Ep 126: Grandma’s Table

Transcript

[00:00] Morgan: Okay, I see you and I raise you—

[00:03] Misty: Oh, good.

[00:04] Morgan: —our shared value of hospitality, and then the beautiful conversations that occur around the table and/or in a home, in a space, and in our company. And how important it is for us, as we exist in this world, to just, wherever we are, kind of create this room, this literal and metaphoric table for communion and comfort and belonging and discovery.

[00:46] Misty: Hey. Welcome to Mom2Mom Mentoring. I’m Misty Hughes, and before we get started, yes, you are in the right space. I am co-hosting season two of Mom2Mom Mentoring with my daughter, Morgan. She is not just my guest, she is actually the co-host. Today, we are talking in the kitchen. Yeah, my grandma’s kitchen.

[01:17] Just imagine homemade pancakes with her homemade syrup, Christmas candies and cookies, all the good things, and even a little Pampered Chef. Somewhere in the midst of our discussion, Morgan and I got talking about the difference between serving and hosting, true hospitality, and the reason that this matters so much to us.

[01:44] One of the reasons is because true hospitality is what we are offering in the retreat that we are co-hosting in Puerto Rico. Yep, you heard me right, the sunny, beautiful beaches of Puerto Rico, January 20th through the 25th, for just seven women. Why just seven? Because it’s really important to us to offer true hospitality.

[02:13] Imagine a seat pulled up just for you, where you don’t have to bring anything but your lovely self. Conversations that linger way past dessert and that go deep, that don’t stay on the surface, about the things that really matter to you, about who you’re becoming and what you dream about the possibilities of that looking like in the year ahead.

[02:43] Remember, it’s just seven women, and registration is open now. You can learn more about this at mistyhughes.com/rooted-and-reaching. I’ll put the link in the show notes. Now, if you’re ready to feast on something good, pull up a chair and let’s dig in.

[03:08] Misty: Well, hospitality started for me with my grandmother.

[03:16] Morgan: Yeah. And I will never forget going to her house every time, and she would pull blackberry cobbler out of the oven. That’s a very early memory for me. But tell me more. You knew her much longer.

[03:33] Misty: Um, yeah, it was the gathering place for all of us. And it was funny, like I said, I was just with all of my cousins, and oh my gosh, just the talk about Grandma. “Oh, you remember Dora?” And I had a cousin’s cousin who I was close to, and he was there. He’s from California, so he was with us this last weekend too. He knows us all and loves us all. So he talked about when he was in college in Bloomington, and all of his buddies would pine for home. I didn’t know this. He said, “I’d just call Dorie, take my college buddies, and we’d go to Dorie’s for the day, and she’d just feed us.” And so that was my grandma.

[04:28] You could just call her and say, “Hey, I’m coming.” I remember after I was married… I took for granted growing up that, oh, Grandma’s always going to bake the Christmas cookies and all of that. One time after I was married and had both you and your sister, we lived in Terre Haute, and I called her and said, “Grandma, I don’t know how to make potato pinwheels or… you’ve just always done it.” So I went one weekend, and she just taught me. [We made] candy all weekend, Christmas candy, and so that was something that we continued to do. So Grandma really—

[05:14] Morgan: [Can we do that] at Thanksgiving when we’re all together?

[05:16] Misty: Make some candies?

[05:18] Morgan: Yeah, make Christmas cookies. Okay.

[05:21] Misty: Yeah. What kind would you want to make?

[05:25] Morgan: [Thumbprint?] and honey ginger and probably divinity, if we have a mixer, and the pecan cups that Philip likes.

[05:41] Misty: Okay. All right. We’ll see. We may not be… because you’re—

[05:45] Morgan: We’ll do it. We got it. We got this, Mom. Just say yes.

[05:51] Misty: Just say yes. Your great ideas, right? Okay. All right. It’s on tape, so we’re committed to it.

[06:00] Morgan: Yes.

[06:01] Misty: But yeah, so it all started with Grandma and pancakes. Homemade pancakes, her homemade syrup, which again, I made syrup growing up. And just always the food. We were talking about hunger and satisfaction… just the good flavors at Grandma’s house. But not just the flavors. Like sitting out on the swing and snapping the green beans, and just the togetherness. Her home [was] a safe place for people to just come. So it started for me with Grandma.

[06:45] Morgan: And then it skipped a generation, ’cause your mom does not like cooking.

[06:51] Misty: My mom did not enjoy those things at all.

[06:56] Morgan: For me, going to Grandma’s house meant unlimited popcorn and Diet Dr Pepper, and she would definitely always let us have brownies for breakfast, ’cause she said it was just as good or bad as a Pop-Tart, which we didn’t get anyway. So then, yeah, it skipped a generation and came in strong in you.

[07:17] And my earliest kitchen memory has also established, I think, a core philosophy for me in how I live my life, which was making banana muffins for the first time. It was the first thing I ever cooked by myself from start to finish, and I did it wrong. And we still have the spiral notebook with the recipes in it, which you gave to me, and I still use this recipe to this day. And I did it wrong.

[07:42] I did the sequence of ingredients wrong, and I remember you were upset. You were more uptight at this time. This was before you were a grandmother. I was in trouble, or it was bad that I had done this wrong, because then it might not work. And then… it worked, and the muffins turned out great, and you were like, “Wow, we don’t have to follow the instructions.” And that’s how I live my life.

[08:07] Misty: [That was] me then.

[08:10] Morgan: And it’s just a tolerance for exploration and experimentation. And even if they had turned out bad, I always learn more from what I get wrong than what I get right. So I still have that recipe book, but that’s my earliest memory in the kitchen. But then, you know, we grew up in the kitchen. My sister and I were helping with the cooking and dishes from the very earliest age.

[08:35] And I love to cook now. My sister’s a great cook, but I don’t think she loves it as much. For me it is my creative outlet. I come home from work every day and I want to cook. At least twice a week I come home and I’ll make an entire meal, and it’s so late that I don’t want to eat it, and I’ll put it in the fridge. I have a rotation of people, and I’m like, “All right. Who’s ready for pot roast and potatoes?” I give away at least half of the food that I cook every week.

[09:09] Misty: I [am] wired that way, because after I’ve been editing podcasts all day, or [working on the] website all day, I just can’t wait to get into the kitchen. Craig will always ask me, “Do you want me to help?” And I’m usually just like, “Just let me go in and—”

[09:31] Morgan: Get in the flow.

[09:32] Misty: Yeah. And then I’ll have you come in and you can chop some things for me, because I [love] to have people in my kitchen with me too, or just talking to me. But I just need that. It’s just this space to breathe.

[09:50] Morgan: And it’s a creative outlet. I think we both get to use our minds and explore and think creatively in our work every day, which is a gift. But then getting to produce something tangible at the end of that creative process is so deeply satisfying. And then getting to see other people enjoy and be nourished, and then the conversation that unlocks when someone’s being fed, is just the greatest compounding joy for the whole process.

[10:28] I don’t know, do you think we cook well together? I know you would always joke that if you wanted your kitchen cleaned up, you would ask me to cook something, because I can’t cook in a messy kitchen, so I would always clean up and then cook. But as you think about us cooking together, we have a pretty good flow.

[10:58] Misty: We do. But I think one of us is kind of directing, if that makes sense.

[11:07] Morgan: You work on this and I’ll work on that.

[11:10] Misty: Then that works really well. We each kind of have our own little space within the context of the larger space.

[11:21] Morgan: Yeah. And then I think about how Mom and I sold Pampered Chef together, and that was my business class when I was homeschooled. Which was really fun, and we did really well. And I was just realizing that was kind of our precursor to this podcast, because there’s a performative element where we’re presenting and preparing and bouncing back and forth and exploring, creating something together alongside each other.

[11:56] For the uninitiated, the way Pampered Chef works is someone hosts a party in their home, and you cook something in front of everyone and showcase all of the different tools and utensils and pots and pans that you use in the cooking process, and then hopefully sell those to people, ’cause they’re like, “Wow, I didn’t know you could measure things with this clicky measuring spoon. What a game changer.” And so that was a really fun expression, I think, of our love for hospitality and hosting and cooking. And you made it a learning experience for me.

[12:53] And it’s still… you know, I host all the time. Except for a date, I don’t know the last time I’ve gone out to dinner. I would rather have someone over to my house. Even lunchtime. I had a lunch meeting this week and I was like, “All right. Would you instead just come over? Because I have so much food. Instead of us going out for Thai, can you come over and I’ll feed you roast chicken?”

[13:17] And even this week, I had three friends over and they just had the most beautiful evening, and it all just unfolded perfectly. From the drinks to the appetizers to the soup and the coursing of the meal, it all felt so beautiful and natural and fun to me that I just couldn’t wait to talk to you about it, and give you the play-by-play of what I made, and the lavender-infused simple syrup and the salted caramel sauce I made. That’s still something that I just relish sharing with you, even if we’re not doing it together.

[14:03] But every time I visit you or you visit me, we host people together. All of my friends wanna get to spend time with you when you’re in town, if I let them. I’m protective of my time with you. But we always have people over and love just hosting. And when I come to your house, you do the same. You have people over and host, and we get to [make] a space for people.

[14:35] Misty: Yeah. And that’s fun.

[14:38] Morgan: I think what’s maybe special is not just the feeding, but the feeding of the soul. There’s just something that happens, and conversations that are unlocked in a home with food made by our very hands, that is different.

[15:04] It’s like some kind of unlock. You can absolutely have great conversations in a restaurant, but you’re interacting with a server, and you’re reviewing the menu, and you’re making selections, and there’s this sort of subtext happening. But in a home, if I have you into my home for a meal, then you don’t have to make any decisions, and you don’t have to engage externally or think about price or nutritional value or anything like that.

[15:34] You just have to come and exist and settle into yourself in a space. And then when you add the aspect of being nourished, there’s something that I think makes people unlock even further and settle in even deeper. Hands down, the richest conversations I ever have are over my own table, because of that.

[16:06] Misty: Yeah. And I think that’s one thing. If I go back to my grandma, I remember her home being a gathering place. But early on in my journey of hospitality, I had an aha, that she never sat [down and] enjoyed the people.

[16:33] Morgan: Mm. Yeah, you’ve talked about that.

[16:37] Misty: And so I just remember one time, this was before either of the boys were born, when we lived in Michigan, and we were having all of our Sunday school class over. I was so anxious and stressed about all the details, and the place, and what would the kids do, and how would this flow, and all of this.

[17:02] And we cleaned the baseboards, and we did all of this. And I just remember it was kind of like seeing my grandma and going, “Oh, but wait. There’s something more—”

[17:20] Morgan: And it’s you.

[17:22] Misty: “—[than] just offering the food and the home. I want that time. I want to be a part. I want to be present with the people, the gift of the people that are coming into my [home]. I wanna be present with those people. I want to receive the gift of their presence, but I also wanna give the gift of my presence to them.”

[17:53] That was just a revelation, an insight from the Lord, in my journey of hospitality, because I saw. I could see, “Oh, this is a gift of hospitality. It’s a gift. [Not] everybody has it. Not everybody can flow in it. But it can also be a curse.” You know? And do I wanna use it not just for the good of others, but for my own good and growth? Do I want it to cause stress and pressure to my family?

[18:36] And do I want others to feel anxious when they’re in my home? And so, you know, it didn’t happen overnight, but I think over time I grew in relaxing and [being less] uptight. I had you to help me learn that everything didn’t have to be mixed according to the recipe.

[19:04] Morgan: [Or] have to have all the ingredients. Yeah. I think that’s a good differentiation. The difference between just serving and hosting. In serving, you’re definitely meeting a need and giving someone a good experience. But in hosting, you’re present and facilitating and communing with, rather than just setting food on a table for other people to eat. And that’s the richer experience.

[19:51] Misty: So much richer. Yeah.

[20:00] Morgan: Is there anything that you’re like, “Okay, this would be next level for me in hosting”? Is there anything aspirational for you, or have you arrived?

[20:22] Misty: I think next level for me… I don’t know if it’s aspirational, but something that I really enjoy that I don’t feel like I’m doing much of in my own home right now: I do love cooking with others. And I do that with Craig. But I remember one Thanksgiving with you kids, we were having people over, and everybody’s like, “What can I bring? What can I bring?” And I was like, “Hey, just come and let’s cook together. We’ll have the pies pre-made, and I’ll have the turkey done, but let’s cook things together.” And that was kind of an anomaly for a couple of the people that came.

[21:17] But I do enjoy that, not just around the table, but in the process. We’re in that space. We’re creating together. We’re preparing something wonderful together. [That’s] an aspiration, or something that I would love to have.

[22:03] Morgan: I think I feel similar. I think people feel more comfortable when they have something to do. No one likes just sitting and watching you do something, kind of feeling like, “Oh, what do I do here?”

[22:22] I’ve noticed that even when someone walks in the door and I’m still doing some stuff, if I’m like, “Can you cut that watermelon?” or “Can you get the jams out of the fridge?”, it helps people relax, actually.

[22:37] And for me, it’s actually cleaning up. I have a hard rule that no one cleans up. But this dinner that I hosted on Tuesday that was just so perfect, people were helping me clean up, against my wishes. My dishwasher had broken the day before. And people being in the kitchen with me and in the space, cleaning up and washing dishes and putting up leftovers, while I was making a salted caramel sauce for dessert… everyone was doing something, and that created a shift. Getting up from the table and moving around led to natural shifts in the conversation and interactions, and helped with the flow of the evening. But it also ultimately made everybody feel more comfortable in my home and in my kitchen, when they have something to do, and they have to figure out where the wine opener is or which glasses to use.

[23:49] So maybe that is, for me too, kind of the next thing: delegating, and even setting aside things that people can help and participate in, to make them feel more comfortable in the space and in my home.

[24:09] Misty: Yeah. I think I’ve gotten into this mindset, and then I stress a little bit, that everything has to be ready before anybody arrives. I really have gotten into that mindset. I go into other people’s homes and I’m like, “How did they have it timed right, that that comes out of the oven and everything’s cleaned off? How do they do that?” I never [seem] to do that. I’m always 15 minutes behind or something.

[24:42] As we’re just talking about this, which I love, our process time together… what it is is not being a perfectionist about the timing. Maybe not having the charcuterie board all done, but saying, “Oh, can you slice those cheeses and put [them] on?” [It’s got] 20 more minutes to cook, and that way we [can] nibble and have a glass of wine while we’re doing [it]. So, good aspiration as we’re coming into the [holidays], when Craig and I will be hosting people in our home.

[25:18] Morgan: Yeah. Just inviting people into the process.

[25:21] Misty: What’s so fun about having you and your siblings is, it’s almost like [we] just do that naturally with each [other].

[25:33] Morgan: For sure. For sure.

[25:35] Misty: And it’s a given, and it’s so easy to just flow in that space, because [that’s] how we lived our lives, right?

[25:46] Morgan: No direction really necessary.

[25:48] Misty: Well, how about that? No direction necessary. Doesn’t that sound like a divine place to be, in the kitchen with me and Morgan? I think my grandma would so appreciate that, and appreciate this episode. If something in our conversation today stirred up a memory of a table where you felt like you belonged, I would love to hear about it. Find me on Instagram at the_mistyhughes or in our Facebook community. The links for all of these are in the show notes.

[26:31] And if being the one who’s served for a change sounds like something that God is inviting you to, and something that you’ve been hungry for, that’s Rooted and Reaching, January 20th through the 25th in Puerto Rico. Just seven women around the table, good food and honest conversation. Morgan and I, we are saving you a seat.

[27:03] That’s at mistyhughes.com/rooted-and-reaching. Now, I wanna invite you to subscribe or follow, because next time we’re gonna be talking a little bit about vocation versus career, and we’re gonna revisit Morgan and check in and see how she’s doing on her little loneliness journey.

[27:31] You don’t wanna miss what she’s been learning. Thanks for pulling up a chair with us. We’re so glad you’re here, and we look forward to being with you again next week. Until then, remember, when you shine, you give others permission to shine too. So, go shine.

CTA for this episode: Rooted and Reaching retreat, Puerto Rico, January 2027, just 7 women — https://mistyhughes.com/rooted-and-reaching · Subscribe or follow wherever you listen.