I LIKE the sound of this, am goign to do this for the next pot luck I go to!

I am scared to ask.....what is a pot luck? I've never heard of it, so I don't think I've eaten one either.

I googled it and am not much wiser...could it be like a bowl of chilli? Or a shepherd's pie? I like both of those.

It's all of the above, and then some. A pot luck is a rather lazy way of throwing a party and having the guests provide the food. Everyone brings something, not necessarily coordinated with anyone else's offering, and plonks it on the table. You then shuffle around in a buffet fashion, eating a combination of food you would not normally choose.

Pot luck lunches were popular in my previous office. Despite being located in downtown Toronto with every conceivable type of food on offer within walking distance, the locals opted to sit in a meeting room with a bizarre concoction of food and not a drink in sight.

That's a pot luck, avoid if you can!

Pot lucks - everyone brings something to contribute to a communal "pot" of food (ie puts it on a table for everyone else to share).

The luck part comes in to it because if you are lucky, some of it will be edible...

Chilli, lasagne etc are all common as are salads and dips and those gross buttercream covered cakes they sell in Costco...

And at one memorable Halloween pot-luck party I went to, every single one of the 15 guests bar me brought pumpkin pie... Now I do like the odd slice of pumpkin pie, but 14 of them was a bit much!

I took some freshly baked (and still warm!) home-made bread and a pat of butter as my contribution.

If I ever get invited to a pot luck I'm going to take booze and drink it myself on my own in a corner.

I was "introduced" to a pot-luck at work for Xmas 2010.

By Xmas 2011 I had reorganized our "do" and though we still had no budget, my lovely colleagues were guided as to what we might need.

NYE was pot luck at sis in laws. We donated a big pot of chilli and buns, 2 bottles of whipped cream / candy floss flavoured vodka and a bottle of rye.

The plan was to go skating on their frozen pond - the reality was the guys took the kids skating and the girls started drinking early

Had only been here 2 days when invited to a pot luck (had to ask a random stranger what a pot luck was just incase it involved car keys in a bowl or something) I was the only one who took booze felt so strange the host bringing me one of my own beers from his fridge every half an hour while everybody else was drinking coffee. Those piss-ed brits and their pub culture eh!

At our last potluck at school, one of the instructors brought wine...

We are going to have homemade chicken tikka masala for our tea tonight. Since about 7am this morning, the chicken cubes have been gently marinating in yogurt, fresh ginger paste, fresh garlic paste, fresh cilantro and a combination of Kashmiri chilli powder, salt, freshly ground cumin and coriander, Punjabi garam masala and turmeric.

We were only contemplating last night how that the only processed food we ever eat are jars of curry sauce. We really should try making something ourselves as your recipe sounds rather good. I suspect sourcing all the ingredients here is rather more of a challenge than in Van though.

Pan fried cod here tonight.

You should be alright, you can use a combination of 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper and 1 1/2tsp sweet paprika in place of Kashmiri chilli. If you need the recipe I'll write it out for you.

Yes please!

me too please Oink (though I don't mind if it's typed)