A few years ago, I belonged to a much-loved 12-person dinner group.

When I was invited to join the group, I had hesitations. Making dinner for a football team’s worth of people seemed daunting, and the initial outlay of money in ingredients was a bit stressful–cooking for myself meant that hefty grocery bills could be mentally amortized across a week or two. There were also the ideological considerations: all of us were vegetarians, but at the time I was much less adventurous than most. My friend Ray, while breathlessly encouraging me to jump onboard, rhapsodized about an entree based largely on tempeh they had all enjoyed the previous week; I felt myself subtly recoil. Tempeh?

Ultimately, the one incontrovertibly strong deciding factor that impelled me to say yes was my own need for connection. What drew me to the group initially–along with Ray and several other members of the group, both male and female–was the fact that it represented something all of us were craving. A healthier relationship with food, a familiar and beautiful ritual in the middle of days that often felt uncertain, the chance to nurture those you cared about when you previously hadn’t been sure you could even take care of yourself: dinner group offered our group of twenty- and thirty-somethings a chance to actively shape who we wanted to be as eaters and sharers of food.

The 12 friends split into 6 pairs and each duo cooked a dinner for the group once every 2 weeks. That was the simple part. I quickly learned to scale up my cooking for many people, plan menus to stretch ingredients, and cook multiple courses simultaneously on my two-burner studio apartment kitchenette. (The secret there is to constantly stay in motion; cooking becomes a kind of high speed, twirling ballet.)

What excited me most was the thrill of menu planning. While not overly competitive, I will admit that all of us quickly learned what each pair’s strong points were–and that we took pleasure in outdoing ourselves week after week. Over dinner, we’d talk about classes, our jobs, our hopes, and dreams. Sharing each other’s homes and tables night after night led to a desire to nurture each other–and also a desire to surprise.

One group excelled at inventive salads; another pair’s forte was exquisite Southern comfort food. Two others provided wonderful picnic-esque spreads (they were living on a boat at the time, so this was no surprise). My partner and I specialized in combining unusual, unexpected tastes.

For me, these often took the form of desserts–including the quirkily titled beeramisu, which has become a staple of mine. (Don’t let the name fool you; it’s a subtle and elegant dessert. I usually replace the stout with a fruity Belgian beer, like Lindemans Frambois Lambic or Peche.)

The experience of needing to pull food together quickly while keeping it fresh and exciting has become a signature part of my cooking style. Cooking for multiple people, while it can initially seem like a chore, becomes an incredible gift when what you’re doing is using food to make people think, or smile, or open up. I treasure what I learned about myself in that group, the capacity I discovered that I have to give.