San Francisco is one of the most amazing places in the world you can live today for tons of reasons, but after eight years here, it’s clear to me that community really isn’t one of them. This is the town where best friends try schedule dinners once a quarter, replying “yes” on an event invite just means you might think about it, and people move so frequently that you’re often better off meeting SF acquaintances in some mutually-agreed-upon destination like NYC or London.

I’ve spent a lot of time complaining about this — even as a quasi-successful tech founder with passable hygiene habits, it can just get lonely around here. I was reading this piece about Pableaux Johnson’s Monday night red beans and rice tradition and it struck a nerve — I love to cook, I love to have random folks in my house, and nobody ever really does anything on Mondays.

Food’s a natural way to connect with people across everything that tries to divide us — politics, religion, socioeconomic status, travel schedules, mobile operating systems, whatever. I miss the after-church social fabric of my youth, and maybe this is a way to reconnect to some of the best parts of that. The food isn’t the subject as much as the conduit to connectedness.

If you’re interesting in joining me (and us), let me know. My last name is my gmail address, and I am fairly findable on the internet. This is just an experiment, but I want to figure out how to get to know my neighbors better, to listen more and talk less, and maybe share a glass of wine with people I don’t even see eye to eye with all the time. It’s the only way we’re going to ever survive.