How to Build a Community

One of the things I hold dearest is a sense of community. Building community starts at home. Setting a table encourages you and your family to gather around the dinner table and discuss the day's events while enjoying a delicious meal. When I was a child I remember playing with the neighbor children while our mothers sat and chatted over tea. We always felt safe because everyone knew and looked out for one another. Sadly, that feeling of community is getting lost in today's fast-paced world.

Here are some ideas to help you feel less isolated and foster a sense of community where you live:

• Use your library

• Turn off your TV
• Leave your house
• Know your neighbors
• Greet people
• Look up when you're walking

• Sit on your stoop
• Plant flowers
• Play together

• Buy from local merchants
• Share what you have
• Help a lost dog
• Take children to the park
• Honor elders

• Support neighborhood schools
• Talk to the mail carrier
• Help someone carry something heavy
• Have potlucks

• Hire young people in your neighborhood for odd jobs
• Organize a block party
• Start a tradition
• Bake extra and share

With these and other small steps, you can help to recapture your community.

With love,

www.rosannainc.com

Helping Japan

Rosanna Inc. is proud to announce that for the month of April, we will be donating a portion of all proceeds to relief efforts in Japan. Our office is also participating in our neighborhood donation drive to send non-contaminated, non-perishable food items to victims of the tsunami.


Many of us are still feeling the effects of the recession, and don’t have much extra income to spare. But even in lean times, it's still possible to give. Non-perishable food items from the pantry were the first items to go from my home as contributions to the airlifts for the tsunami victims. Soaps and bath products collected from hotel bathrooms, extra bedding, unused clothing, and toys your children have outgrown are other options that you may find lying around the less frequented corners of your house. To determine what would make an appropriate and helpful donation, try to imagine what you would want or miss if you were in this same situation.

Across the country, organizations are orchestrating airlifts for Japan. Google your local charities and see what’s available, drop off what you don’t need to help those who so desperately do need our help.

Get creative with your giving; for people who have lost everything, anything helps.

www.rosannainc.com

Holla Hallah!

by rosanna's eldest daughter, alessandra wollner

When people invite you to their home for dinner, don’t come to their doorstep empty handed.

My mother never told me this lesson in so many words, but she did raise me well. Countless times before we went over to someone’s house, I watched her wrap up a pair of taper candles, stop to pick up the prettiest bouquet from the market, select a bottle of wine before leaving the house, or present a host with a set of Rosanna mugs.

Fresh out of college, the prettiest bouquets are the ones I filch from someone else’s backyard. The bottles of wine are, more often than not, two buck Chuck. Because I live in California, I can’t avail myself of free Rosanna product from my mother’s Seattle warehouse, much to my chagrin.  

Besides the challenge to find cost effective gifts for my hosts, I want them to know how much I appreciate and value their hospitality. This is why I have started making bread.

I’ve discovered that bread is an ideal item to bring to dinner. Presenting your hosts with something homemade is a heartfelt way to say thank you. And the best part about bread is that it doesn’t disturb anyone’s menu planning. Bread is a food that is incredibly beautiful and tremendously comforting. There’s such variation to this food that you can almost always find a recipe to suit the occasion and will mean something to the people who are feeding you. Lately, I’ve been going to a lot of dinners celebrating the day of rest, and so I’m making and bringing along hallah, a Jewish egg-bread similar to brioche.

Not all of us have time to make bread. I didn’t either until just recently. Not only that, all manner of dough used to deeply intimidate me. Now, I’m working through that fear. Making bread works for me. It might not work for you, but who knows?

Maybe it will.

p.s. Thanks to Smitten Kitchen for this bomb hallah recipe!

Heritage

Thanksgiving a time when we celebrate a variety of important things. To name a few:   harvest bounty, community, and being American. regardless of religion. Thanksgiving is also special because it is an adaptable holiday. It give us the opportunity think about our heritage as a country, all that’s good and what needs to be improved, as well as the heritage that is unique to our family. We are free to give thanks for what we have in whatever way we like.

For all these reasons, Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday to share, especially with foreigners. Inviting someone from another country to participate in this quintessential American tradition is to learn what the United States is all about. After all, the first Thanksgiving was multi-cultural—a moment celebrated by colonists from different places in Europe and Native Americans together.

It’s also true that the best way to learn something is to teach it. If you want to understand what the United States stands for, and think carefully about how it prompts us to be grateful, here’s your opportunity.

Here are some things to think about this Thanksgiving, whether you have a foreigner at your table or not:

-What does this country have that you couldn’t live without?

-What is your favorite aspect of “American life?”

-What about this country do you hope will never change?

-What makes you proud to be an American?

Wishing a very happy Thanksgiving to all.

www.rosannainc.com

Thoughts on Thanksgiving

Only nine days until Thanksgiving, and counting.

Thanksgiving is an especially significant American holiday because every one celebrates it—regardless of religion. As most holidays do, Thanksgiving marks a moment when families come together. I have quite a lot to say about Thanksgiving and its significance, but what I’d really like is to hear from you. I want to use this blog as a place to start conversations, which are crucial components that help create community.

Ready? Here’s the question:

What do you think is the most important thing to put on a Thanksgiving table?  

Make your answers as personal or as widely applicable as you like. I'll post my answer at the end of the week. 

I'm excited to read your answers!

www.rosannainc.com