Cheddar Corn Chowder

If you are looking for a good fall recipe, you must try Barefoot Contessa’s Cheddar Corn Chowder. It is so delicious! My mom often made this soup for my family growing up, and now my husband and I frequently enjoy it. I was surprised to find the recipe available online. The recipe makes an enormous amount of soup, so unless you have a big stock-pot, you might want to cut it in half. The soup can be frozen and saved for last-minute occasions. More on that idea here.

Hospitality at Its Best

“When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:12-14).

I'm challenged Miroslav Volf's explanation of Luke 14 from his book Practicing Theology: “From this we may conclude that hospitality at its best should not be part of the economy of exchange among equals or with superiors, but instead be part of an economy of donation to the destitute and weak. So to evaluate whether we were good hosts, we might ask ourselves whether we expected to get as much (or more) out of the invitation as we put in. If we did, we have missed the mark.”

So the best form of hospitality is when we welcome someone into our home who cannot return the favor.

[Quote from Miroslav Volf, “Theology for a Way of Life,” Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2002), 251.]

[Photo from Martha]

Hosting Overnight Houseguests

The May issue of Martha Stewart Living contains a good idea for graciously arranging a bedroom for your overnight guest. Martha says, “Choose a vessel, such as a vase or a large julep cup, that is deep enough to accommodate a small bottle and ice. Place a saucer underneath to collect the condensation and protect the surface of the table” (May 2008).

Image via Martha

After poking around Martha’s website some more, I also stumbled upon another idea. She recommends that you keep a set of guest towels in a closet at all times, bound with twill tape or ribbon. Then when visitors arrive, it is easy to transfer the stack of towels from the linen closet to the guest bedroom.

Image via Martha

Similarly, a little while ago Apartment Therapy highlighted some additional ideas for hosting houseguests found in House Beautiful. Here are some of my favorite tips:

• Keep a current magazines on-hand in one drawer of the nightstand, but be sure to keep another drawer empty for your guest’s own belongings.
• Provide guests with an alarm clock.
• Make guests feel at home, but don't clutter up surfaces. Every item you leave out on the table should be useful.
• Flowers are a lovely addition to the nightstand, but just a few stems are enough
• Provide a lamp.
• A cozy finishing touch: a small plate of cookies for a midnight snack.

Spontaneous Hospitality

I really enjoyed this blog post by Lydia Brownback on hospitality. The post offers a lot of useful tips for practicing hospitality. Also, it makes a helpful distinction between calculated hospitality and spontaneous hospitality. Lydia describes a woman she knows who always has a pan of lasagna in the freezer so she can be spontaneously hospitable at any given time.

I like that idea. When I saw this month’s issue of Real Simple, I thought the Rosemary Chicken with Zucchini was a good recipe for this purpose. The meal can be made and frozen for up to three months, and doesn’t take too long to cook. This would be a perfect dish to keep sitting in the freezer for an unplanned moment that calls for hospitality. Oh, the clever art of planning ahead for unplanned occasions!