Potluck

One of my favorite invented traditions of the trip is the weekly potluck.  It is always held on Monday so that the event starts with everyone visiting the laiki agora (the "People's Market" Or "Folk Market" neither of which quite translates properly into English -- "Farmer's Market" is better), where they get a selection of delicious and inexpensive fruits and vegetables from vendors under tents.

Then later than evening, usually around 8 or 9pm, each room contributes something to the shared meal.  Phil cooks a main dish (usually something traditional, like a moussaka or pastitsio or chicken yiovetsi) and the students contribute a wide variety of things from all cultures, including somethings they created themselves. Each year the ante is upped... after the first year, we included the question of what you might cook as an interview question to set the expectation.  After the second year, we discovered that a bunch of the tables in the lobby of the students' residence fold out to make one big long table.

The beginning of the meal

The desserts.  In front is the invented recipe of pastry filled with a home-made fruit filling and more fruit to spoon over it.  In back are honey walnut cookies, reflecting some central tastes of Greece.

   In the past, many students have hung onto this tradition longer than any other, wanting to have weekly potlucks at home too.  Sadly it is pretty difficult to do at home with the logistics of an American life.