Pictured: my dining room, with new dishes and silverware my parents gave me for my 46th birthday…..

In the last few weeks I’ve been hosting a regular Sunday night dinner at my place.

Last night we had Eggplant parm with salad and garlic bread, it was great!

My Sunday started with singing in the church choir, teaching the Debt Free class, then shopping for groceries and cooking most of the afternoon. I’m not a great cook, so I try new things and they tend to work out 99% of the time.

My parents are automatically invited every Sunday, they’ve cooked me about a gazillion meals in my lifetime, so now I get to return the favor. This also allows me to invite over friends who have lotsa kids, we have plenty of room and its always fun when multiple generations are at my table!

My daughters are always automatically invited, when they are in town, not working, etc.

My table can seat up to 12 people, if we get add chairs!

I’ve been reaching out to friends I haven’t seen for awhile and inviting them over as well.

Why not, right?

These are not stuffy dinners; wine will be opened, music will be played, things might get loud, you can never predict what might happen.

It takes work to straighten up my house, plan and cook a meal, and clean up after…. but the memories are more than worth it.

At the end of the day all we really have are memories anyway.

The great thing about this is that I’m becoming a better cook, and Claire and I have leftovers for days!

Not everyone is an extrovert, many people never host anything… but I’m having fun doing this, especially that moment when everyone is around my table and we all start to eat. This makes me happy at some profound level; providing for people I care about, seeing them enjoy each other’s company…. perhaps in many ways I’m a deeply traditional guy!

Let me know if you wanna join us next week!

Ben

March 2020