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Circle Suppers

New River Valley, Virginia

L-R—(empty chair for photog, Grace Youhas); Jake & Linda Moll; Aubrey & Bonnie Bunger (hosts for March Circle Supper); Owen & Cheryl Green; John Youhas 

March Menu: Tossed Salad, Savory Cornbread, Chicken Pot Pie Casserole, Roasted Asparagus, Black Forest Cheesecake and WINE!

Once a month we happy eight, we band of brothers and sisters, meet to share food, wine, and laughs galore. One couple hosts which means they search frantically for that one entrée recipe that no one else has tried and Julia Child would envy. 

Linda Moll’s treasure of appetizers for our February supper—bacon bites wrapped around almond stuffed dates; Southern pimento cheese with a variety of crackers; herb dip with cucumbers, peppers, and celery. 

If you’re one of the guests, you choose to bring an appetizer, salad, or dessert. What will it be? A Pinterest recipe? Cook’s Illustrated? Or…a browse through your mother’s food-stained, bedraggled cookbook for her special recipe that always yielded wide smiles and bravos.

Circle Supper members come from disparate backgrounds, nationalities, and professions, but once a month food brings us together and the common ingredient is love—

Love for delicious foods, friendships that cannot be severed, and time together that will never be forgotten.

Cheryl Green with her Mixed Green Salad abundant with blueberries, candied pecans and  tossed with a tangy citrus dressing.(February supper)

Well, some of the conversations might be forgotten—like the one about octopuses (yes that is the correct plural) being aliens who hitched a ride to earth on a meteor. Or the story about how one of our members unknowingly gave her golfing friends indelible pink ink for their “faux” tattoos. Then there was the time the bear attacked the bee hives and then, but no, we can’t share that story! What we can share is our love for food!

Why do we call it Circle Supper? 

Because it circles around to everyone as hosts and encircles us in bonds of fellowship. This circle of friends is unbroken when so much in our world seems to be broken.

We friends have shared the stress of illness, isolation of Covid, deaths of siblings and parents as well as the births of grandchildren, battles won against cancer, stunning art projects, forges hand-built stone by stone, and bee hives flowing with honey. Through it all we have kept our sense of humor and our realization that we have each other. The common ingredient lives strong here in New River Valley, Virginia.

As we fill our plates and relish this time together, we are painfully aware of refugees from Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Haiti, South America, and Africa—too many to fully comprehend. Even though we know where and when our next meal will be, they do not.

Bonnie’s Chicken Pot Pie Casserole and roasted asparagus. Linda Moll’s tossed salad and savory cornbread. Knotty Vines cabernet sauvignon (Photo by Linda Moll)

And what about the food insecure in our own backyards? At 6:30 on a Saturday night, they are not helping themselves to one of Martha Stewart’s chicken pot pies. According to the New River Valley Thrive Network, 10% of our families and one in five children experience hunger or food hardship. 

We give locally—Interfaith Food Bank, Micah’s Backpack, Beans and Rice— as well as internationally—Red Cross, World Central Kitchen, and the Red Kettle at Christmas—just a few of the many groups our members support.

John stands by with a fire extinguisher just in case Aubrey’s kitchen torch gets over-heated as he caramelizes Bonnie’s scrumptious Creme Brûlée. (February supper)

Yes, we have fun! Yes, we prepare delicious meals! Yes, we care and share! The common ingredient lives strong here in New River Valley, Virginia.

Action Idea:  How about you? I would love to hear about your dinner groups, your menus, your successes, your failures, the organizations you support. Find these recipes at thecommoningredient.com

Friends are essential–my life lesson

I wish I knew who created this poster for it speaks of a life lesson I learned in 1989. I was 39 years old and during a routine physical, the doctor announced I had two heart murmurs. Those murmurs meant open heart surgery, weeks out of work, and out of the kitchen (the least of my worries as “cook” has always been a four letter word for me).  But I would need help. My then husband Danny and my now and forever son took excellent care of me. They loved me, and I soon discovered so many others did also.

My sister, my best friend, Valerie, flew in from Florida to cook (not a four-letter word for her), grocery shop for Pinwheels for my husband, rescue Gershwin (my rescue cat) from hanging on ferns and being gently run over. Never has a sister shown such love and kindness to an older sister, who according to her, had made her wash dishes and clean house as a six year old.

Ok, I was suppose to be baby sitting her, but my friends were calling, my boyfriend was calling, what was a teenager to do? Find a foot stool so she could reach the sink and wash those dishes before mother came home from work.

(Val is in the red dress at the left. Photo courtesy of Phil Williams)

Now that didn’t happen a lot, and I’m thinking there was some embellishment on her part, but bottom line–my sister was there for me when I needed her, always has been, and is my best friend. Val is a keeper. I didn’t realize how much I loved her until that year when she sacrificed so much to help me. Kisses and hugs dearest sister, dearest friend.

Celia Kay Dean Smith, whose name I can rarely even think of without tears welling in my eyes, another keeper. Celia and I have been friends since 1973 when she substituted for me in my 7th and 8th grade English classes. That was my first year to teach, and I caught every cold, every virus, even German measles, thus Celia stepping in to fill my shoes.

And in 1989, she stepped in again. Since our first meeting, we had learned to really like  Riunete wine(our tastes improved with the years), Planters’ Punch, Cosmopolitans; we had browsed art museums, picked strawberries, cried on each other’s shoulders, laughed until we almost wet our pants, and remained close even though she had moved from Milan, TN to Raleigh, NC to Toronto to Barbados to Danville, CA to Atlanta and back almost home to Jackson, Mississippi.

Celia is the beautiful woman on the left. Last photo I had with her.

She, too, had rescued Gershwin from being Tarzan and swinging from hanging ferns but never from being run over. That heroic act we reserved for Valerie. She also cooked, cleaned, and flew miles across the country from Danville just to help me.

Celia was an artist, a realtor, a World Book saleswoman, a mom, the oldest of five sisters, a Grancee, a brain cancer victim. When she needed help, she didn’t want me to come or that’s what I kept telling myself. At the time, my father was ill, and when she was on her death bed, he was recovering from surgery. No way could I go to her. I will never forget the night I received the text from her husband, “Celia is with Jesus.” 

But she was not with me and never would be again, except in my heart and soul.

In addition to Valerie and Celia, my friends with whom I worked at the North Carolina legislature and the NC Banking Commission overwhelmed me with visits, with meals, with fragrant powders and lotions, and lavished me with kindness, with unadulterated love and compassion. Never had I felt such an outpouring of friendship and companionship. 

A cliche but true–no man is an island. All my friends were like Carole King singing “You’ve got a friend.” I have never forgotten those two months of surgery and recuperation. I finally understood how important friends were and how important it was to be a friend. 

I know that family and true friends are really one and the same.

Me

My family, my sister Valerie, and my friend Celia are rare people. They showed up at just the right time, and stayed by my side through the rough times and through the good times. 

And even though Celia no longer walks this earth, she is in my heart and gently reminds me–“Be a Keeper.” May you find your own Keepers and be one as well.