Category: potluck

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Reminder! The Feast of Saint Valentine, Pagan Potluck

By Grace Maselli

Check this out from the History Channel: “While some believe that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine’s death or burial—which probably occurred around A.D. 270—others claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to ‘Christianize’ the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.”

So, in honor of paganalia and crop production, they’re’ll be a TBT Valentine’s Potluck on Sunday, February 16 from 3 to 6 PM. Wear your heart on your sleeve or on a special V-Day T-shirt! Bring your So-Easy Coq au Vin to share or other Vintage Valentine’s Day classics: Salmon Mousse Canapes, Baked Oysters with Tasso Cream (whatever Tasso Cream is), Crown Roast with Apricot Dressing, or luscious Fudge Tort. Or if it’s easier, bring Mac ‘n Cheese and black olives on all of your fingers and thumbs. They’ll go well with the paper plates and plasticware.

And while it’s true that the potluckaroo is five weeks and five days away from this writing, time flies. So mark your calendar for some conviviality and the making of a holiday in your image of what it means! Bring your favorite love poem or ballad to read aloud. Bring a haiku or an ode. A quatrain or free verse. We’re open to Roman gods, creative expression, and food.

Date Sunday, February 16, 2019
Time 3 to 6 PM
Address 2128 Park Crescent Drive
Land O Lakes, FL 34639
Questions? Contact Grace at (215) 834.4567 and reference the Valentine’s Potluck
Posted on

The Feast of Saint Valentine, Pagan Potluck

By Grace Maselli

Check this out from the History Channel: “While some believe that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine’s death or burial—which probably occurred around A.D. 270—others claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to ‘Christianize’ the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.”

So, in honor of paganalia and crop production, they’re’ll be a TBT Valentine’s Potluck on Sunday, February 16 from 3 to 6 PM. Wear your heart on your sleeve or on a special V-Day T-shirt! Bring your So-Easy Coq au Vin to share or other Vintage Valentine’s Day classics: Salmon Mousse Canapes, Baked Oysters with Tasso Cream (whatever Tasso Cream is), Crown Roast with Apricot Dressing, or luscious Fudge Tort. Or if it’s easier, bring Mac ‘n Cheese and black olives on all of your fingers and thumbs. They’ll go well with the paper plates and plasticware.

And while it’s true that the potluckaroo is five weeks and five days away from this writing, time flies. So mark your calendar for some conviviality and the making of a holiday in your image of what it means! Bring your favorite love poem or ballad to read aloud. Bring a haiku or an ode. A quatrain or free verse. We’re open to Roman gods, creative expression, and food.

Date Sunday, February 16, 2019
Time 3 to 6 PM
Address 2128 Park Crescent Drive
Land O Lakes, FL 34639
Questions? Contact Grace at (215) 834.4567 and reference the Valentine’s Potluck
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Oh, Joy!

By Grace Maselli

Ho ho ho’s, Festivals of Light, and Kwanzaa—Swahili for the “first” harvest’s premier fruits. At TBT, our hearts are open to all holiday traditions in their myriad and distinctive forms. To honor variety and community connection, please join us for this year’s Third Tuesday festive December gathering where we’ll come together to share food and make ornaments of all persuasions. Bring your favorite holiday dish to share—from pecan crusted green bean casseroles to turkey pot pies and everything in between—and toss any art supplies you’re comfortable gluing, taping, whittling, or whatnot in a bag and head to Tampa’s Life Enrichment Center. That’s where we’ll hang out, make stuff, and eat. And per our own time-honored tradition, we’ll expend some valuable energy talking about timebanking and the beauty of exchanges to enrich life across our subtropical landscapes. Make it merry, make it light, bring your friends and neighbors to celebrate and be bright with TBT!

 

 

 

 

 

Date Tuesday, December 17, 2019
Time 6:30-8:30+ PM
Address Life Enrichment Center
9704 North Boulevard, Tampa, FL 33612; phone: 813.932.0241
Questions? Contact coordinator@tampabaytime.org or call (215) 834-4567 and reference our 2019 Holiday potluck at LEC
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It Was a Holiday Hullabaloo

By Grace Maselli

 

That’s right. It was a commotion. A happy fuss. A bit of an uproar complete with panpoolers, pantookers, and drums. Well, drums and symbols and sound effects, to be sure, from folks blowing into glass bottles and making rhythms with clackers and castanets. TBT’s Thanksgiving Friendsgiving celebration last night at Tampa’s Life Enrichment Center rattled the beautiful art on the walls just a tad when post-meal musical improv—complete with OM chanting and time for storytelling—made for lush community connection and singalong (sans the bonfire). The vibrations and reverberations, the cling clang and bing bong and laughs, stirred the soul with the energy to “bring about social change.” We were led by our fearless presenter and longstanding member, Karen Lowman, who got the notes flowing after she answered guests’ questions about timebanking, exchanges, and the ins and outs of how it all works. And of course there was food. Crock pots bubbled and veggies lay in wait to be snarfed. Bundtinis and pies, chocolate and treats, were shared by all.

Stay tuned for holiday festivities slated for our Third Tuesday in December on the 17th when we’ll make homemade ornaments at the Life Enrichment Center (Yippee Ki-Yay!) .

 

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Reminder: Tomorrow Is Tuesday Turkey Time!

By Grace Maselli

Hard to believe it’s Turkey Time again! Here’s a quick reminder of tomorrow’s festivities: Members and friends, join us at a shared, sure-to-be-DEE-lish pre-Thanksgiving potluck table. It’s a place where young and old alike (and everything in between) are whole-heartedly and timebank-style welcome. We’d love to see you in Tampa for this year’s “Friendsgiving” where we’ll be serving up goodies and gratitude. So bring a fun dish to share! Here’s the down-low on the not-so-skinny holiday:

Date Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Time 6:30-8:30+ PM
Address Life Enrichment Center
9704 North Boulevard, Tampa, FL 33612; phone: 813.932.0241
Questions? Contact coordinator@tampabaytime.org or call (215) 834-4567 and reference our Thanksgiving potluck at LEC

 

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Shake Yer Pots, Rattle Some Pans

By Grace Maselli

 

This year’s TBT pre-Turkey celebration will include improv music: ad-libbed and noteworthy notes as spontaneous accompaniment to yumilicious food! So join us for our November 2019 Third Tuesday Turkey and don’t forget your paper plate banjo and rattle drums—yer do-it-yourself tambourine and some knee-jerk symbols. Hop the holiday bandwagon in Tampa for this year’s “Friendsgiving,” when we’ll share Thanksgiving goodies and gratitude.  Bring a fun dish! If you need food ideas check out this list of classics. Here are the essential details on the not-so-skinny holiday:

Date Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Time 6:30-8:30+ PM
Address Life Enrichment Center
9704 North Boulevard, Tampa, FL 33612; phone: 813.932.0241
Questions? Contact coordinator@tampabaytime.org or call (215) 834-4567 and reference our Thanksgiving potluck at LEC

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It’s Third Tuesday Turkey Time, Bring Your Sweet Potato Casserole and Some Gobble-ish-us!

By Grace Maselli

Hard to believe it’s Turkey Time again! Members and friends, join us at a shared, festive, pre-Thanksgiving potluck table where young and old alike (and everything in between) are whole-heartedly and timebank-style welcome. We’d love to see you in Tampa for this year’s “Friendsgiving” where we’ll be serving up goodies and gratitude. So bring a fun dish to share! Here’s the down-low on the not-so-skinny holiday:

Date Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Time 6:30-8:30+ PM
Address Life Enrichment Center
9704 North Boulevard, Tampa, FL 33612; phone: 813.932.0241
Questions? Contact coordinator@tampabaytime.org or call (215) 834-4567 and reference our Thanksgiving potluck at LEC

 

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They Arrived, They Self-Expressed, They Listened

By Grace Maselli

Beautiful objects, symbols, and handmade art from natural elements were brought to the TBT “Decorate the Springtime Tree” potluck and adventure on May 19. Participates shared Asian cats, a reference to beloved animals and multiculturalism, jewelry and discussion of its energetic frequencies, handmade pieces denoting devotion to curiosity and respect for critical thinking, women’s empowerment and strength, and meaningful, deep friendship.

It was a Sunday afternoon spent timebank-style, where members  and guests came together in a safe space as a community to look into each others faces and tell their stories, building friendship through listening and acknowledgement. Consider Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau’s words, “[T]he essence of friendship [is] the cultivation of true sympathy,” a belief he also extended to connection and sympathy with “non-human beings.”

To learn more about our growing Florida-wide timebanking network, check out our flyer.

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It’s a “Decorate the Springtime Tree” Potluck!

By Grace Maselli

Put it in your calendar: Sunday, May 19 from 3 to 6 PM. TBT and its friends and guests will be self-expressing and chowing down on potluckery on a Sunday afternoon. Coming together as a community to connect and share. And of course we have a theme! We’ll be festooning the tree pictured here. Guests should plan to bring a personal emblem, ephemera, memento, relic, small photo, object, remembrance, Roadside America gadget, souvenir, or bauble, to hang from a tree branch—anything participants feel is a reflection or symbol of who they are. It can be store-bought, homemade, borrowed, rented, picked up at a yard sale, accepted on temporary or long-term loan. You name it. Could be a mini collage, a symbolic animal that represents what you value in strength, speed, ability to camouflage. It could be something that sparkles to represent engagement with the world around you. It should be about the size of a standard holiday tree ornament, maybe no bigger than your hand. Anything you conceive that is valuable to you and authentically symbolizes what you want to share with guests, is fair game. But it must be able to hang from a tree branch. So get out your glue gun, tape, sealing wax, paste, chewing gum, stickem stuff, and ribbon, string, fishing line, cord, twine, dental floss, or copper wire to make it work. (To make it dangle from a branch!) Plan to bring a yummy, crowd-pleasing dish to share. And prepare to let us know why you chose what you chose, then pick a place on the tree for your object. We’ll hang all pieces from the tree and take a community photo as an area-wide timebanking keepsake! Let’s come together to satisfy our collective hunger for stories and to build friendship! 

 

Date Sunday, May 19, 2019
Time 3-6 PM
Address 2128 Park Crescent Drive
Land O Lakes, FL 34639
Between Collier Pkwy and Livingston Road
Questions? Contact Grace at mgmwrite@gmail.com
or 215.834.4567

 

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Valentine’s Potluck: Conversations on Love, Life, and Timebank Exchanges

By Grace Maselli

This Sunday, February 10, in honor of timebanking and Valentine’s Day, 18 of us gathered to celebrate. We had poets and painters and a naturopath. We had an insurance specialist, a Liberian cookbook author fluent in French—professional writers, teachers, puppies, and a professor from Pasco County’s St. Leo University. We had an online university student and many students of life. There were two almost-too-adorable, bright, kind, creative kids who made up Valentine’s stories on the fly! We had a former priest and a Zen Buddhist who studied in Japan. We talked about first dates and weddings. About loving, sought-after step mothers who are confidantes and sources of deep connection to their spouse’s children from other loving mothers. We talked about inter-generational mother-daughter relationships, bad dates, lost loves, hormones, and life in general. We took a Valentine’s Day quiz and had some lively responses! We shared our newly printed fliers and, of course, we ate and then ate some more. Tuna, pasta, chicken,  star fruit, split peas, carrots, avocados, pizza, chocolate…a suitable smorgasbord!