Salon Post : March 30

[jenett]

Welcome to this week's salon post!

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Topic of the week
I've been thinking a lot about being hospitable to people (because I have current Seekers doing classes which meet at my home for my particular witchcraft tradition, who may turn into longer-term students.)

In that kind of setting, what makes you feel welcome? What kinds of things around food and drink work for you? (We're currently at 'feel free to bring things, I have water and a wide variety of tea.' because I'm already spending time prepping for and doing the teaching part, and food is complex in these situations.)

But I'm curious what you'd find interesting or useful or helpful in similar settings (i.e. someone hosting, whether that's friendship/social stuff or something like this which is a slightly different equation.)

What I've been up to:
The religious holidays this week (barring the full moon tomorrow) are not my holidays, but if they're yours, I hope they're meaningful and go well, in whatever ways that matters for you.

It has been a not-fabulous brain week, and I'm about to hit a busy stretch at work (Shifting one of the sites we manage over to a new structure! Major catalog updates!) I have just finished the Donna season of Doctor Who, and am getting through podcasts at a greater rate (thanks to the catalog work)


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Comments

[sporky_rat]

I like having a variety of options for coffee and tea - both iced and hot.

I can't drink sodas anymore, so I do remind people that if they prefer that, they'll need to bring it. I do tend to provide a baked good (biscuits and a jam is my usual) for nibbling, unless there's a food issue. Then it's a gf bakery biscuit and jam.

[jenett]

I often have diet Coke, but for both budget reasons and 'it's a pain for me to wrangle cases of it', I tend to buy a month at once and make it last out, so I am not inclined toward sharing widely.

Part of me would like to do snacks, but the rest of me is at 'that is more wrangling of logistics than I am reliably up for'. (Plus the 'trying not to limit sugar, which means having left overs kicking around after such things is a complication. I do eat some, just I'm pretty picky about what, and it mostly doesn't overlap to baked goods.)

[sporky_rat]

I do up a freezer bag of little homemade biscuits that I can fish out a few at a time and shove in the toaster oven. If I do it once a month, the bag generally lasts the month unless we have a lot of people over. (We don't usually. Gulf Wars is an anomaly.)
(They're also what I eat with my meds for breakfast, so it's something I have on hand except for the gf stuff, but those are something I can pick up from the bakery down from the library anyway.)

[rosefox]

Veggie tray from the grocery store?

[jenett]

Requires more fridge space than I often have handy. (I have a decidedly undersized fridge, even for an apartment).

There's also a ... I don't mind being out the time and energy for teaching and hosting ritual stuff (but it's not trivial, between the actual teaching prep and the 'is the apartment tidy' prep that I often have to spread over a couple of days after work) but being out extra money for food that may or may not get eaten is not a great thing.

(I can't eat a bunch of stuff on veggie trays uncooked, and cooking from fresh involves spoons I may or may not have in a timely manner)

Joys of living in a high cost of living town on one salary (even if it's a moderately reasonable salary) in an apartment with quirks, really.

Which is big part of why I'm chewing on this at the moment, the 'what's reasonably hospitable, but sustainable in a model where I'm already providing a number of things and putting in time and energy before and after on the teaching front, and where I want to model collaborative effort without putting people out financially either'. And with the chronic health things that mean I'd rather spend the spoons on the teaching part rather than the 'here are random hospitable bits that might not actually be necessary if we can work out alternatives'.

[rosefox]

Providing food definitely isn't necessary as long as people know to bring snacks for themselves.