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Issue Date: December 3, 2006
Dinner co-op
A Denver group cooks up a clever meal-sharing plan.
By Laura Daily
What's for dinner? For a quick and easy answer that's more satisfying than dialing up Domino's, consider starting a dinner co-op. By exchanging home-cooked, frozen meals, members can enjoy tasty dishes with minimal hassle.
Co-ops can include a social hour along with a meal exchange.
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"I was worn out by the idea of cooking every night," says Jana Miller, who founded Denver's Highland Dinner Co-op in February. She contacted like-minded pals to gather monthly and swap healthful dishes like coq au vin and crab cakes. There are up to 14 co-op cooks who prepare meals at home, making whatever they choose. The only rules: Use organic ingredients whenever possible, shop locally and freeze portions in zip-lock bags. Each participant brings two frozen servings per person (in Miller's group, that's 28 servings), plus extra for "tasting" during a freewheeling social hour.
Members dish out $80 to $95 per month, depending on the recipes. John Skrabec, known for his gourmet Greek-style salmon, is happy to participate in a little culinary one-upmanship. "There is always something interesting in the freezer," he says.
Inspired to start a dinner co-op? Miller's recipe for success: Keep the group small, seek participants without limited palates, and set portion size to avoid skimpy meals. "Dinner used to be a spirit-buster," she says. "Now it's a spirit lifter."
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Shop and stay awhile
Malls with educational play areas keep kids, and parents, happy.
Elbowing one's way through the bargain-hunting holiday throngs is difficult enough. Doing so with cranky kids in tow? That could send even the most devoted mall mavens scrambling to the Internet. To make shopping more pleasant year-round, select malls across the country have installed play areas that are entertaining and educational -- the perfect place to take a timeout.
Tysons Corner Center, McLean, Va. As many as 100 young bookworms flock here for monthly book readings. Kids can reinforce language skills by playing on giant alphabet blocks and climbing through the "Tree of Knowledge."
Queens Center, Elmhurst, N.Y. "Jazz alley" trumpets musicality as kids learn about and clamber on instruments made of soft foam while grooving to piped-in tunes.
Twenty Ninth Street, Boulder, Colo. This retail center partnered with the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration and the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics to create exhibits, including a 35-foot rocket and a clock that tells atomic time.
Westfield shopping centers, nationwide. Eighty percent of Westfield's properties include Playtowns, which have interactive wall panels that teach preschoolers about size and color.
West Oaks Mall, Houston. A 32,000-square-foot "edutainment" complex, complete with a pretend supermarket and dinosaur dig, is slated to open here in 2008.
-- L.D.
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