Hospitality Suggestions From the Soulish Food Team

Carol Niles’ letter (published in Issue 18-5) about some of the issues she faces hit a sympathetic nerve among Soulish Food readers. Some great responses and ideas were shared to her query, which read:

“I am pleased to read that you want to re-establish this godly pattern of hospitality. Now that I am a widow, I’m more fearful of inviting people over. I don’t want anyone to say ‘no’ because I feel like I’m being rejected. I need to overcome this dread as I do want and need more friends. I also want to invite people who are not Christians so I might extend a friendly, welcoming invitation, as from our Lord. Maybe you could address some of my issues:
• Hospitality for Singles,
• Hospitality for the Aging,
• Hospitality for the Scaredy-Cat, or
• Hospitality for Those on a Limited Budget,
• And with everyone (almost) on specialized diets in 2019, “Hospitality for those who eat ONLY Vegan, Organic, Dairy-Free, Full Fat, No Fake Butter, Nothing From Outside the USA, Vegetarian, Paleo, Non-GMO, Mediterranean Diet, Free-Range Eggs and Grass-Fed Beef, No Sulfites, Low-or No-Fat, Sugar-Free or No-Fake Sugar.”

Here are some of your responses to Carol’s categories asking for suggestions from others. First, these from Bobbie Helland:

For the scaredy-cat:
Host someone else’s event. Just offer your home as a place to gather. Let the party people think about the food and all. I just hosted my adult son’s birthday party. He invited the guests and my daughter did all the food. I just opened my home and got to be a part of the event without being in the center of it all. A bonus was meeting my son’s friends—one at a time in the kitchen as they wandered in for refills. Doing an event like this means you’re team-hosting, and others will step in where you are hesitant. Or, offer your home for a church women’s event, if the group is small enough. There’s usually a whole committee devoted to pulling the event together so you don’t have to, and the bonus would be getting to know those women a little better.

For the aging:
Depending on the age of the group, host a book club. Gather a group around a book and meet after everyone has read it. Or, if they are active, put together an outing to a free library concert (or other free daytime event) and invite the group back to your home after for dessert and conversation.

For those on a budget:
Serve pasta and salad, or a big pot of chili and cornbread and salad. Cheap and filling. I think we worry too much about making it the meal or event of the century. People want to connect, not criticize the food or our homes.

My most memorable event was hosting an apple-pie-tasting party. I made five pies using the same recipe but different apples and invited my neighbors over. We talked about our favorite apples for baking, then blind-tasted the pies and judged which we liked best. There was a lot of laughter as we discovered that our all-time favorite apple wasn’t the pie we voted best! Simple and fun.

Also, I would suggest a game night with a couple of favorite board games. Ask your guests to bring their favorites. Go to the Dollar Store and get a couple of silly prizes.

After I responded and asked if she had photos, Bobbie replied:
My group has agreed to do it again! We'll be gathering in a couple of weeks. I'll take pictures and send them on to you.

Over the year as my identity in Christ became more solidly rooted in my psyche, I let go of my anxiety about being hospitable. My family LIVES in the house. We DO things. We have crafty things going and books we're reading, and those things are part of the fabric of our lives that our friends were invited into.

Now (and I am 60), my children and their friends or our extended family come over every other Sunday for dinner. It's the most relaxed and fun time, because I no longer stress about anything. They bring food (or not) or their favorite new snack or beverage, and we just enjoy each other. We get to stay connected with what's going on in each other's lives. My daughter and I have hosted four major events for over 30 people—one for 54 ladies!—two bridal showers and two baby showers. We were relaxed and excited about it all, and the ladies responded. EVERYONE wants us to host their event now!

So the bottom line is, the more you have people over, the easier it gets. Just do it.

NOTE from KAREN: We are waiting for Bobbie Helland’s blind-apple-pie-tasting-redux party photos!

Another reply to Carol's inquiry came from Juanita Rockhill:
Boy, did Carol Niles ever hit that nail on the head, but she left out the most common dietary need I face in my acquaintances: gluten-free. Here is a website that provides all healthy, amazing dessert recipes: https://ChocolateCoveredKatie.com. A friend brought over a batch of her Black Bean Brownies—fabulous!!! You'd never guess they contain no flour at all! So, there's a suggestion for a dessert and coffee with a new acquaintance—who might be gluten-free!

Our new home was made for entertaining, but I am not! Fighting a lifelong 'not good enough' mentality, I become a physical and emotional wreck if someone's coming over. I'm fighting it by declaring (OUT LOUD – AS MANY TIMES AS IT TAKES AS I WAIT WITH ELEVATED BLOOD PRESSURE, TRYING NOT TO HYPERVENTILATE) — oh, WE-EL! Somehow, saying that phrase (given to me by my sister who has the gift of letting things roll off her back while I am the proverbial sponge), gives me permission to let go of 'stuff' that's making me (and, unfortunately, everyone around me) nuts! So, I am refusing to feel guilty about not entertaining more and working on it at a pace I can manage, while continuing to donate baked goods and share meals by running door to door with my new neighbors.

This is an exciting journey, Karen!! God bless you in the unfolding of it and in the gathering of what you need!!

Linda Freeman had this to say:
Ahhh, I recognized Carol's name from the first teleconference memoir class we were both part of! I, too, have felt awkward about entertaining, and have saved precious issues of Open Heart, Open Home, The God Hunt, the Kingdom Tales series, and other great products you've written. If anyone asks me, I always tell them, "Karen Mains is my all-time favorite author!" So, I am now a licensed commissioned pastor with the Evangelical Covenant Church. (Still haven't written a memoir; my writing now consists of sermons and church correspondence.)

Two years ago I read Sally Clarkson's book The Life-Giving Table, became enthused again, and asked our church ladies to come over to my house for a simple tea. They came, I showed them the book, coached them on what a simple "Ladies Tea" could look like, and by the end of the hour, the OLDEST gal (88 years of age) said, "I could invite my neighbors at the Pioneer (the local senior citizens’ high-rise apartment building)." With that hostess simply posting a flyer on the building's bulletin board for a Ladies Tea welcome to any resident, we began monthly "teas" in the building's large community room.

This monthly time to visit, build relationships, and nurture their spirits has been welcomed by the people who live there. The men have even come by to say, "We wish there was a men's thing like you ladies have," so last summer we arranged for a couple of church fellows to host a coffee & cookie time with the men at the apartment building, so contacts were made and the guys are meeting Christian men, some for the first time.

MORE TO COME!

Sometimes, we think our homes have to be perfect before we invite people over. This is a photo of my kitchen floor! This happened after I tripped on a rug, fell over the open dishwasher drawer, hit the cabinet on the way down and dislocated my right shoulder. A son, determined that I wouldn’t trip on a floor mat again, taped the errant critter to the floor. When I lifted the rug to clean, it took up the tiles. Indeed, I am slightly chagrined every time a guest comes into my kitchen to chat, to help prepare food, or to wash dishes. We just haven’t had the funds or the know-how or the time to replace the tiles.

So I consider the ugly mess a kind of needed spiritual humbling. And I keep reminding myself of the woman from our church, long ago, who dropped past our third-floor apartment unannounced. Taking a lesson from my mother who insisted that we always welcome folk and invite them in, no matter the status of our housekeeping efforts, I swallowed my pride and did so. I was rewarded with her amazing words, “Oh, I used to think you were perfect. But now I think we can be friends.” (However, just for another viewpoint, just a few days ago, my six-year-old granddaughter Anelise thought the blue and white linoleum—badly-aged—was beautiful and that we should take off all the broken tiles and sub-flooring and let it show!)

Karen Mains

Reminder!

The Soulish Food e-mails are being posted biweekly on the Hungry Souls Web site. Newcomers can look that over and decide if they want to register on the Web site to receive the biweekly newsletter. You might want to recommend this to friends also. They can go to www.HungrySouls.org.

Hungry Souls Contact Information

ADDRESS: 29W377 Hawthorne Lane
West Chicago, IL 60185
PHONE: 630-293-4500
EMAIL: karen@hungrysouls.org

Karen Mains

BOOK CORNER

The Turquoise Table
by Kristin Schell

When my book Open Heart, Open Home was first published in 1976, it was the first book in the marketplace (that I knew of) on the topic of hospitality. Through the years, it has sold over 600,000 copies—not a blockbuster by any means, but substantial sales nevertheless. I’ve spent the last two months ordering from used-book websites a dozen or so of the books on the topic that have been published in the intervening years. I’ll give you the full list that I’ve read once I’m done reading. Here is one, which I thought delightful: The Turquoise Table: Finding Community and Connection in Your Own Front Yard by Kristin Schell.

Tired of not being connected to the neighbors that lived on her own block, Kristin painted a picnic table bright turquoise, dragged it to her front yard and started to engage passersby—dog-walkers and bikers and moms pushing strollers—in greetings and light conversation, then with invitations to have a cup of coffee (or lemonade) and to sit and chat a little. This strategic move opened her neighbors to herself and began a movement of welcome and invitation and group projects that spread along her street.

The book has actually stimulated a movement of The Front Yard people all over the country, which is also now dotted from coast to coast with hundreds of turquoise tables. I’m moving a lot of my activities to our front yard and figuring how I can set up a sign-up post in the whiskey barrel beside my mailbox. But first, I need to do some frequent prayer-walking around my neighborhood!

Karen in 1976. First book published!