Attending a Home Food Dinner in Milan

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A few notes about registering for a Home Food event:

• Italians who want to join the organization have to pay an annual fee, but foreigners need only pay for a month at a time, and it’s extremely inexpensive – at the moment it’s€7 per person for a month. If you can attend more than one dinner in that month, you’re really getting that membership fee’s worth, but even if you only attend one it’s well worth it for foodies. You’ll pay an additional fee for each dinner you attend, but it’s well within reason for a nice meal out. Prices for meals vary from event to event, and are clearly listed on the website.
• You’ll need to fill out a couple of registration forms to sign up, but you can fill them out offline (using Word) and send them in via email. I can’t say enough about how quick to respond the Home Food staff were; they make it so easy to get through the process, even with no Italian skills at all you’ll be fine.
• I paid via PayPal, and once the payment was receieved by Home Food they wanted an address where they could send my paperwork. I was able to give them the address of our Milan hotel, but if you will be traveling extensively and not in one place long enough to receive anything, you can also receive the “paperwork” via email and print it out for yourself. Generally speaking, the calendar isn’t online with enough advance notice to make it possible to receive the paperwork at your home address, but you can always ask about that, too.
• Among the things you’ll receive in the paperwork packet are your membership card with valid dates (though our hosts didn’t require that we show our cards), receipts for payment and directions to the Home Food host’s home.
• It’s stressed throughout the registration process, and bears repeating – it’s very important to respect your hosts by arriving on time and being a good guest. In order to make sure we would arrive on time we left early and found the apartment before taking a moonlit walk around the Duomo. When we headed back, it was right on time and we weren’t stuck making wrong turns or looking at the map.
• Bringing a gift to the host isn’t necessary, and isn’t even listed as a “recommendation” anywhere, but we opted to bring a small gift from home (a jam made from berries only grown in Oregon). If you don’t want to haul something from home with you but don’t want to arrive empty-handed, consider bringing a bouquet of flowers. I think bringing wine to an Italian’s house is too risky, personally, but if you have a good recommendation for a bottle that can also be a nice gift.
• While most Home Food guests come from the United States, and one would assume therefore that most Home Food hosts speak at least a little English, it’s only polite to learn a few phrases and words in Italian. Mastering the art of saying “that’s delicious” in a few different ways is a great place to start!