room with my second plateful of food, talking to a few friends between bites. Our dog, Angus, circulates among the crowd, trolling for freebies and dropped bits. Brendan\u2019s in the kitchen, wrestling to open the last oyster, a gigantic Pandora\u2019s Box of a monster, and talking to another group of friends. Over the animated discussion of recipes and decision making, I get the sense that we\u2019re all satisfied, except for the usual heartfelt complaints about parking on the West End. The thing about a potluck, I realize as I fork another delicious bite into my mouth, is that people tend to bring their A-game. There\u2019s an element of competitive derring-do. No one wants to look bad. You want your dish to be popular. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">As the night winds down, Desi turns on the oven and puts her dessert in to warm\u2014a <strong>Panettone Eggnog Bread Pudding<\/strong>. Portions are distributed. Bites are taken. Eyelids flutter and groans of joy are heard. It\u2019s that good.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">Another rule of thumb for throwing a potluck is that everyone takes home what they brought. After the last guest departs around midnight, all we have to do is stack the disposable dishes in the recycling bin, shake out the tablecloths, put away our own leftovers, and move all the furniture back to the proper spots.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">We awaken the next morning to a clean house and a full fridge, with the happy glow of a successful party, along with the conviction that it\u2019s time for potlucks to enjoy a new heyday. We\u2019re going to throw another one this summer, we decide over leftover Hoppin\u2019 John with a fried egg on top and a hearty sprinkling of Frank\u2019s. We\u2019re already wondering what everyone will bring.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"s1\">Kate Christensen is the author\u00a0of seven novels, including<em> The Great Man<\/em>, which won the 2008 PEN\/Faulkner Award for fiction, and <em>The Last Cruise<\/em>. She\u2019s written two food-centric memoirs, <em>Blue Plate Special<\/em> and <em>How to Cook a Moose<\/em>, which won the 2016 Maine Literary Award for Memoir. She lives with her husband in Portland.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Tom Sawyer of dinner parties: a potluck.<br \/>\nBy Kate Christensen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,315],"tags":[316],"class_list":["post-15768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-hungry-eye","tag-februarymarch-2019"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15768"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18945,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15768\/revisions\/18945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}