Sweet Potato and Onion Casserole meets Front Range Foodies!

I don’t like to bemoan the past year over and over; I’m bored with the injury I suffered in February of 2010 and can’t imagine anyone wants to hear about what I lovingly call my ‘stupid’ leg. But it has been a difficult year. I broke a bone in my left leg in February and it was 5 months before I could stand up and ‘sort of ‘ walk, so I lived in my family room and washed at the kitchen sink. Although I had some help and some visitors, the biggest difference in my life was the isolation. I’m a social person. I belong to the local Chamber of Commerce, run a large wine Meetup group and have always had my hand in some type of community project.

When my life almost virtually stopped, though I appreciated my visitors it was not the same. I missed Happy Hour on Friday nights at Ya Ya’s with my friends, getting to the gym for some much needed stress relief and I even missed an entire season of working in my garden. I found some solace in Twitter and blogging and the friends I had made there but even that had moments of painful reminders that all was not well.

While my friends and clients were attending BlogHer Food or IFBC or Big Summer Potluck…I was here. Stuck. I’m not used to being stuck. I’m stubborn and determined and yes…I make things happen damn it. But this was not happening and my patience has been tried like no other time in my life. Twelve to eighteen months to recuperate? ‘You have got to be kidding’ has been replaced with…well, it’s been a year so let’s hope by 18 months I’m back in the groove again. Yes, I have howled at the moon, cried a river of tears and wondered why me? Not that any of that helps but the frustration has to be alleviated and there are worse things I could do…and I promise, my wine intake has actually lessened; I’m a social drinker!

I had just gotten to a place when I was gaining some increased mobility and thinking about taking this forced isolation matter into my own hands when I was contacted by another local blogger, Andrea with Fork Fingers Chopsticks; she had was reaching out to see if I would discuss how we could bring local bloggers together. Ah…someone thinking along my own wave length? Absolutely.

Fast forward to today. Front Range Foodies met informally in December after we asked people to attend that each of us knew or knew of. By January we had organized a Meetup group and people started to find us; we held our first official monthly event with 10 attendees. We have now grown to 32 members and February saw us holding an informal photo workshop where we all learned something from each other.

We have plans for the members and for the group as a whole, but I think to a person, the one thing I felt I had been missing, that community of people who ‘got’  what I did and why I loved it, they were here, in Denver. I just hadn’t known it. When my friend Nancy with A Communal Table attended a blogger event in Mexico she referred to her experience there as finding her ‘tribe’ and that resonated with me. I now was part of a tribe and it felt good. Our meetings are scheduled from 10a-12p the last Saturday of the month. I’ve learned to keep the day open…we are all so hungry to get to know one another, connect, learn and yes eat that I have seen that time expand to late in the afternoon and that’s  OK by me!

We do ask members to bring a dish to share if they can – because this should be fun and without pressure so if someone is having a difficult day and shows up without a dish; well, we’ve all been there, right? It’s funny that our first meeting was almost all sweets and I guess in an effort to combat that, last month it went the opposite direction and savory had a larger presence on the table. Andrea stopped and got some freshly made tamales, Carter made wonderful mini English muffins, Kirsten fooled us with shortbread; they may have looked like cookies but were savory shortbread crackers and so unique and wonderful. Karen brought some wonderful Stromboli and left some for my dinner too! Lea Ann took advantage of our dictate that no one has to bring a dish if their schedule is crazy but I know we can always look forward to one of her hot and spicy creations another time! Thankfully sweets were not totally forgotten. Look at these adorable sugar cookies from Jennifer at Sweet and Saucy, we’re definitely having a teaching session so she can show us her technique and Jane brought some lovely scones accompanied by homemade jam.  Everything was fabulous and I hope to feature some of my new friends on this blog very soon.

Though I would typically consider a sweet for an event like this, I went savory too. I had just won a box of Door to Door Organics home delivered organic produce from Toni at Boulder Locavore (Toni could not make our first event; we decided to meet for coffee. A three hour coffee. She would fit right in!). I was excited about using some of my just delivered produce and thought a simple dish of sweet potato and onion would be perfect…and gluten free for Toni at that! This was simple and yet so good. Very little needed to be added; the natural sweetness of the sweet potatoes with the baked onions was sublime and I’m growing more and more fond of seeing the more savory side of this simple root vegetable and not covering it up with sugars and nuts.

Tagged as: cayenne pepper, maui onions, sweet potato, white cheddar cheese