What Are You Bringing to the Potluck? A November Letter from the Editor

It is the first Monday of November. Halloween and its puckish fun are behind us, the clocks have rolled back to reclaim an hour of darkness, and the inexorable march to the holidays has begun. Oh goodie.

November is the month when, depending on your particular role in your particular family, the expectations of hosting, cleaning, and cooking crash down. You may love this; you may dread this. You may adore having a houseful of people, or you may need this introvert’s guide to Thanksgiving. So what better way to launch our month of holiday food than with this reminder? You don’t have to do it all. In fact, the best way to eat in 2019 is with God’s own gift of potluck.

We are kicking off November with Potluck Week, an entire week devoted to celebrating the giddy joy of not cooking all the food. And of course Potluck Week counts double for those of us who don’t ever host at all but drive, fly, train, or bus back to Mom and Dad’s, salad bowl in hand. This week we are exploring the knotty questions of potlucks (including the one buffet mistake that drives me bonkers!) and giving you heaps of ideas for dishes to take that will shower glory upon you. (Because what is a potluck if not a teeny, tiny, mostly silent competition, no?) The whole week kicks off with our five new rules of modern potlucks.

• Read them: The 5 New Rules of Modern Potlucks

But the heart of Potluck Week is something I am so excited about, which is a package of recipes that endeavor to answer the question: What are the ultimate potluck recipes in 2019? We’ve got the ultimate appetizer, ultimate dessert, and ultimate salad and main dish. You might love them, or you may vehemently disagree, but hey, at least we’ll make our case! Watch for those this week (you can follow our Potluck Week tag to see it all as it rolls out. And thank you to our dear friends at OXO for underwriting all of this potluck goodness this week.)

There’s even more coming in November, as we march towards a late Thanksgiving. Here’s a peek.

• Our Cookbook Club in November is focused on PIE with Sister Pie from the Detroit bakery of the same name. Join in!
• Have you played with our oh-so-fun 100 Days of Instant Pot feature? More Instant Pot goodness to come next week, with a top-secret feature we can hardly wait to share with you.
• We are also hard at work testing the best recipes and skills for you in our Showdown series. This month: mashed potatoes, bacon, apple pie, and cornbread stuffing are on our test kitchen agenda.
• Some really lovely and amazing people are on deck for our The Way We Eat series (did you meet this sweet couple yet? Their love story video is so iconic.)
• For Thanksgiving we are telling the story of some of the new and immigrant expressions of food and tradition on the table.
• Last but not least, the month does close out with some of the biggest shopping days of the year; have you signed up for our Cook/Shop email to get all the best kitchen deals (for you or for gifts; it doesn’t matter which!) — if not, what are you waiting for?

Happy November. Welcome to the holidays, and may you have a full table and full glass all month long. We’re here to help make it happen.

You’re all Friendsgiving winners in my book,
Faith