The Evergreen office is a busy place, and unfortunately, we sometimes we find ourselves glued to the computer and working right through lunch. It’s really no way to eat.

So when the nice weather hit late this summer, my co-worker Matthew and I decided to entice our colleagues away from their desks by reviving the long-lost Evergreen Lunch Club.

The rules are simple: Each week two people bring enough food for a crowd. Everyone else simply shows up with a dish, and we spend the hour together enjoying fabulous food.

We’ve been treated to delicious homemade dishes like chicken coconut curry; lentil curry soup with whole wheat chapatis; sausage, kale, cannellini bean, beer stew, and rigatoni with pesto, peas and potatoes.

When the weather is fair, we we venture out to a nearby park or the green rooftop of 401 Richmond. Overlooking the bustling Richmond and Spadina intersection, this treasured gathering place is an alternate universe of lush potted plants and spectacularly coloured flowers arranged to form cozy nooks and corners. Last week we showed up with a huge pot of vegetarian chili, one dog and a lot of Tupperware containers.

As the weather turns soggy, we’ve been setting up the weekly buffet in one of our meeting rooms. Today was especially delicious: Nathalie prepared chicken marbella with white wine sauce, olives, capers and sweet prunes, and Diana made an incredible salad of chickpeas, bulgur, fresh figs, thyme, lentils, olives and arugula. To finish it off, we had Macintosh apples freshly picked on the weekend by Diana and her kids.

Love to pot luck? Leave us a comment and share your favourite recipe to feed a crowd.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 24th, 2009 at 6:44 pm and is filed under Food, Staff, Toronto. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.