How I know that Southerners are actually Egyptian

Our church, St. Tim's, is great about organizing activities to promote community among the congregation. One of those activities is the "Sinners Dinner" which involves putting your name in a lottery from which groups are drawn. You meet with your group roughly once a month for a year before the groups get switched up again. Brian and I did not sign up when the current season started in September, but we ended up getting adopted by some choir friends into their Sinners Dinner group. Ours is a really fun bunch. We've met with them twice so far, and will be meeting with them again tonight.
It had been suggested that this month, we keep the gathering a small affair by doing appetizers only. An email thread was started to give everyone a sense of who was bringing what. Reading the responses, I observed that each household was bringing 2-3 appetizers/dessert items--hearty ones at that...so my prediction is that we'll have more food than we've had at the actual dinners. My conclusion, therefore, is that for Southerners "keep it small" means "outdo dinner." Sound like anyone you know? Anyone who says, for example, "why don't you come in for a minute just to have a glass of water?" whereby a "glass of water" comes with a side of whole chickens, stuffed grape leaves, veal cutlets, lamb chops, and kebabs? That's not the only similarity I've noticed between Southerners and Egyptians, but I'll save my other observations for another time.
I thought I'd share pictures of our contributions (y'all getting sick of bread pictures yet?)
The bread made it to our list because the couple that hosted last time, Charlie and Rhea, requested it. Rhea pulled me aside at church last week and said, "Charlie said to me 'Do you think she'll make bread again? I sure hope she makes bread!' " which of course elevated them to favourite persons status (for nothing quite strokes my ego like being ASKED to make bread.)

Next up is an item I accidentally invented several months ago, which Brian requested I make again. This is a carrot and celery bruschetta:

We're also doing a warm brie melt (which we'll bake at our host's house) that features homemade cranberry sauce and toasted pecans--or p'CONs as they call them down here. L'assembly:

And tucked away into its little brie baker:

I would share a picture of the crackers that will accompany the brie melt, but they are not homemade. It'll be a while before perfectly uniform discs of amaranth, quinoa, chia, sesame and flax make it into my repertoire.
Good company and good food make for happy Pigotts!