It’s Spring. Time to come out of hibernation, time to gather with friends and family with some seasonal veggies and a good beer or root beer. Coax your friends out of their winter caves with a locally sourced, sustainability-minded dinner party.
Invite Your Friends and Family
Design a dinner party invite using Canva or the app Partiful. Partiful lets you send a digital invite to avoid paper and helps you track RSVPs. Decide on the tones and theme of the party. Earthy, chill, formal, game night, maybe even a costume party! Any excuse to bust out that old pirate Halloween Costume.
Design a Menu
Use this veggie seasonal chart to find recipes that suit the season. You can find locally sourced ingredients at the indoor Clark Fork Market, open for winter hours Saturdays, 9 am – 1 pm, at 208 Ryman Street, until May. You can find local produce, meats, eggs, and mushrooms. You can also visit Double K Ranch to find both fresh and processed pasture-raised Bitterroot meats. If you need bread or desserts, check out Grist Bakery; they have organically grown grain grown in Montana.
After you decide what you’re making, use Canva to make a dinner menu for your guests. Canva has free menu templates you can use to make a fancy dinner menu. You can print that menu out, or if you want to reduce paper usage, you can send your friends a digital copy of the menu.
Let’s Talk Drinks
Missoula has no shortage of breweries. Many of them offer growler fills and sales for taking beer home: Draught Works, Big Sky Brewing, Great Burn, Highlander, Conflux, Tamarack, Kettlehouse, and The Dram Shop. Make sure you check out their websites for their weekly specials and deals.
If you’re looking to make a specialty cocktail, Montgomery Distillery sells spirits distilled in-house, from their own farm in Heath, Montana. They create Vodkas, Gin, Single Malt, Aquavit, Bourbon, and more!
Set the Table
Use your own tableware and silverware, perhaps thrift some cloth napkins and center pieces if you want to get really fancy. If you want to borrow, Freecycles currently houses a dish library with hundreds of plates, cups, and silverware, and MUD has tons of 6ft tables to lend from our Tool Library.
If you want to buy, Flathead Industries has a great selection of fun dining rooms and serving supplies. On Thursdays, they do %50 off everything! Facebook marketplace usually has a lot of party and wedding lots going for very cheap- think glassware, table cloths, dried and fake flowers, etc. It’s nice to have a little bin of party goods if you’re an aspiring host.
If you’re feeling super crafty and have some time, head over to ZACC. You can paint party favors, tea cups, and vases. Or you can get a pound of clay for $5 and make your own design! That includes the clay, paints, glazes, and firing. You can make some serving plates or candle holders and send them home with your guests.
Hosting is addictive. As things get more and more expensive, it’s important to invest locally and create accessible third spaces for our community and friends. You can always start a bi-monthly funds pool with some great friends who want to ensure that your hosting continues. If people can’t contribute with funds, perhaps they can help you out with some cooking and cleanup. Hosting farm-to-table dinner parties with our friends keeps us connected and keeps the local economy healthy.
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