Do you know what a running dinner is about? I didn't know either. In a running dinner, everyone is paired with another person as their running buddy for a 3-course menu, each course being taken in groups of 6. Certain pairs host the dinner, don't move around throughout the evening, and are in charge of the main course. The other pairs either bring appetizers, dessert or drinks, and take the different courses in different houses.
Different roles were assigned:
- Host: group of two people willing to welcome 12 people in their home, four for each meal, and who is in charge of cooking a main course for the second group stopping by
- Starter Person: person in charge of preparing a starter, to be served on his/ her first stop; paired with a runner
- Dessert Person: person in charge of preparing a dessert, to be served on his/ her last stop; paired with a runner
- Runner: someone who is too bad of a cook, but enjoys good food and some fun, is in charge of bringing drinks for the house where they have the starter
Only on the day of the running did participants get informed about who they were running with and which was their first host. Throughout the evening, participants received e-mails with instructions for the following stages (i.e. location of following course). Hosts only know who will visit them as soon as they open the door when the bell rings.
Logistics may seem to be a bit complicated but they were not. All this was organized by a group of three guys - Robert, Constantin and PJ -, who were in charge of sending out instructions every once in a while.
I decided to be a Host, together with Mom and Dad. It was quite fun. We cooked Bacalhau à Brás, and made everyone (but the four guys who had the main course at my apartment) super jealous. For appetizer, Chantal (Lebanese), Kaushik (Indian), Hong Fei (Chinese-Canadian) and Patrick (German), joined us. Chantal was in charge of the course and provided us with guacamole, nachos and lettuce bites. One hour later, for the popular Bacalhau à Brás, we had Narendra (Indonesian), Stan (Polish), Juliana (Romanian) and Thouk (Greek) stopping by. Another hour later, dessert and gin and tonic was served by another super multicultural group.
Mom and Dad were super friendly (as expected), and our visitors actually enjoyed having some outsiders (them) with them. It was quite cool that Mom and Dad got to meet different people (some of them people I didn't know well either).
The Running Dinner ended up at a party (yup, on a Monday night), but neither of us decided to go.
I leave you with a few cool pictures of the evening,
Marta
Lots of fun! And great company!
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