Neighborhood of the Traveling Dinner

The neighborhood "small" travelers

I have always wanted to try a progressive dinner, and one day at the pool talked the adjacent cul-de-sac neighbors into giving it a try. Our theme - Back to School. This doubled the challenge as we needed to please the kids AND the adults. We ended up with five families participating - 2 appetizers, 2 main dishes and 1 dessert. We also decided to go BYOB (it was a Sunday after all and with this crew, multiple different adult beverages might not be the BEST idea). We spent 45 minutes at each house, which was just about the right amount of time.

Tomato caprese salad

You can't have a summer appetizer without tomatoes (although they have not enjoyed our midwest summer). Along with this dish was a mascarpone cheese, sour cream, bacon and chive dip served with toasted pita chips seasoned with salt, pepper and oregano. One lesson learned here - give the kids their own serving - they ate most of that dish before the adults could even get to it. We also had fresh limeade with cherries for the kids.

Mingling is what it's all about

We started in the KU pub theme basement and quickly determined that giving the kids their own space is the best way for everyone to enjoy the evening (they were upstairs or outside). The same was true for all of our host homes.

Derek Wiles and Lori Joseph - Hosts #1

Spicing things up a bit

On to the next appetizer location where we were served bacon wrapped jalepenos, stuffed with cream cheese and pulled pork, along with a bread bowl of spinach dip. The kids also had cheese and crackers to munch on.

New family member

The Atkins were extra brave as they had just gotten a new family member the day of the dinner.

Pat and Tiffany Atkins - Hosts #2

The neighborhood "grown up" travelers


Johnny's Ribs

You know the ribs are good when they fall off the bones before you even get them to your plate. This delicious main dish came with a side of baked beans and macaroni. Definitely the diet stop (not).

Johnny and Ginna Festa - Hosts #3

Gumbo - 'nawlins style

By this time, I think we'd pretty much lost the kids (they were stuffed from the first three stops), so the grown ups got to taste some yummy chicken and andouille sausage gumbo - made by the king of gumbo himself.

Rene and Mike DeVincent - Hosts #4

OK, the kids are back

The best way to re-engage the kids is to finish with cookie ice cream sandwiches in a variety of flavors - blueberry granola, snickerdoodle (my personal favorite) and chocolate chip almond (pictured).

Wally and Courtney Bratkiv - Hosts #5

In the spirit of saving the best for last, the Bratkiv's also treated us to key lime martinis - we would expect nothing less of the Bratkiv's than a killer foo-foo drink.

The consensus is we'll definitely do it again and try not to wait until next year's back to school timing. We could always put on snowshoes and equip our coolers with ski's and try one in February!