Dinner exchange pays off for 4 families

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — What began as an answer to the busy weeknight question — “What’s for dinner?” — has had an expected result for four families: Friendship.

A dinner exchange program — run by the Benson, Metivier, Roser and Tomlinson families of the east side Bloomington neighborhood since January 2010 — is stronger than ever as the families head into another busy school year.

“The community we have developed is equal to the meals we have shared,” Sarah Metivier said. She, Amy Roser, Jeannine Tomlinson and Jill Benson discussed their program one evening last week over a glass of wine on the deck of Roser’s home, 2809 Clearwater Ave.

The program — which they named Freezer Foodies — involves each family taking one Sunday a month to prepare and deliver two dishes for every family. That’s eight meals for 19 people (eight adults and 11 children) each week.

The meals are prepped but not cooked, meaning they can be frozen for consumption later in the week or thrown into a crockpot, oven or on the grill for enjoyment Sunday night.

Each Sunday, the cook for that week is ready to make deliveries by 5 p.m. What’s delivered often is a kit of food that can quickly be assembled and frequently can be dumped into a crockpot, Tomlinson said. The food is delivered with a copy of the recipe.

“The idea is that the food will be saved for those busy weeknights,” Benson said. “In our house, Wednesday night is busy. But sometimes, the busy night is Sunday.”

The program is working, agreed several of the children.

“It’s easier for us to sit down as a family and have a meal together,” said Natalie Benson, 14.

“I honestly think the Freezer Foodies are awesome,” said Mitchell Metivier, 10. “I’ve gotten to try some foods I’d never tried before.”

In January 2010, Metivier — whose children are 10, 6 and 4 — proposed to her friend Jill Benson — whose children are 14, 10 and 7 — that they start a dinner exchange program.

“My husband had just started a new business and he was not home a lot in the evening,” Benson said. “I get home about 5 p.m. and have until 6:15 p.m. (when her children go to swim practice).

“I didn’t want to do the Avanti’s, La Gondola, Moe’s circuit,” Benson said. “I like to cook and I like to eat at home.”

But cooking every night was impossible, so she was interested in Metivier’s idea.

After doing it one week, they knew the idea was a winner and wanted to add two more families.

“I called Jeannine and Amy,” Benson said. She knew both women enjoy cooking, appreciate a good meal, are fun — and their husbands work long hours.

“I was about to go back to work,” explained Roser, whose children are 1 and 3. “I was nervous about how I would manage a full-time job and still balance work and home life.

“It’s so much more than serving a healthy meal,” Roser explained of dinner on busy weeknights. “It’s the planning and shopping beforehand. And when it’s dinner time, the kids are so hungry. It’s the witching hour.

“The challenge is to be able to pull together a balanced meal with all the food groups but without a chicken nugget or a french fry,” Roser said.

Tomlinson — whose children are 10, 8 and 4 — said “I married a man who works 16-hour days and we had lived here only 18 months so I saw Freezer Foodies as a big help.”

Roser and Benson work full-time, Metivier works part time and Tomlinson does full-time, in-home day care.

When they got together, they realized they shared more than being busy wives and mothers who enjoyed good food.

“We’re all task-oriented people,” Benson said.

Their personalities meshed. They also realized that none of them had extended family in Bloomington-Normal. So they quickly recognized that the program could do more than make dinner time easier.

“At the beginning, we made what was comfortable,” Tomlinson said.

“For the first month, there was no menu planning,” Roser said.

Then the four women discussed food allergies and foods people don’t like. A consensus was no tuna noodle casserole, no nuts and go easy on the mushrooms and green peppers.

They decided that one of the two dishes shared each week would be simple and generic ingredients would be OK.

“We wanted to keep it fair financially,” Roser said.

The families bought 8-by-8 and 9-by-13 aluminum dinner pans and Ziploc rectangular containers, gallon-size freezer bags and sandwich bags for meals, soups, meat marinates, cheeses and other ingredients. Food containers are cleaned and shared among the families.

The four women meet three times a year to plan Sunday meals for the following four months. They discuss not only who can take which Sunday but they come with recipes to discuss.

“We said in the very beginning, you gotta have thick skin,” Tomlinson said. About 25 percent of the meal suggestions are shot down.

“Normally, you can judge by the reaction,” Roser said. All it takes is one of the women saying “I don’t know” to a suggestion. The other women pick up on that and move on to the next idea.

What they come up with is a schedule for four months of Sundays. The variety of meals this fall range from Chicken Pasta Pie to Apricot Grilled Pork Kebobs to Shredded Beef Tacos to Veggie Lasagna Florentine to White Chicken Chili.

Because meals are discussed at the planning meeting, “few dishes are universal bombs,” Roser said. “What is a bomb for one person is a like for another person.”

The few bombs aren’t served again because they are shot down at the next planning meeting. For example, a polenta dish with roasted red peppers and tomatoes won’t be exchanged again. Jeannine’s Mexican Style Chicken, lasagna and spaghetti pie are among favorites.

A benefit of the dinner exchange program is getting families to try a variety of foods.

“It stretches us,” Metivier said. “It’s easy to have six to 10 meals in your arsenal and you’re done. But we’re supplementing those with fancier meals.”

Nutrition is assured because the meals are balanced, the women said. Financially, the program is cheaper than being on your own because the families are eating out less frequently and, because they know what they will be cooking in advance, they buy ingredients in bulk when they’re on sale.

Most important is the friendships that have developed among the parents and children.

Even though Sunday deliveries can be made in 10 minutes, they frequently take longer as the families visit. The children sometimes play together on weeknights.

“It’s been a good way to meet new families,” said Madie Tomlinson, 10.

“What started out as practical food preparation is ending up being an extended family for all of us,” Roser said. “When one of us needs help, the first person we call is a Freezer Foodie friend.”

“We needed a family ...” Tomlinson began.

“So we adopted each other,” Roser said.