Healthy Entertaining: Nutrition Parties
Gather your gal pals around for a gab session on food and what happens may surprise you!
by Julie D. Andrews
On the second Wednesday of each month, Lauren Gray meets up to 12 friends for dinner. This isn't your typical girls' night out at a restaurant. Instead, the women have started a dinner club. The first meetings were casual; Lauren's friend Melissa Clough would invite gal pals over for a meal and gabfest on her husband's poker night. But it soon morphed into a not-to-be-missed tradition that now, three years later, is known as Fancy Dinner Night.
Hosting duties rotate, so you're either cooking for the group or bringing wine. When it came time for Lauren, 30, a fundraising officer from New York City, to host again, she had an idea. Why not ask her former colleague, Caryn O'Sullivan, a certified health counselor who founded the Appetites for Life nutrition practice, to visit the group? Caryn was game. Soon, she and Lauren were planning their first nutrition party. The concept was simple: experiment with healthy new dishes, preparing and tasting them together in a casual setting.
