After bouncing our stresses away to the sweet '80s sound of the Cure's "Friday I'm in Love," my friends and I gather around a stained wooden coffee table and raise our brightly colored plastic cups of sweet tea in a shouted toast to family.

Our ritual Family Night was birthed one Tuesday night last fall as three of my friends and I sat on a futon chatting about our intense food cravings during an episode of "LA Ink." When a Chili's commercial came on, I whined: "God, I'd kill for some prime rib!"

(ENLARGE)

Karlee Baumann.

THE STUDENTS AND THEIR RECIPES Brittney Inman • Santa Fe Chili Kali Justus • Stuffed Pork Tenderloin • Kali's sister Destiny's Italian Tomato Cheesy Bread Rachel Jacques • Risotto with Garlic Shrimp and Sauteed Spinach Karlee Baumann • Indoor Barbecue Taylor Dahl • Corn Dip • Broccoli Casserole • Chocolate Poundcake In a hurry to cook? Read the short version of this feature on Evening Edge.

This prompted a profound discussion of our shared longing for the home-cooked food and emotional intimacy of the stereotypical family meal. We lamented how last-minute plans, hectic schedules and tight budgets so often lead to unhealthy, frenzied feeding fits. And how our meals tended to be limited to those that could be microwaved, grilled on a George Foreman or stirred into boiling water.

I confessed to having lived off of Boca Burgers and bowls of Special K cereal for weeks on end. I could even recall one particularly horrific incident where I actually ate a bowl of shredded lettuce with Texas Pete Hot Sauce for dinner.

In exchanging these truths, we concluded that the best solution to our dilemma was to create our very own collegiate Family Night. Because most us have felt excluded by peers at some point in our lives, we decided to always try to invite anyone who joins us to come back and bring friends.

For our first dinner, we hosted a handful of known and unknown faces. But it was poorly planned and completely unorganized. The first two girls to arrive sped to Kroger with me about 10 minutes before the others were supposed to show up. Yet despite the lack of preparation, our last-minute Parmesan alfredo pasta dish and Caesar salad turned out to be a huge success that cost less than $15.

Our conversations revolved around our shared passion for God, and everyone quickly seemed to bond. We ended the evening by sharing the things we are most thankful for in life, such as joy, real freedom, love, family and friendships. Then we broke a loaf of multi-grain sandwich bread and dipped it in a jumbo margarita glass filled with grape juice and took Communion together ourselves, looking rather like an estrogen-filled version of da Vinci's painting "The Last Supper." On that warm September evening, a tradition was born in Athens.

Throughout the semester, we continued to meet every other Thursday at someone's apartment. Our original family of five grew to as many as 16 girls at one dinner. Each week, one of the girls created a Facebook group titled Sister Dinner, in which we could invite other girls and plan the menu.

I am so thankful that I found a better way to pass my Thursday nights than by sulking in my loneliness in front of "Grey's Anatomy" with a pint of raspberry sorbet in hand. I have learned that nothing compares to the eruption of a spontaneous dance party to the Andrews Sisters. I now know that trying to catch a Skittle in your mouth from across the room is a poor decision because there is a risk of choking.

But we have had our serious moments, too. I have been able to encourage an engaged friend who was questioning her readiness for marriage. I have held a girl who was going into surgery the next day. I have seen multiple young women open up and allow themselves to be vulnerable, which encouraged me to do the same.

Through our family dinners, I now truly have the sisters I always longed for, simply because we decided to set aside the time to eat together twice a month.