Johnston - The prairie table: suppers, potlucks & socials-- crowd-pleasing family recipes to bring people together

Living in the Prairies is all about socializing, spending time with those we love, and enjoying tasty food. The last meal of the day has always been the most important. Breakfast is often toast in the car when my kids are running late for school. Our family eats lunches at school with friends or outside the home with clients. Even farmers are up and out the door before the sun, and lunch is often a packed sandwich eaten out in the field. But supper? Supper is together at the table. Supper is almost always at home, with everyone congregating together for perhaps the first time that day. This need to reconnect at the end of the day with the act of breaking bread at a table together is still just as important today, for farm and city folk alike, as it was in the past.

When prioritizing schedules in our busy lives, we also place great importance on parties and get-togethers in our free time. Perhaps its because not so long ago the bleakness of isolation was very real (and still can be in rural farming areas on the Prairies) and connecting with others in your community was always of the utmost importance. My Grandma Kay lived out in Pine River, Manitoba, a very small community where there was the church, the graveyard, the school, and the community hall. The community hall was a couple of miles from their homestead, yet every Friday night, the local girls would put on their best dresses and stockings and head to the dance. Sometimes they could take the wagon, but most times they would have to walk. And walk they did, even in the winter in those stockings and dresses, because other than church on Sundays, that Friday night social was the only time during the week to enjoy time visiting with members of the community.

Just the word socials alone evokes memories of days gone by when the main form of entertainment was getting together with friends and family for eating, drinking, and visiting with each other at events like barn raisings, church picnics, and harvest dinners. Even today, whether its two people having coffee and dainties, your family sitting down at the table for a nice Sunday dinner, or a big potluck or picnic, the thread connecting all these gatherings is the serving of food we love.

The recipes you will find in this book are what we eat as a family, what we feed our guests at our home, and what we take to gatherings. Whether a salad or vegetable dish, home-baked buns or easy main meal, every recipe in this book is easily cut in half for a smaller family meal or doubled for a large eventeven the cocktails (though why youd want to cut cocktails in half escapes me). I also wanted every recipe in this book to be useful week in and week out, to make your life easier.

You can make a full batch of a crowd-pleasing recipe to take to a soiree or to feed your own guests, whether a side dish or a main course. There are kid-friendly recipes for dinners that will also be perfect for potlucks. There are easy dinner recipes such as Slow-Cooker Beef Dips on might be a go-to potluck dish, but my family eats it twice a month and the kids take it in thermoses for lunches. The salads and vegetable dishes are all sides that you can make any day of the week. The dainties section is perfect for filling up your freezer, to pull out for surprise visitors (so that you have something to serve with coffee!) or the holiday season. Theres nothing like a tray of dainties to get Prairie folks at a party excited!