Potluck and the Fates

The table was covered with potatoes. Steamy au gratin, funeral and mashed. Wrinkly baked and chive-covered twice-baked. Chunky salad, salty chips, cornflake-strewn scalloped and golden hashed. There were even tots. They were mostly good dishes, but one can only eat so many mouthfuls of potato at one sitting. Even the big eaters were giving up halfway through the food line, turning from the table holding both edges of their unwieldy paper plates to prevent a one-sided collapse. This potluck I attended recently wasn't so lucky.

Hosting a potluck dinner tempts the fates. You are counting on the random flow of the universe to provide karma enough for equal distributions of carrot sticks, frog-eye salad, brownies, and ham. Doesn't the universe have better things to worry about? It is just as likely to speak "chips and salsa" to 27 of the 30 attendees as to provide a random distribution of culinary chatter.

The great potlucks I've attended have relied less on luck, and more on sign up sheets. A sign-up sheet supersedes fate. It also keeps the pot-bearer anonymous. I like assignments. Tell me to bring a Jell-o salad, and I'll do it willingly. When I have to choose a dish, it reveals too much about who I am.

You can't bring anything too fancy. People will think you have too much time on your hands, and that you need more to do. Or too expensive for the same reason. No French cheeses or seafood. You can't bring anything exotic or, lacking explanation, no one will know how to eat it. It has to be a good color, because even if it smells and tastes great, the hue can put people off pre-scoop. It has to be able to sit on a table for an hour without significant damage and still look appetizing.

If you are going to make one of the Three Pillars of the potluck dinner (potato, sweet salad, and cake), you'd better make it good. Potlucks are the Miss America of inexpensive food pageantry. Your pan will be competing against offerings from experienced cooks, mothers of six who can feed the whole family a full-course meal on two dollars or former military chefs who prepared 60 pounds of potatoes au gratin a day for 22 years.

It isn't a competition, you say? It isn't if you run short on food, and every pan is emptied in the end. But I've never seen that happen. Every pot-bearer is keeping on eye on his or her dish to see who scoops from it and how much is taken. If the first few people in line don't scoop, the dish may be doomed. Everyone wonders why no one has scooped it, and so no one dares to take the plunge. A few even nudge their faithful spouses to go back and dutifully take the maiden dip out of their own pan, just to keep up appearances.

I've attended my fair share of potlucks. There are a few constants. Bright orange punch is inevitably spilled onto paper tablecloths. The first ten people in line are always boys between the ages of 8 and 13. There is always the person who finds a "friend" at the front she needs to reacquaint herself with, and just seems to melt right in as the food line moves along.

There is also always the feeling of being in 30 warm kitchens with 30 fussy mothers serving the best of what they make for dinner. It is a comforting, filling, delicious place to fill your plate.