New moms group and cheese
The new moms group has formed! As I wrote earlier, I have been seeking opportunities to meet other pregnant women in my neighborhood so that I have nearby friends who might want to go on pregnancy walks/stroller hikes, discuss local child care options, and just generally share the experience of having similarly aged kids for years to come.
After advertising in my pre-natal yoga classes and on our neighborhood list-serv, I've collected about 15 names, and the list keeps growing. The moms range in due dates from tomorrow (!) to Labor Day (!!). Yesterday we held our first meeting, an afternoon gathering at our house. One of the moms is an art professor, which I think is fantastic (and an influence I could use in my left-brained world). Another is an editor at an influential science journal so there's good potential for her and Andy to hit it off as well. We agreed that in addition to meeting every other week to get to know each other better, we would set up a meal service collective. Starting with the mom due tomorrow, we will arrange a schedule to provide hot meals for members of the group in the weeks after they give birth. I am looking forward to helping out other ladies in need, and I think the shared community service will facilitate bonding among us.
We are also trying to figure out ways to bring our husbands together. I had advertised for a co-ed group, if desired, but no men responded. However, many of us suspect that our guys will enjoy meeting each other if we can arrange some fun social events, so that's on the horizon, too.
One funny aspect of hosting the first gathering was preparing the food. I went to our local market to get a yummy selection of hard (AKA pregnancy-safe) cheeses. Just to be on the super careful side I called over the store owner to confirm that all of the cheeses I had picked were pasteurized. She looked at my choices and said, "Well I have to compliment your exceptional taste in cheese. However, not a single one of these is pasteurized." Nope, this is San Francisco, which means that our corner store gets all of its cheeses from small, local and European farms. It turns out that 3/4 of the 100+ cheeses they carry are not pasteurized and therefore not recommended for pregnant women. When I was first pregnant, several friends gently mocked me, saying with half an eye roll: "Nearly all cheeses sold in the U.S are pasteurized; don't worry about it!" In one of my early posts on this blog (Eating in San Francisco), I shared my suspicion that that concept just didn't apply in this foodie town. But I had no idea how untrue it really was. Looks like I'm going to have to be a lot pickier with my pecorinos, emmenthalers, English cheddars and the like. No cheese is beyond suspicion in this town! Only in SF...
After advertising in my pre-natal yoga classes and on our neighborhood list-serv, I've collected about 15 names, and the list keeps growing. The moms range in due dates from tomorrow (!) to Labor Day (!!). Yesterday we held our first meeting, an afternoon gathering at our house. One of the moms is an art professor, which I think is fantastic (and an influence I could use in my left-brained world). Another is an editor at an influential science journal so there's good potential for her and Andy to hit it off as well. We agreed that in addition to meeting every other week to get to know each other better, we would set up a meal service collective. Starting with the mom due tomorrow, we will arrange a schedule to provide hot meals for members of the group in the weeks after they give birth. I am looking forward to helping out other ladies in need, and I think the shared community service will facilitate bonding among us.
We are also trying to figure out ways to bring our husbands together. I had advertised for a co-ed group, if desired, but no men responded. However, many of us suspect that our guys will enjoy meeting each other if we can arrange some fun social events, so that's on the horizon, too.
One funny aspect of hosting the first gathering was preparing the food. I went to our local market to get a yummy selection of hard (AKA pregnancy-safe) cheeses. Just to be on the super careful side I called over the store owner to confirm that all of the cheeses I had picked were pasteurized. She looked at my choices and said, "Well I have to compliment your exceptional taste in cheese. However, not a single one of these is pasteurized." Nope, this is San Francisco, which means that our corner store gets all of its cheeses from small, local and European farms. It turns out that 3/4 of the 100+ cheeses they carry are not pasteurized and therefore not recommended for pregnant women. When I was first pregnant, several friends gently mocked me, saying with half an eye roll: "Nearly all cheeses sold in the U.S are pasteurized; don't worry about it!" In one of my early posts on this blog (Eating in San Francisco), I shared my suspicion that that concept just didn't apply in this foodie town. But I had no idea how untrue it really was. Looks like I'm going to have to be a lot pickier with my pecorinos, emmenthalers, English cheddars and the like. No cheese is beyond suspicion in this town! Only in SF...
Posh cheese in San Francisco? Who would've guessed?
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