So we went in blind.

The potluck was scheduled for 6 PM on the last Saturday in June, which in Ravenswood means the mosquitoes are biblical and the heat is the wet, heavy kind that makes you reconsider all your life choices. Bill volunteered his dining room because it's the biggest—a proper Victorian space with pocket doors and a table that seats twelve if you squish.

I arrived at 5:47 PM with my contribution: a large Pyrex bowl of potato salad. Classic recipe. Red potatoes, mayo, celery, hard-boiled eggs, the pickle relish my grandmother swore by. I'd made it that morning, let it chill properly, even used the good paprika on top.

Elena was already there, setting her dish on the sideboard. A large ceramic bowl. Full of potato salad.

We looked at each other. Looked at our bowls. Laughed nervously.

"Great minds," Elena said.

"Or no minds," I countered.

Tom walked in at 5:51 carrying—and I am not making this up—a Dutch oven full of warm German potato salad. That's when we knew we had a situation. —  Rachel Kim

Maya arrived next. Potato salad. Hers had bacon.

Jacob showed up with his roommate Sam. Two more potato salads—one with dill, one with mustard instead of mayo because Sam "doesn't trust mayonnaise," which is a whole separate conversation we've never fully resolved.

Jesse, who'd been living in the corner cottage for exactly two weeks, contributed potato salad number seven. Vegan. Made with an aioli he'd apparently spent three hours perfecting. It was, he assured us, "really good potato salad."

Bill surveyed the growing collection of bowls on his dining table and started laughing—deep, wheezing, bent-over laughter that's contagious. Soon we were all losing it, crowded in his dining room, seven variations of the same dish slowly warming in the June heat.

"Did anyone bring anything else?" Tom asked finally, wiping his eyes.

Silence.

"I have hot dogs in my freezer," Bill offered. "From last Fourth of July. Probably still good."

"I've got bread," Sarah called from the doorway, where she'd just arrived—late, empty-handed, immediately understanding the situation. "And peanut butter."

"There's beer," Jacob added. "Warm beer. In my trunk. Been there since I moved."

This is how the First Annual Ravenswood Potluck became the Great Potato Salad Tasting. We labeled the bowls with masking tape—"Rachel's Classic," "Elena's Secret Recipe," "Tom's German," "Maya's Bacon," "Sam's Mustard," "Jacob's Dill," "Jesse's Vegan Aioli." Bill found paper plates and actual forks. Someone produced the warm beer. Sarah made peanut butter sandwiches as palate cleansers.

We tasted systematically, like we were judging some county fair competition. Took notes. Debated ingredients. Tom's German potato salad started a fifteen-minute argument about whether vinegar-based versions count as "real" potato salad. Jesse defended his aioli with the passion of someone whose three hours of labor were being questioned. Maya's bacon won points for "most likely to cause a heart attack" and "best emergency breakfast food."

Somewhere around the fourth potato salad, we stopped caring about the absurdity and started caring about each other's stories. That's when it stopped being a disaster and started being what we'd actually needed all along. —  Rachel Kim

Elena told us her recipe was her mother's, brought from Guadalajara, modified over thirty years in three different states. The celery was non-negotiable. The lime juice was her addition.

Tom's grandmother made his version every Christmas in Munich, served it with schnitzel, died last year still convinced American potato salad was "an abomination."

Jesse's vegan aioli represented six months of learning to cook after his divorce, every recipe a small declaration of independence from the marriage that had slowly erased his preferences.

We ate all seven potato salads. Every last scoop. Paired them with questionable hot dogs and warm beer and peanut butter sandwiches. Sat at Bill's table until mosquitoes drove us to the porch, then stayed on the porch until after midnight, telling stories that had nothing to do with potatoes.

Sarah admitted she'd purposely "lost" the sign-up sheet because organized potlucks stressed her out. Bill confessed he'd been terrified no one would come. Maya revealed she'd almost bailed three times, convinced her bacon potato salad would be judged inferior.

By the time we disbanded, sticky with humidity and overfull with mayonnaise-based carbohydrates, we'd established three new traditions: 1) The annual potluck would always be chaotic, 2) Someone would always bring too much potato salad, 3) We'd never, ever use a sign-up sheet again.

The Second Annual Ravenswood Potluck happened last month. Five people brought potato salad. Three brought variations of coleslaw. The chaos continues, which is exactly the point.

Because the best community moments aren't the perfectly coordinated ones. They're the nights when everyone brings the same dish and you laugh until you cry and somehow, in the mess of it all, you become something that wasn't there before—a chosen family that can't organize a potluck but shows up anyway, every time, with whatever they've got to share.

5 COMMENTS