The Lazy Genius Podcast - #282 - How to Have People Over to Eat

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

Feeding people at my house is one of my favorite things in the entire world, and I hope that my enthusiasm for it and the permission you’ll hear in this episode will help you be excited about it, too. But I also know that we all have a lot of speed bumps when it comes to hospitality and entertaining and having people over, so I want to speak to a few of those today and maybe sand them down a little bit so they’re less bumpy.   Helpful Companion Links Episode #278: How to Manage Your Time this Fall Download a transcript of this episode.   This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, you're listening to the lazy genius podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today's episode 282. How to have people over to eat. Feeding people at my house is one of my favorite things in the entire world. And I hope that my enthusiasm for it and the permission that you're going to hear in this episode, it will help you be excited about it too. But I also know that we all have a lot of speed bumps when it comes to hospitality and entertaining and having people over. So I want to speak to a few of those today and maybe like sand them down a little bit. So they're less bumpy. So we're going to go on the right order today. The order matters a lot here more than you realize probably. And we're going to start with who do you want to have over? Why does it matter? When could you do it? And then what will you eat? You often start with what you're going to eat and then you get freaked out and you just stop. The right order matters here. So let's take it. All right, so the first thing, who do you want to have over? Start there. So often we're like, I should have more people over or something super general like that. And then we're stuck because of that

whole wrong order thing. So who would you like to have over? Make a list of people that you would enjoy having in your home. Maybe it's like one single person, maybe it's a larger group, write down all the possibilities that come to mind. And then start small with one. Just pick one. pick a person or a family or a couple of people that you're going to prioritize having over soon. That's it. Now, before we move on to why it matters to have them over, let's also say a word about the regulars. We have instances where we invite people over on purpose, right? And then there are the people who are in and out of our home fairly regularly without our

personal pursuit of them. like when your kids bring friends home from school, like on the weekends or something, or family members who live nearby. And it's just really easy to be like, you want to stay for dinner? Right? There are those very casual, possibly kind of spontaneous times when people are coming over, and those people feel super comfortable in your house, almost like they live there. There is an ease.

And you also want to be prepared for that ease. So that's another way of looking at your list of who comes over. There is a difference between people you invite. and people who don't mind inviting themselves. Or you can invite last minute and it's no big deal, right? But write those down so you know what you're dealing with rather than just having this like amoebic grand idea of having people over. Like what people?

What people? The next step is to ask why it matters. Why open your home to these people? Why are you wanting to do it? Naming that really helps you make decisions in the next two steps, okay? So each person on your list could have a different why. They actually probably will. Some possibilities on your list and their whys are like the new neighbors that just moved in.

And you want to meet them before so much time goes by that you feel weird, not yet knowing their names. That's why you want to have them over. You just want to like get to know each other, super casual, right? Low pressure. Maybe someone on your list is a couple from church who you like always enjoy saying hi to. But you haven't had the chance to have a real conversation and would like to do that. that. Maybe it's a family of one of your kids' school friends because it's nice to be connected as families, not just as kids. Now, why does it matter to have those people over? The answer could also

simply be to just have fun. But I think putting a word or two to the reason and even the feeling that you want those people to experience, it's super helpful to you as you have them over and to them so that they feel welcomed in the way that you hope they do. So go down your list. of the people that you wrote down and then next to those names, write down why it matters to have them over. Why do you want to have them over? The third step is to focus on when you're going to do it. Notice we have not gotten to food yet at all. The food is last. Stop stressing about the food. Let's talk about when, when you're going to do it. On that same list, if you want, you can write down the time of day or week that would be nice to have this person over, especially based on why you are doing it.

okay if you want to have that couple from church over because you would love to have a conversation with them but you have young kids chances are conversation will not really happen if you have that couple over for dinner because dinner like quickly transitions into bedtime and kids are crazy at dinner all the things instead the best time to probably have that couple over for dinner is after the kids are mostly in bed or like at least kind of ready for bed right you can have them over for dessert you see what I mean like who it is and what you're hoping for it impacts when you do it it doesn't have to be dinner like having people over does not automatically mean you have to eat dinner it can mean breakfast brunch lunch popsicles or hot chocolate in the yard in the afternoon dinner dessert later that

evening whatever okay so write down the time or times that would make the most sense for the people on your list based on why they're coming in the first place now i have mentioned this but one way that you could approach this is to put regular occurrences on your calendar of having people over to eat, but without the people yet, right? If you notice that a lot of the times on your list are, you know, Saturday breakfast or lunch after church or a Friday night dinner or whatever, you can decide once to block out, you know, the first Saturday of every month to invite someone over for breakfast or something like that. Schedule the time, make space for this before you even put the people in place.

I have been doing that for lunches with friends. I mentioned that a few episodes ago. And it's been magical. I've hung out with like half a dozen people over the last month that I have not spent time with in months, all because I've put one to two lunches a week in place in my calendar. Like it's so helpful. It's such a helpful thing. Also, having the who, why, and when, like all together. It's like, I know who's coming. I know why I want them to come and I know when they might come. That also gives us what we need for the inviting. Okay. Sometimes that's the hardest part, the asking someone to come over, especially if you've never really hung out with them before. So I just want to say this, don't give up. But get started and also don't give up. If it doesn't

work the first time and you have to cancel or they can't do the dates that you offer or whatever, try again later. My rule of thumb is to try three times. And if you get three knows, without a lot of enthusiasm for finding the next time, it's okay. Maybe those people would rather not hang out. Like, that's okay. But don't give up after the first time is what I'm saying. Like, try again. Recently we had a situation like a little similar to this. One of my kids has a buddy at school and he talks about her a lot. They've been friends for a couple of years. They've gone to each other's birthday parties. They're just really good friends. And when we have been with her family in those times, you know, at those parties or, you know, at a school function or something like that,

we've really enjoyed our conversation, you know, like it was very short and casual, but it was nice. And there were months, months of us saying, like, we should hang out some time as families. Like, we'd love to have you over. And they're like, oh, we'd love to have you over without ever doing it. Because life is life, right? It's just what happens. At the end of last school year, like where it's October right now, at the end of last school year, I was like, we are having this family over for dinner this summer? And we never did. We never did. We went well over a year. All of us saying we should hang out but not doing it. Well, a few weeks ago, I texted the mom and I said, can y'all come over on this date? And she couldn't that date, but she offered a different one.

And then we put it on the calendar. And then the day before that date, I got hit with a terrible cold, the remnants of which you can probably still hear in my voice. And we had to cancel. I was so bummed. And it would be easy in that cancellation because of like how much time passed to get there to feel really defeated in that, right? That's kind of an obvious perhaps response to that. But in that cancel, I was like, no, no, we're not doing that. In the cancellation, in the text, I threw out another date like a couple of weeks down the road. And it worked for them. We made it happen.

Or we're about to make it happen. When you're listening to this episode, we will have had dinner with them. like just this past weekend. But right now when I'm recording this, they're coming over in a couple days. I mean, hopefully, right? But my point here is these things can often take a lot of time. And it's easy to get discouraged when they don't work perfectly the first time or if they take too long. You think something is wrong with you.

You think you're doing it wrong or that they don't want to hang out. Those things aren't true. Okay? So just keep at it in the kindest possible way. We'll be right back. Amazon Presents, Jeff versus. is taco truck salsa, whether it's Verde,

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life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. One final word on the when piece goes back to those spontaneous slash regular visitors for. meals, you know, like family and friends or friends of your kids, you could notice that most Friday nights your teenagers bring somebody home from school. Plan on it, you know? Put that on the calendar. Just assume you will have people join you on Friday nights or whatever, you know? Or don't plan anything. Don't even plan anything. Just be willing to be spontaneous. I think usually the thing we stress out over with spontaneous meal invitations is the food, which we're about to get to. But honestly, people just don't care as much as we think, especially the people who are happy to be spontaneous companions to our

meals, right, to just come over because. Last night, my mom stayed for dinner. And as I pulled out the produce that I was going to make and it was all rotten, that was fun. And I had to pivot. I also had gotten home later than I thought, so I had less time to make dinner the way that I intended two. So I threw some chicken thighs in a baking dish with some barbecue sauce and I baked it for, you know, 20 or 25 minutes or whatever until it was done. I put frozen fries in the air fire and I cut up some carrots and apples. Y'all, I fed my mother crinkle fries and carrot sticks like she was a toddler. And yet who actually cares, right? She didn't. Those carrots were bomb, y'all. They were so sweet. They were so good. The chicken was delicious. Who doesn't

care about fries. Like, it was great. But the point of my mom staying for dinner, you know, it's not about the food, right? It's about being together, just in the regularness of life. So keep that in mind with those spontaneous meal companions. Remember what matters, and it is rarely the food. You can feed them whatever you have. And now the final step, we figure out what we're going to eat. I already said this, but it doesn't have to be dinner. It can be any meal. can be a snack. I remember Shannon Martin, either Shannon did this recently or she shared when someone else did and tagged her in it. I don't remember, but she or someone else. They texted the neighbors and said, everybody bring a snack. We're going to sit out in the yard and hang out. And people came.

Like, we all just long for connection. And the more of that connection is without pretense or being impressive, the easier it is for people to say yes. So remember, it doesn't have to be dinner. it also doesn't have to be indoors. You can do the yard thing or the front porch thing or the meeting at the park thing. It doesn't have to be around a table. It can be on a picnic blanket or on the couch around the coffee table or standing in the kitchen because that's how a lot of us eat, you know? It doesn't have to be like this amazing four-course thing around your dining table.

For a while, we had a, so we have a dining room like separate from the kitchen and we had this, you know, big dining table in there. It was big. It was meant to be big to hold a little. lot of people because we host like community group for our church and stuff like that. But the table itself was like a little bit unwieldy and its size and like kind of how the chairs worked. Like it's it's a long, unimportant story, but it wasn't easy to eat at that table. Okay. So the point is when we would have, there's a family that we hang out with a lot. And when they would come over,

it's six kids altogether. And the kids would sit at our regular kitchen table like where we have dinner every night that's right there in the kitchen. That's in our L, you know, if you've heard me mentioned like tidy the L, it's like our living room, kitchen table, kitchen area. So the kids would sit there, you know, none of us would sit in a separate dining room. The kids would sit at that table. And then the adults, we would just like hang around the island. But y'all, we only have two bar stools. So our friends, they almost always sit in the bar stools because I'm like standing at the island, like, you know, making food or whatever, although they help all the time. But they'll sit in the barstools and then cause or I will like either stand up or we'll sit on this little bench in our kitchen where we all sit down

put on our shoes. The number of meals, the four of us adults have eaten that way, is many, many meals. And it's great. Like, it doesn't really matter because of what matters most about being with those friends, right? Okay. Now, here's another thing. This is why the list of who you're having over and why you're doing it matters. If you are having your boss and her husband over or something, because you want to connect with them on a personal level, but also like you're trying to establish more of relationships so you can move up in the company or something. I don't know. Your purpose will dictate the win and the food that you eat.

I'm guessing that you're not going to make your boss stand while the kids take all the chairs. I mean, I don't know your boss, but I'm just guessing. My point here is that it's normal and okay for different people to require or compel certain decisions around the meal. That is okay. Not everybody's going to get crinkle fries. it's fine if you want to cook something that's like a little bit more put together for someone that you're trying to connect with for purposes beyond just like a casual warm relationship.

Now this example does feel like more of a 1960s scenario the one right now. Like I don't know if people still have their bosses over for dinner, but it's a good example to illustrate that everybody has different reasons and that's okay. Okay, so back to what do you eat? It doesn't have to be dinner. It doesn't have to be indoors, which that impacts the food. it doesn't have to be impressive, right? Who you're having over, when they're coming,

and what matters about it will very likely give you some very helpful limitations in what to make. And it often doesn't have to be impressive, but it could be dessert, an easy dinner, breakfast, whatever it is. But here are some practical ways to think about the actual meals that you might cook. First, you can use the principle of decide once. That's the number one lazy genius principle

in the book The Lazy Genius way. you can use that principle to name the meal that you always make for dinner the first time someone comes over. Pick something you know how to make in your sleep that does not stress you out and that that is going to always be the thing that you make the first time someone comes over. Or every time. I mean, you could cook the same thing for people. It doesn't matter. You could also create a matrix of three or four meals that you enjoy cooking that are easy for, you know, adding a few people to dinner and you just rotate through those meals for all of your entertaining requirements. Like that's just what you make all the time. So for example, when you mark that first Saturday of the month as the one that you

have someone over for breakfast, right, you can put in the notes of that calendar item what you're making. Like, go ahead and decide. It's like, you know, French toast casserole the first month, biscuits and bacon the second month, waffles and egg casserole the third month. And then you just keep rotating those or whatever, you know, make it easier on yourself. Ultimately, not starting with the food makes deciding the food so much easier. If you're having a certain person over for a very specific reason, at a very specific time that suits them and the reason you're hanging out, the food almost takes care of itself.

You're not choosing from every meal ever. Just pick the thing that makes the most sense that you feel comfortable making. And if you are not a cook, order pizza, put out, make a charcutory board, you know, put out meat and cheese and fruit and stuff. order like perfectly grilled Greek chicken from like a local place and then supplement it by making like your own big salad and heating up store-bought pita bread in a low oven you know like take the pressure off you can make a lovely welcoming meal without cooking it that the problem is not what should I cook when people come over that is starting with the wrong thing that is going out of order

start with who is coming, why they're coming and what matters about that, and when they'll be there, and then pick the food that makes the most sense for you and them. Now, is this simple? Yes. Is it slightly annoying? Because you have not gone in this order before and you don't think it's going to work? Also possibly, yes, it's okay if you're annoyed with me right now. But I still want you to try it. I promise you that this order makes all the difference. Okay, before we go, let's celebrate the lazy genius of the week. Today, it's Natalie. Seymour, who sent me this message on Instagram. Hi, Kendra. I wanted to share a slightly different way I used the episode on fall planning from a couple of weeks ago. I have an autoimmune disease

that often flares up with weather changes and stress, basically a given in the fall. I used the steps from the episode to narrow down what matters most when I'm sick. Food, fluids, rest, pain relief, and comfort. I listed items from those categories. that help and I put them together in a flare kit. I have shelf stable items like my favorite instant fuh, powdered smoothie mix, tea, et cetera, plus a heating pad, meds, candle, and other comforts. All those items are in a cute basket in the guestroom closet ready for when I need them. Knowing that I have what I will need helps ease some of the anxiety. Thanks for the inspiration. Natalie, Natalie, Natalie, I could not love this more. I could not love this more. Partly because I get asked quite often to do an episode

about chronic illness and how to support yourself in that. And you just nailed such a great way to do that. Some of the principles I'm seeing here, there are a lot. Some that I'm seeing are batching, right? You're getting everything together at the same time. And other principles put everything in its place. You're putting everything you need together in one spot, ready to grab it when you need it. Live in the season. You are naming that this is a difficult one for your flare-ups and you are being kind to yourself in creating support for when things get hard. I just love the execution of the principles here for sure, but also the way you're adjusting what I'm talking about to fit what you need. And y'all, that's the entire point here. I am not trying to be the expert on telling you what to do.

I just want to keep being here to help remind you how to think. You are the expert at solving your own problems. Not me. Not me. So I love, this is such an example of that. I just love it so much. So thank you, Natalie, for sending me this message. And congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week. Okay, guys, that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra. I'll see you next week. If you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life, it's so dangerous to live that, more dangerous than a B minus or a C. C plus life because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough.

Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.