[00:00:00] Nina: Welcome to Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship or welcome back if you’ve been here before. I’ve been hosting this podcast for two and a half years now, and I’ve been writing about friendships since the fall of 2014. So this fall, which, you know, we still have a while to get there. It’s only January right now, but that will be a decade. Wow.

Today, I have the pleasure of playing an episode from the early days, the very early days, because it tells two stories I love to discuss, and I had way less listeners when this came out—A true friendship story from my life, a newer adult friendship with my friend, Debra Arbit.

We have only been friends for about five years. I have to do the math on that. And when she came on the show, even less so, maybe now it’s been six years. I often tell people it is never too late to make new friends. I was in my forties and I’m still in my forties, but I was a little earlier in my forties when I met Debra, and she’s a very close friend.

And the other topic that is part of this episode is about hosting dinner parties as opposed to going to restaurants all the time, and I don’t mean big fancy dinner parties I mean just having people over and why Debra and I both like to do that So we have some tips on how to make it easier less daunting. We both have strong feelings about certain hosting tips that are helpful. I don’t mean strong like controversial. I mean, like we both feel really strongly that these certain things will make it easier.

[00:01:34] Nina: Back to that first part, Debra and I met in the spring of 2018. I dug up my first email with Debra. It was fun to go in my email and search for those original communications. In the interview with Debra, you’ll hear her talk about our first time texting, but we didn’t talk about the first email, which actually preceded the text.

Reading the email, I understand the context of it that isn’t clear. So I have to tell you that to make it clear what we’re talking about. Debra and I both use a coworking space in Minneapolis called ModernWell. ModernWell is where I co-lead writing groups with my friend, Julie. It’s also the space where Debra has a full office with a door, because co-working spaces, there’s open space where you can just sit anywhere. And then some people have offices with a door.

When we met, she might not have. Maybe that’s how we met in the first place We would run into each other. We knew people in common we just never stopped talking. She signed up for my writing class, which I told her about when we first met and ModernWell so we must have talked about the class. She probably said, let me know about the signups on email. And this is from Monday, May 14th, 2018, subject summer class. And I wrote, hi, we’ve definitely emailed before because I already had your email address in here.And now I kind of remember. Was it about an article I wrote or something I yammered on about on Facebook? I think it was. Let me know if this link works. We’d love, love to have you in the class.

So Debra and I know a lot of people in common. We’re in a very large Facebook group together. So maybe we had both commented on something. We knew of each other, but we had never really met in person till the same day I wrote this email, she wrote, thank you. So nice to officially meet you and I’m really excited for the class.I’ve done all different writing in my life and she goes on to tell me about some of the writing. I’m not going to read all of that And then she says, Thanks for taking the time with me today and I look forward to getting to know you better. Debra. Bye.

The friendship really could have stayed exactly where it was. It would have been an absolutely pleasant, casual friendship, which I would still consider a friendship, just not a deep friendship. We would have enjoyed running into each other at ModernWell. We would have enjoyed being in this writing group together, And we would have been in a Facebook group together, probably seen each other on there, and that would have been fine. But we wouldn’t have seen each other outside of those couple of circumstances. What made it a bigger friendship for both of us in our lives is because of a text that Debra sent me, which you will hear more about from Debra.

I want her to tell that story. But why did I decide to replay this episode is because that piece of the story is so important. And when I first played this episode, I made it more about the hosting, which I also want to replay because I think those are great tips. And like I said, I have a whole lot more listeners now, I want people to have the chance to benefit from Debra’s experience and my experience hosting lots of people at our houses. Also Debra runs this incredible Instagram called for the love of cookbooks. It’s @forttheloveofcookbooks. What it is, is Debra live cooking her way through cookbooks. Long before Debra even started that account. And she had this hobby of cooking her way through cookbooks. She doesn’t do it in order. She dips in and out of the book and eventually gets through every single recipe. She makes a little check marks next to every recipe. You can see her do that. She writes right in there she makes this food on Instagram.

It’s really cool to watch. It makes you feel like you can cook. It really does. Cause you watch her do it and you’re like, okay, well I could cook an onion. I could cut a pepper. I could chop the chicken that way. It feels doable when you watch her do it. it’s nothing. She’s crazy fancy. She’s following a recipe.

The way it’s grown has been really cool to watch in the last couple of years since she first told us about it on the podcast. Debra runs a consulting business to advise women owned businesses. I’m really proud to call her a very close friend of mine. Okay, I’ll stop and I’ll just let Debra and I from the past talk.

Welcome, Debra.

[00:05:33] Debra: Thanks, Nina. It’s so fun to be the first official guest live and in person in the Nina studio

[00:05:39] Nina: All right, Debra, before we get to everything, you’re gonna be able to tell us about having people over and having it not be stressful or at least less stressful. I wanna talk about taking a friendship to the next level. Cause we did that really well. I’d say we are a major success story and it was not that long ago. I mean, do we even know how long three years, four years? How long have we been friends?

[00:06:00] Debra: Yeah, I think it’s been about four. I do always say that you’re one of my. If not my absolute, newest, closest friend, like of my close friends, you’re definitely the newest, only four years in.

[00:06:11] Nina: That is on the newer side. Debra grew up in Minneapolis, like you’ve been here your whole life and I’ve been here 20 years. I’m hardly a newcomer anymore. I’ve been here. I always say my entire adult life. So it is a success story of making a new close friend. Well into the adult years, which I get a lot of questions about that. People meet each other. We’re a great example of that. It’s like we met and it’s not like people don’t meet other people, but how do you get to that next level? And Debra, I’m gonna have you tell our friendship

[00:06:36] Debra: story. Let’s see here. So it was probably now about five years ago that I started working at our co-working space, Modernwell, we just kind of started seeing each other there all the time. You see a lot of people at co-working spaces, so it’s easy to just kind of wave and say hi, but there was something about the two of us that it was actually genuinely a problem that we could not stop talking. Once we got started, there would be days when one of us would walk in and it was like, you can’t even sit by me.

[00:07:04] Nina: And we were really just getting to know each other. Now I should say we knew of each other. It’s not like you were a total stranger, but I don’t think we’d ever had a conversation at all. I don’t even know if we would’ve recognized each other. Well, maybe we would have, I know your siblings and we just, we know other people in common, but I do remember those early times at modernwell, you’d have to sit on one side of the building and I’d have to go to another because we get anything done. We couldn’t control ourselves.

00:07:26] Debra: In that way it was a very natural friendship from the beginning, but it also, would’ve been so easy to leave it at that because we had known of each other. We are a very small handful of years apart, but it felt significant cuz your kids are older than that five years apart. Or four years apart.

[00:07:42] Nina: I think four, yeah, I’m older. We should establish that. Yeah. In this should establish that. yeah. And this speaks to something I talked about in episode 20 about friendship chemistry, which is we had immediate chemistry, but chemistry does not always translate into a friendship. Something has to happen between chemistry. And now we have more to do with each other’s lives than just saying hi at ModernWell

[00:08:00] Debra: and thus leads us to the big moment which was, I, well remember it, it was like a super sunny day. I still remember it. I had just eaten lunch at modernwell. I knew Nina was coming in in the afternoon.

I think you were teaching a class I was there working and I had just eaten lunch and I have a problem that I cannot finish a meal without eating something sweet And there was not a single shred of chocolate at modernwell that day. I picked up my phone and I texted Nina.

I had never really done that. I think I had your number from an email and I was like, are you ready to take our friendship to the next level? that is literally I think the words I said, and then I said, what do you have in the way of sweet chocolate things in your house. And will you please bring me some, because this is an absolute state of emergency she immediately responded yes, I have a whole stash of Halloween candy or something.

You had a bunch of kid candy and yep. You were like, I will be there within a half hour. it sounds so silly, but. Kind of taking it off of just seeing each other at modern well, and into the texting world and into the favor world. Yes, that’s right. Is really what cracked it open.

[00:09:03] Nina: I was gonna say that about favors. Like when you ask someone for a favor that is a big step in a friendship, but this is of course an extremely small favor, but you could ask for bigger favors it does. Move things along. And like you said, about the text stream. Now we had a conversation going, once you start in a text with somebody, that’s a place to keep dipping into a conversation.

We text all the time, right? Yeah. We text, I introduced Debra, I think I introduced you to the voice memo. Yes. I love a voice memo. We actually speak on the phone. We walk, we go out to lunch. we do all the things,

[00:09:33] Debra: Tight. I think you’ve told me this Nina that I don’t know if it was something you read or something like that.But I think about it a lot that When a person asks another person for a favor, the person who has been asked. Of the favor, like you in this situation actually feels closer to the Oscar than the other way around. I think logically that doesn’t seem right, but it really does make a lot of sense. Asking someone for a favor is also sort of like giving them an invite to being a closer friend. And it’s such a lovely way to start now.

[00:10:01] Nina: I often say that if you are somebody who is waiting for others to reach out or waiting for others, to invite you places, you may be waiting a long time. So I’m switching us now from becoming friends, just you and I in our personal story, just, I loved that example to a broader idea of having people over at your house for meals.

It could be brunch, it could be lunch, it could be dinner, it could be whole families. It could be just a friend for coffee, but this idea of inviting someone into your house and taking the initiative is so important. If you want to have plans, you have to make plans. So I wanna talk about your experience of having people over and tell us a little bit about your story with that. Cuz there’s a story there too. You didn’t just one day randomly start inviting people. There was actually some rhyme and reason to it.

[00:10:48] Debra: Yep. It was actually a new year’s resolution. I think it was 2017. It may have been 2016. I think it was one of those years. I made a new year’s resolution that for a calendar year, we would have 40 Friday night dinners in our home with 40 different families.

And I would be making 40 brand new, never. Before made recipes from a cookbook. So it was sort of three part goal. It was so fun. We were at a life stage when we had three really little kids. So I think I had a three, two year, three year old, a two year old and a baby. And so going out to eat was like so hard it was just like next to impossible.

There was someone bedtime, someone diapers. It was just not happening, but I missed seeing people. So I decided to bring them into my house. So that was how it started. And now it’s become borderline, we could call it a passion. We can call it an obsession, however you wanna call it. But I absolutely love, love opening my home to people.

And how would you decide who to have over? Good question. First of all, it was a while ago, so, I mean, we started with our, our friends right. Yeah. But we don’t have 40. Very close friends, you know? Um, I don’t think most people do. So we started with those people to kind of just get going but what was nice about this goal was it was a nice kind of icebreaker to say to someone that was more of a, maybe more than an acquaintance, but less than a really good friend to be able to say, Hey, we’ve made this our goal.

Would you ever wanna come over on some Friday? What Friday night might you be open to it? And then it sort of cuts down the awkwardness. I don’t know if we’re at the advice portion of the program here yet, but it’s always the advice portion. Okay. is that while I don’t think most people will say I made it my goal to have 40 Friday night dinners. I do think that saying something like, we’ve been trying to host more at our house. We’re a little new to this. Would you want to be a part of that? I think that it’s just people, again, you’re sort of almost asking them a favor at that point to be like, will you help me by coming?

I mean, we didn’t plan way, way far in advance. It was like when new people would come into our lives for all different reasons, we’d be like, Hey, or people we hadn’t seen in a long time, or even coworkers who sometimes it can be awkward to be like, am I gonna have this coworker over? But it’s sort of a nice way to do it. Children are like the ultimate diffuser, cuz everyone’s just looking down at their kids and it’s not as awkward when they’re all around.

[00:13:00] Nina: I want to mention, hosting some people love it. Some people don’t. I put on my Facebook group, dear Nina, the group, which is a private group that anyone can join love to have you. And sometimes I’ll put the topic out early so that we could add those comments to the episode. And it usually adds something I wouldn’t have thought of. No surprise. I got some people who were like, I love hosting. And some people were like, Ugh, that’s so stressful. So I wanna share some of the positive just to reiterate some of the stuff, Debra and I are both saying about how much potential there is when you have people over.

And this was a great comment. One of the members said I’m a big fan of hosting. I think there is magic in having friends in your sacred space, sharing time and stories. That you made that lingering time after the meal is done. Laughs, tea, your coffee, all special moments with no pressure giving up your table at a restaurant freedom to see where the night takes you in an intimate time and space.

And someone else said, I love sharing food and stories. It’s easier to listen to people in a quiet environment. Another person said it can be fun. To mix up friends and decide who would make a good combo. Finally, someone said, I love hosting friends for meals, Shabbat, Jewish holidays, Thanksgiving. We always have a crowd. I like cooking a baking. It’s a chance to socialize with friends and have our kids connect with our friends’ kids, et cetera. So that’s all really positive.

[00:14:12] Debra: It’s the chills from some of those comments. I think, nice. This is obviously a passion of mine, so I’m like, that’s all so true.

[00:14:18] Nina: And that really speaks, like I said to the potential and I personally love. Being a guest and hosting. Now it is not without its stresses. And we’ll talk about that too, but I hate sitting in the same spot all night long in a restaurant. And I also, the older I get, I find it hard to hear, like one of these commenters spoke to that really is a real thing. I mean, you I’m really struggling to hear sometimes with all the background noise and then you’re in one spot and I have been known to say that.

Any number of people at a restaurant over six people is not a fun night out, right? That is two separate events that are happening at that table. Once you get to eight people. And then of course, if you’re gonna have kids in the picture with all that, you’re immediately at a big number, right. I wanna share a couple of the comments about the challenges of hosting, cause that’s really what we’re gonna spend the rest of our episode on is how to overcome those challenges.

And those were, I love hosting. I find it stressful, wanting the house to be clean the food to be good. And the experience to be fun. I feel like I’m a good hostess, but it’s not effortless for me. Someone else said I love to host, but I also get stressed out about it. So I don’t do it as often as I would like to someone else said, can you give us some tips to make it easier?

And isn’t that the perfect segue. So Debra who has done this so many times is going to. Give us some tips and I’ll give some of mind too or agree, whatever, probably most likely.

[00:15:34] Debra: Yeah. So I have definitely learned a lot along the way, which is probably my first tip actually, which is like any other thing, literally.

Any other thing you do is it’s mostly just about practicing. There was a time when I absolutely there was more thought about it. It was maybe harder. And now just because it’s so part of our family and our kind of family’s rhythm it’s become so much easier. There is nothing to it, but to do it really. And so that’s my number one piece of advice is if you wanted to get easier, you just have to do it more and

[00:16:05] Nina: maybe allow yourself to fail to, I served raw chicken. The first time I had people over chicken was raw. I don’t think I quite understood the difference between reading directions and cuz I did cook it for as long as the direction said, but you know, every Oven’s different chicken’s different sizes. And when it looked cooked on the outside, I mean, but I’ve learned more exactly what you’re saying practice. Now I would know if chicken was cooked even in the inside just looking at it.

[00:16:28] Debra: And I think too, a couple things, the more you do it, you still might mess up. It’s not like I’ve never burned the meal. But you take it a little bit less hard. Yeah. Like, oh, I burned today’s meal. Not like I’m the world’s worst hostess for me making brand new recipes weirdly takes the pressure off in some ways of the food, because I’m like, I don’t know if this is gonna be good.

You don’t know if this is gonna be good. We’re all part of an experiment here versus this is my. Absolute specialty. And then the, the guest is also like, oh my God, I better like it because, or show them that I like it. Or we’re just kind of like all experiencing the food yeah. At the same time. So that’s just something kind of fun about it is that there’s no like pressure to love the food or not love the food.

And also when it comes to hosting more. So when it comes to being a guest is when you put yourself in the guest’s shoes, you don’t walk into a house thinking this better be good. And you’re mostly worried about your own kid’s behavior, your own stuff. Like where am I supposed to be going?

[00:17:24] Nina: You’re just happy not to put, not to feed anybody.

[00:17:26] Debra: . What I was gonna say is that there is no reason to make it overly fancy. At all, wherever, your level of what would make you feel comfortable and happy doing do that. Yeah, truly. If you invited me for Shabbat and it was Domino’s, I would be mostly, I’d be like, my kids are gonna be so happy. So thank you. The actual meal is not that important. And then that also leads into the cleaning the house ahead of time. Again, I have read an article about this, that people are actually more comfortable in homes that look more like how their home looks. And so it’s okay if there is it looks like your house has been lived in.

[00:17:58] Nina: Yeah. People like live in this house. Exactly.

[00:18:01] Debra: It’s no secret that you live there and it’s no secret that maybe little people live there with you and it’s okay. And the thing that really makes people uncomfortable is the apologizing about it. And so that’s something I have really tried to. A hundred percent. It’s like when they walk in, I do not say anything. What’s going on in my house, unless it’s like, watch out, you don’t wanna step on the sharp Legos because they really hurt

[00:18:24] Nina: when we do that, that’s we all need to stop apologizing so much in general. I mean, I play tennis a lot. Now I hear women and including myself apologize every time the ball goes into the net or something, or someone hits that, I also play with men. Sometimes they never apologize. and God bless him.

[00:18:39] Debra: I’ve never actually thought about that. That when people walk in, my husband has never once been like, I’m so sorry for the pile of papers on this island. No, it would be so weird if he did. It’s like, sorry we live here. Yeah. exactly. yeah, I would just really, again, much like the pizza is fine. If your goal is to make people feel comfortable in your house and for you to lower your stress. It, luckily those things work in tandem, which is just lower, the expectation. And now your stress is lowered and your guest is more comfortable. So it’s like a win-win yeah. Everyone

[00:19:09] Nina: wins. Yeah. Okay. So less stress about the food, less stress about in terms of like the type of food and the quality of it. Less stress about how the kitchen looks and the house looks what’s your next step.

[00:19:19] Debra: So, it’s funny. I think when you say next step, it’s actually almost a prestep, which is most people when you ask over for dinner, they will ask you what they can bring. And I think that you start thinking, oh, well, if I was a really good host this, I would say nothing. Just bring yourself and all of that.

But people really want to bring something much like the favor, right? Yes. Like back to the beginning of this episode is that if you want them to feel closer to you and feel comfortable, don’t make them walk in empty handed because it’s awkward for. For them

[00:19:46] Nina: or have to guess like, cuz they’re probably not gonna come empty hands. Exactly. So now they have to spend time, like what does she need?

[00:19:51] Debra: What does she like? Right. And so giving people a job is very helpful. If you want a tactical thing that I have learned over the years, my favorite outsourcing job is dessert. The reason I like to give dessert is because first of all, it doesn’t need to coordinate with whatever I am making.

So they’re not walk in with fried rice, alongside my barbecue hamburger. like, you know, some like weird side with some, so they doesn’t need to go together. So that’s nice that it doesn’t have to be part of my meal. And the other great thing about dessert is it lets people choose their level of commitment to the job.

So there have been people that we have had, we genuinely had a pastry chef to our house once and she made the most amazing souflee I’ve ever had. And we’ve also had people come no joke from the gas station, with a package of chips of ahoy cookies and both our perfect. Yeah. My kids are thrilled. We are truly just as happy with either. And so it’s like a choose your own adventure of involvement. And I really like dessert. So if you are looking for an easy job to give and definitely that’s, my piece of advice is give people a job is dessert. even once they’re there, another thing that I have learned over the years is especially on the whole, like let’s build the friendship is I used to be they’re coming at.

Dinner will be ready at six. That is not how it works. and so it’s better if, whenever they come give it like a good 30 minutes until you’re actually eating, cuz it just takes a minute to settle in to the new house. Especially if there’s kids involved, they wanna like explore, do some playing all of that during that half hour again, they will likely ask, is there anything I can do to help let them help you, right?

Yes. I believe that so strongly. Yeah. And so, and it, some people are like, I don’t want them like cooking with me. That’s fine. Let them fill water glasses, let them put out napkins, silverware, setting the table is a great thing for a guest to help. So it’s just like they feel at home right away. And it does just give you a chance to kind of warm up.

It’s like the warm up act too, especially if you’re looking, which again is sort of the theme of this podcast is if it’s your best, best friend. Wonderful. You’ve probably had them over a million times, but if this is someone you’re looking to kind of build a friendship with yeah. Maybe take it to the next place, something we’re talking about here.

It’s a really nice time that you’re not just like staring at each other, like what’s new with you. Yeah. How’s work. You’re both kind of working alongside each other. Yeah. And it’s it just kind of, it’s more comfortable than when you do sit down.

[00:22:12] Nina: People are so relieved when you give them a job. Oh my God. Yes. I mean, I. Slid over a cutting board before I’m be like, can you just cut this cucumber? Yes. And that, to me, I’m not making it up as a job. Like for some reason it, I didn’t get it done or something and they do it slowly. Yes there’s it’s so to do something to do. It’s so nice. Exactly it is. And I like that too.

I think that when I’m a guest and someone doesn’t let me help more on the other end of the meal. That’s like a more obvious place too, which is. Clearing plates and carrying things to the kitchen in my head. I’m like, well, when they come to me, they’re gonna be helping. So yeah. I wish they would let me do something.

Yes. Cause I have no problem. Grab anything you can bring it to the kitchen.  And I don’t like to have people sit there doing the dishes. I just love everything in the kitchen, near the sink. Just to bring it in the vicinity of the sink. Yes. That is huge. Except the one thing Debra and I have talked about this before. We are both really strong. Like if we. We don’t agree on everything in the world, actually, but we agree on this,

[00:23:05] Debra: This is where it counts that we agree.

[00:23:07] Nina: Never clear the cups. Clearing the cups is an extremely rookie and impractical thing to do. Even if it’s just adults, it has nothing to do with kids or not kids. If you have five people over and you clear those cups, Rest assured you are going to be making five cups of water, yes, in the next hour, because people get thirsty.

[00:23:26] Debra: yeah, totally kids do. Cuz they leave. Then they come back then they’re like, I’m thirsty again. And so yes, I’m a big proponent of cleaning the kitchen that night. Like I don’t like coming down to a, sink of dishes by any means. I will come down and there’s still sometimes glasses cuz I’m like that’s okay. That can wait until the last possible moment.

[00:23:44] Nina: So cause that’s a horrible use of dishwasher space or yes, if you’re using plastic, let’s say it’s just a terrible waste. Yeah. It really is to clear all those cups and then make new ones, one another hosting tip this isn’t really about friendship it’s well, I guess it sort of is cuz if the whole point of hosting is making other people comfortable and connecting, I don’t like when there isn’t water from the get go, but once in a blue moon I’ll go somewhere for dinner and there’s no water or even discussion of water, I’d be thrilled to fill the water for you. Yeah, I’ll get there. And there isn’t water. Nobody’s talking about water. Water’s never gonna be offered what am I gonna drink? What are my kids gonna drink? I’m looking at a full state of anxiety about the thirst that I’m gonna have.

I don’t wanna be rude and be like, Hey. Shouldn’t we have water . So just like have the water. Yes. And have the have water in your plan. In your meal plan.

[00:24:29] Debra: That’s a great friendship. Tip Nina. Thank you.

[00:24:33] Nina: Quench my thirst please. Did we miss anything Debra? Because we will move to our better friendship goal of the week, as soon as I make sure we have all of our, how to make hosting easier.

[00:24:44] Debra:  I guess the one thing I yhink about Nina said about the difference between going to a restaurant versus going to a home, which is, there’s more of kind of like a rhythm to the night, a little bit. And there’s sort of like phases. the pre meal and then the meal and then the after meal while I really try not to overthink any of it. And I wouldn’t say I overthink this, but I do like to think about how we’re

[00:25:06] Nina: sitting. Oh, I’m so glad you brought that up.

[00:25:08] Debra: Because I think that it is what allows conversations to happen and often how you do leave the meal. that your friendship has moved forward in whatever level doesn’t mean you’ve walked out best friends, maybe, but that your friendship has moved forward into some degree is to think about who are people sitting by.

And so, especially if there’s multiple families, but even two families. I think that that’s something that’s worth thinking about. I don’t put out name tags or anything like that, but I do try to kind of a little bit, orchestrate. So you’re not kind of like closed off and it’s harder. How, however you wanna make that happen.

[00:25:45] Nina: I mean, if I do a name thing, it’s nothing formal. If I have a lot of people like family for a big holiday, I do assign seats. And if it’s less people, I will say, okay, I want you there. I mean, I’m no problem saying that. It makes a huge difference. Yeah. I do not wanna be. Separate from the adults, right. Bryan and I do not wanna sit with our kids on the other side of the table. No, thank you. We live with those people. Yes. I see them all the time. Yes. And I don’t need to be with Bryan necessarily.

I just wanna be with the adults. I’d rather, they. Be a little uncomfortable for 15 minutes. They’re all gonna sit silently probably. Right. Whether they’re sitting by you or not,

[00:26:17] Debra: and then they’re gonna leave the table. Yes. Far before the adults leave the table. And then it leaves like a very awkward holes yes. Throughout the table. And so I always put the kids together and the grownups together.

[00:26:28] Nina: That’s another tip by the way. Let the kids eat. For 45 seconds and get rid of ’em. Yes. Get rid of ’em as fast as you can.

[00:26:32] Debra: Yes. A hundred percent. Alittle tip for, and if you guys are out there who are guests, I think sometimes my guests feel that they have this need to be like, no, you have to stay at the table. And I’m like, no, really they can go release them, actually ask them to leave. Yeah, exactly. And so I think they are worrying about being rude and it’s like, you’re not, I do have one last thing I wanna say, cuz I think this is important. Something that is maybe like an occupational hazard of being what Nina has called me, like an expert host.

I have never called myself that until this very minute, and having the Instagram where I’m always posting my food and all of that, sometimes I think people get nervous about having to reciprocate. So I just wanna talk a little bit about the reciprocate really important. Yeah. Like the reciprocation piece.

Of hosting. And I just wanna say that if anyone either wants to host or any hosts out there, probably my absolute number, one thing would be to say, Do it without any expectation of reciprocation, because that just cannot be your goal.

[00:27:29] Nina:  It took me a long time to learn that, but I could not agree more.

[00:27:32] Debra:  Yeah. And it has nothing to do with that. And the people get like real intimidated. You’re so good at this. And I’m not, for some reason there’s something about cooking that makes people play the comparison game a lot because everyone has to cook to some degree in their lives. the example I always like to use is, if I knit you a sweater, And you’ve never knit in your life.

You wouldn’t be like, but I didn’t knit you a sweater. And it’s just so weird how we put that pressure on ourselves for food and feeding. And I just don’t think you have to. just be a gracious guest, be a gracious host. And it’s not about who tit for tat or who’s doing what or who brought, what if you’re doing it for a bigger reason than just. Getting a meal off of your list of things to do.

[00:28:15] Nina: Yeah. It’s kind of the love, like love language thing. Like I think if you have someone over for dinner, Debra, and they. Really somebody who wants to have people over for any variety of reasons, from cooking to people in their house for whatever the reason is a nice way to reciprocate would be next time you see each other that the guest makes the plan, right?

It could be just that it’s a plan to go out a hundred percent, but it, or meet at a park or go for a walk. But it would be nice if I think that’s a worthy way, of a tit for TA kind of thing. And I’ve talked about friendship efforts don’t always have to be 50 50, but it shouldn’t be a hundred zero. So if somebody had you over and went through all this effort, it would be nice if you then texted them sometime and said, Hey, let’s go for a walk next week. Yeah. Or, you know, let’s go out on a Saturday night or something, but you make the plan. You make the call.

[00:28:58] Debra: I think that’s totally it. Yeah. Cause I do think that you can, as the host, that’s like kind of maybe always doing the inviting, you can get a little, self-conscious even liking it. Right. You know, do they even want to do this if you never hear back, but yes, it does not need to be. Now we have you for dinner,

[00:29:12] Nina: Quick interruption from 2024, me to tell you that in 2022 and 2021 when I was doing the podcast, I was doing a little segment at the end of every episode called the better friendship goal of the week actually liked it and maybe I should bring it back sometimes, but the way I segued into it in, 2022 included music and it was like a whole thing. I didn’t like the way the music was put in my editing skills have gotten better since then. I want to tell you that that is the segment that is about to come up and I really need to think about if I want to do them again. I think I stopped because the conversations were getting kind of long for me.

I mean, long in my opinion, I really like things to be at 35 minutes or less if possible. and I found I was rushing along the conversation as time went on to fit in this better friendship goal, and so I thought I would stop doing it. As I was re editing this episode with Debra, I liked the goal.

I liked that we talked about that, and so now I’m thinking about adding it again. I have lots of fun episodes coming up for 2024. I’ve recorded some already. I have lots on the calendar to come. If you follow me on social media at all, you’ve seen me talking about how to pitch me for an idea for an episode if you’re interested in being a guest, but you could always just find that.

Honestly, it’s easiest to just Google Dear Nina Pitching Guidelines And that will come up. I have a whole page on my website that gives advice on that. And now we will get back to the episode with our Better Friendship Goal of the week.

I would love listeners to invite someone over and it doesn’t have to be for dinner. It could be for brunch and you and I have talked about too, that sometimes brunch is like a better entry. People are in a good mood in the morning sometimes.

I mean, not my teenagers. this doesn’t have to be with kids at all. invite someone over even to now, this isn’t really about hosting, but if you need like a baby step, what if you invite someone to go for a walk, but you start from your house and say, come over and say, hi, like I want you to come see where I live, right. Have a cup of coffee and then we’ll go for a walk or something. I don’t know. Just get in the habit of you making the effort and inviting someone into your space. Yes. I want to remind everybody, you can find Debra’s Instagram for the love of cookbooks. She goes through every single recipe, whether it is a recipe she is excited about or not, which is really cool.

And it’s just fun. And she does really good job showing the process and she makes it look. Doable. the author of half baked harvest, what’s her name again? Tegan Gerard shared Debra went through every recipe, sent Tegan the cookbook to be autographed and. Tegan shared it on her TikTok with a gazillion follower. So that was, so it was

[00:31:49] Debra: exciting for all of us. It was a very exciting way to start my day last week.

[00:31:53] Nina: Yeah. Anyway, well, Debra, thank you so much for being here.

[00:31:56] Debra:  Thank you so much. This has just been so fun. Like I said, I’m glad that I will always be on the wall of fame of the first in person guest. it’s so appropriate that it would be on the theme of hosting that you host me.

[00:32:07] Nina: All I haven’t even offered you a glass of water. That’s true. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. And thank you listeners for being here. If you have time to rate, review the show, subscribe, that would be awesome. I hope you got a hosting tip. I hope you got an inspiration to reach out to someone not even quite a friend yet, who you would like to get to know better.

I would really appreciate if you would say so on Apple podcasts, the reviews actually really do matter as do the stars. Thank you for considering that. See you next week with an extremely extra juicy episode, one that I’ve been holding onto for a while because I think it will be one that causes a lot of conversation and maybe even uncomfortable conversation. , press follow anywhere that you listen and it will be sure to show up in your feed. Have a great week. When our friendships are going well, we are happier all around. Bye.