Events

About Our Potlucks

Sometimes the potlucks may include a meeting with a speaker, sometimes videos, sometimes a food demo, and sometimes a farmer comes to introduce us to his or her farm products.  And there is always interesting conversation!

The Gold Country Chapter is a volunteer-run organization.  Please help us by becoming a volunteer. Contact us here

Notes About Potlucks:

Gold Country Chapter potlucks are a great place to sample good old-fashioned homemade foods, meet new friends and network. Feel free to ask questions. People who are new to this way of eating are encouraged to attend. You don’t have to bring food the first time you visit.

New to all of this?

For those of you who are new to The Weston A. Price Foundation principles, please see the Dietary Guidelines and Characteristics of Traditional Diets for brief overviews.  We recommend the free Healthy 4 Life booklet.  You may also read What is a “Weston Price” or traditional diet?

For more information read the Principles of Healthy Diets, and then get a copy of the book Nourishing Traditions for in-depth information and recipes. We also recommend you take the Guided Tour of the Weston A. Price Foundation website or explore on your own.  The website has a wealth of information including many articles and beginner videos available free online.  Check out our Recommended Reading section for more great books.

What to bring?

See the above links for general guidelines about what is recommended by WAPF. Anything from Nourishing Traditions is wonderful, but don’t feel it has to be extensive or elaborate.  Any recipe in the Healthy 4 Life booklet would also be a welcome addition.  A simple homemade meal made from scratch using natural fats would be a great contribution.

Some examples include: organic salad with homemade organic dressing, a roasted chicken or other meat, a dish made with soaked grains, soup using homemade bone broth, and steamed or roasted vegetables with butter or cream sauce.  (Don’t know how to make these things?  Come to our classes!)

Items that you can easily pick up from a natural food store include raw cheeses, naturally cured cold cut meats, sourdough bread, organic salad greens, avocado, olive oil and vinegar, fresh fruit with organic cream, or many other options. Check out the raw cheeses made with rennet from the Dedrick’s Cheese Shop in Nevada City.

Please don’t worry about being perfect.  None of us are perfect.  And it doesn’t even matter if you don’t yet eat this way at home!

Bring your own water bottle and napkin

Concerned about cost?

The idea is to bring enough food to feed yourself and whoever else you bring. You do not need to bring enough food to feed a full meal to 6-12 people unless you are bringing 6-12 people! The idea is for everyone to taste each dish and have enough food to feel satisfied. Yes, real food costs more than boxed/processed/artificial food. The savings are in your health, energy and the benefit to the ecosystem.

And you will not find food this good anywhere else outside of a Wise Traditions Conference!

Concerned about preparation time?

 If you have work or school on Mondays, please feel free to make your dish on Sunday and bring it to the event to heat up or assemble if needed.

Concerned about dietary restrictions or food allergies?

We frequently have people at our potlucks who are healing from food allergies and need to avoid a specific food (or many!).  Gluten sensitivity is common. Gluten free grain list is here.  And while it is not required, we frequently have several gluten-free dishes.  It is also common to find people who cannot tolerate other specific foods (including a wide variety such as nightshade, dairy, whey, blueberries, rice, fish, oats, garlic, onions and many others).

PLEASE MAKE A CARD WITH INGREDIENTS TO PLACE NEXT TO YOUR FOOD

Instead of asking everyone not to bring specific foods, at the beginning of each meeting everyone is asked to tell the group about the dish he or she brought or have a card with ingredients on it. You can ask the maker of the dish if it has any of the specific food you wish to avoid in it.  This has always worked well for us, although we have not had anyone with a severe or life-threatening allergy attend our potlucks, and recommend exercising caution if you do have such a condition.

It is worth the effort!

Hopefully meeting new people who share a passion for great tasting food and vibrant health, regenerative farming and gardening, asking questions and learning from each other, will make it worth all the time and effort it takes to get to the event. We are definitely a community of people that includes local farmers.

Please please volunteer!

We need volunteers to keep these events happening. We cannot do this by ourselves. We really do need you. Please ask how you can help here.

Suggestions?

Let us know if you have suggestions to make these events more enjoyable.