Salad pro tempore

'Tis the season for potlucks, though any season is a good one, if you ask me. Even though some people groan at the mention of one, potlucks build communities, a sorely needed panacea in this fractured society.

As a child, I was amazed at the seeming randomness of potluck offerings, but I'm beginning to see patterns emerge as I grow older. Potlucks happen when a group of people who have a commonality gather to break bread together. A group's first potluck is often risky (unless organized by Methodists or the like, in which case A-L bring main course, M-Z dessert), but successive potlucks stabilize. Some people have standby dishes that they always bring, which are often so good that others come to expect and anticipate them. Others can always be counted on to bring whatever is easy to grab from the supermarket deli. We tolerate their offerings because we enjoy their company. Late arrivals are heralded, not only for the joy of seeing old friends again, but because their offerings placed on the table are a good excuse to revisit the buffet. By the time you've emptied your plate, you can go back an fill it up with a combination of more of the really good stuff plus some of the new.

I serve on a board of directors for the local translators and interpreters association, and we gather for our meetings over a potluck. There is an unspoken code: we can rely on the Belgian project manager for cheese and bread, the Russian conference interpreter always brings something hearty and carb-loaded, the Swedish literary translator lives around the corner from a terrific bakery, the Japanese-English patent translator (who always seems to be on deadline) brings potato chips, and so on. (Our former newsletter editor always brought homemade cookies. We miss her terribly.) The problem is our secretary, or rather her absence. She makes terrific salads, but when she can't make it, we not only have no one to take the minutes, everyone else jumps in with a salad. Last night was a perfect example: the balance being upset by her absence, we had three green salads, a green pepper salad, a frittata, pelmeni (a sort of Russian tortellini) and a bag of honey Dijon potato chips. Since I'm not eating wheat or eggs (my own fault, I know), my dinner consisted a lot of salad and potato chips. One salad in particular was heavenly: red leaf lettuce, avocado, cherry tomatoes and cranberry with a silky vinaigrette. The German technical translator who brought it went home with an empty bowl (labeled with her name, of course). We also asked her to take the minutes.