Maggie's Cafe by Diane

Wednesday, August 22nd.

To top off an already amazing day, we ended our trip to the Lincoln area with a potluck dinner at Maggie’s Café in downtown Lincoln. I’ve got to tell you, when Nebraskans say they’re going to put on a potluck, they definitely put on a potluck!

We were a little behind schedule with our visit to Rosalie’s and farm tours that day, so we arrived maybe 20 minutes late (which is why you won’t see any photos of the food before it was eaten). When we arrived, we were blown away by the response. People were coming and going, so all told, there were around 100 people that came to the meal – and everyone brought a dish. The amazing thing was that they not only brought a dish, they brought a gourmet, I spent a lot of thought and time into making this kind of dish. There were various types of quiches, vegetable pies, shepherds pies, even a noodle pie kind of dish and a flatbread pizza type pie with goat cheese and vegetables. And the food just kept coming with the people who attended.

Everyone sat at long tables community style, which was nice because it made it much easier to talk. I met folks from Open Harvest, the food coop in Lincoln, someone from the university of Nebraska who was involved with a campaign called Good Fresh Local. The campaign brings a local food into the city campus and east campus dining halls. They have some items sourced locally, and once a month, they have a local meal. The program is so popular that students from one campus are now being seen on the other when the local food meal is served.

And that’s what’s happening at a lot of these events – we’re meeting person after person who are working on sustainable food issues. And the amount and diversity of food groups is encouraging.

So Maggie’s was a huge success – here’s to many more potlucks like this on our tour! And, so far, Nebraska wins for most good food fed to one person in a day!

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