By STACEY VREEKEN

By BRENDA IASEVOLI


Columbia News Service
NEW YORK -- Julia and Wendy Alexander recently swapped five servings of bluefish with Moroccan couscous for five servings of spinach lasagna on a recent Saturday. They also traded pasta with chicken and artichoke hearts for a rich chili made with ground beef, bacon and chocolate.
The domestic partners have scored other tasty lunches and dinners through the Brooklyn Dinner Collective, a dinner co-op the two started in October of last year.
But the system isn't perfect.
There are 45 members on meetup.com, but only one or two generally show up for the weekly supper swaps, which usually take place at 5 p.m. each Saturday.
"Getting started is the hardest part," said Wendy Alexander, a drama teacher at an elementary school in Harlem. "But it's such a good idea. So much of it is about saving time, energy and money."
Each week, the Alexanders know they will meet someone different. They'd like to find members who come to the swaps consistently, but they haven't been discouraged yet.
"It's so much more cost effective to make a meal that feeds five people, than it is to make a meal for two," Wendy Alexander added. "Plus you get all of your cooking done in one shot. How could you beat that? We just need more people to show up each week."
Dinner co-ops, sometimes called supper swaps, are serving up friendships and fellowship across the country. Some members cook together; others cook in their own kitchens. Some meet weekly, others monthly. Some are vegetarian, others are vegan.
They all give busy families an easy and economical answer to the age-old question: What's for dinner?
Here's how a dinner co-op works. On your day to cook, you prepare a meal for you and your friends. Keep one meal for yourself and exchange the rest with the members of your co-op. For the rest of the week, depending on how many people participate in your co-op, you can sit back and relax, as your meals are already prepared for you.
The system is so popular, it's conjured up a covey of experts.
Diana Ellis, Alex Davis and Andy Remeis, of Boise, Idaho, authors of "Dinner at Your Door," have headed their own cooking circles for years. In Dalton, Ohio, Trish Berg, author of "The Great American Supper Swap," has been exchanging her chicken pot pie with fried apples for beef and cheese burritos for the past five years. And Ginny Bowie of Hanover, Va., who has been cooking co-op style for the past 20 years, has produced a DVD to teach others how they can get their own dinner co-op started.
"Imagine you have three or four kids and you work," said Bowie, who swaps meals weekly. "How are you going to feed all these people?
"You've got the coach. You've got the quarterback. You've got this team of individual personalities. And when all the meals have been handed over successfully, that's your touchdown."

The Santa Cruz Mountains Gourmet Dinner Club aims to take home cooking to a higher level while sharing food and making new friends.

Already, 60 people have signed up to share meals the first Sunday of the month at each other's homes, says organizer Colly Gruczelak, who lives in Ben Lomond. An active volunteer who's organized dinners for Rotary, universities and President Reagan, Gruczelak was looking for a hobby that would keep her busy. She found one in the Dinner Club.

It works simply: the group is broken into subsets of three couples who share tasks to complete a meal. One couple hosts and makes the main course, appetizer or salad and sides, plus breads and coffee; one couple brings two bottles of wine that run between $20-$25 apiece; and one couple brings a bottle of wine and dessert. Expected contribution is about $60 per couple.

Singles are also welcome and are paired up with other singles. "When they host the party, they decide who will do what and two other couples will join them," says Gruczelak.

"We stress really gourmet cooking. Nothing that comes from Trader Joe's or from the deli at the grocery store. Everyone prepares food for themselves. We stress well-prepared, quality, fresh ingredients served beautifully," she says.

Gruczelak says this is the excuse to use your china and silver. "It's a time to put yourself into the meal."

She also feels that compared to eating out, it's a quality meal for a bargain. "I don't want to impress snobbery on this. That's not the idea. It's just to have a wonderful beautiful dinner in the company of new friends for less money than you would pay at a fine restaurant."

The fee to join this club is $20 single, $40 couple and $10 for friend, and there is a rotation chart so you are matched with different people each month. Hosting duties come around every three to four months with the current number of members, and Gruczelak says as the club grows, hosting duties will become less.

"We have a woman who has cooked for five years with Julia Child. We have a chef trained by Wolfgang Puck. A gal who owns her own catering company. We have a couple who supply fish to farmers markets," says Gruczelak.

For information on the May event, call 336-8098 or e-mail czelak@sbcglobal.net.