<p>Wow, everyone wishes they had a mom like you! I’ll be asleep at 6 am.</p>
<p>Lots of great ideas but many more appropriate for the host to provide. I really don’t want to bring over anything that has to be kept warm, or cooked later, or kept frozen or that takes up a lot of fridge space. They want food to be brought over in the afternoon, to be served about 9 hours later. </p>
<p>I guess because I have limited space, I’m sensitive to how much room what I bring takes up. I remember hosting a church pot luck where one women brought fondue, which tasted great, but with the pot and forks and many bowls of stuff to dip, her contribution literally took up a third of my serving space.</p>
<p>Another time, we had two couples for dinner and one couple brought over all the fixin’s for banana splits. Of course, I served that instead of the cheesecake I’d made but the biggest problem was finding freezer space for three gallons of ice cream in my tiny, crowded freezer. </p>
<p>Y’all are a very creative, hospitable crowd. Wish we hadn’t let our Sam’s membership expire.</p>
<p>Bring something your kid will eat. Also I like to bring something that isn’t sweet. It seems like everyone likes to bring a dessert. The kids end up starved.
As for keeping something cold or warm. I have one of those big silver hot/cold bags. They would work for something that doesn’t need to stay super hot or icy cold. A old lunchbox with some ice packs could hold several tubs of cream cheese for bagels. </p>
<p>Kids don’t mind eating cold or room temp chicken tenders and you can send a container of ketchup.
Or kids here seem to love ceasar salad. You can buy the prewashed lettuce. It doesn’t need to stay super cold. Cardini’s makes a great bottled dressing. A container of grated parmesan can be in a lunch box. Add some bags of croutons. The last event we went to the kids devoured the salad.
My D goes foxhunting. After the hunt they have a potluck. Most people have their contribution in the horse trailer in a cooler or hot bag. Everyone seems to enjoy the pasta, lasagna and enchiladas and such even at room temp.
Another idea is to bake up some blueberry or corn muffins.
I know it is so easy to pick up stuff from Costco or Sams. But it is nice to have something different.
The last potluck my D went to most of the kids brought desserts from Costco. One Mom made homemade Chocolate Chip cookies. Guess which dessert went first. We had a ton of the Costco stuff left over at the end of the night to get rid of.</p>