Using a Potluck to Spark Family Storytelling with Cynthia Nims

Our guest today,

Cynthia Nims

joined us from her home kitchen in Seattle Washington. Cynthia is the voice behind two delightful Substack publications, SeafoodSavvy and LongLivetheRecipeBox, and her website of the same name. As a published food writer, and cookbook author, and teacher, Cynthia brings her unique appreciation for food, gatherings, and the conversations they evoke. Among the guests joining me in today’s program and the discussion were

Anna Scheutz

from Sweden,

Linda Teather

and

Marci Keats Rudolph 🇨🇦

from Canada, and

Diane Burley

from the US.

Few things combine to unlock memories more effectively than the sensorial experience of food, especially comfort and holiday dishes. In today’s delightful program Cynthia took us through the idea of a storytelling potluck, a topic covered in this post from earlier this year:

Consider a Beloved-Recipes Potluck

Cynthia’s collection of memories and her mother’s recipe cards seem emblematic of family treasures.

Chili con Queso from Cynthia’s collection and the recipe cards from her mother’s collection.

We talked about how these recipes, especially the hand-written ones, drew on ingredients and sensibilities at the time. Substitutions might be necessary for modern tastes and pantries.

An American classic Cranberry-Orange relish served with Thanksgiving Turkey combines three ingredients and is printed on the OceanSpray berry package.

Surprisingly often, fun and treasured family recipes can turn out to be simple back-of-the-package specials.

Among Cynthia’s tips are to:

• Consider the timing of your event. Scheduling it during a meal, such as dinner might constrain creativity to you have a balance of dishes to serve.

• Be thoughtful in your invitation to guide your guests so they know what you’re expecting and the recipes and stories to plan for.

• Be creative about ways to capture the conversation and stories shared. Cynthia suggested a blank book that might circulate among guests with stories to be supplemented with photos, for example.

• Keep in mind that not everyone has the same level of cooking experience and that terms like cream the sugar or fold in the cheese can be mystifying. Here’s Cynthia’s reference to the comedy, Schitt’s Creek:

Our discussion included

• The differences in points of view between siblings and the subtle ways in which memories can be different. (Tip: This will be a topic of another Projectkin event on July 29th, “The Scoop on Memories.” Learn more here.)

• How a party can be planned around foods that relate to a family heritage (consider the example of soup dumplings, ravioli and other hand-made treats)

• How dietary constraints among guests need to be planned for (tree nuts, shellfish, gluten, and so on.)

Let’s continue this conversation with more suggestions and ideas in the comments below.

One immediate thought we had in the discussion was to create a food-themed Speakers’ Corner event. Would you be interested in sharing food stories with such a topic?

You can share this video with your friends and family to inspire more ideas.