Feeling Welcome

A piece of cake (coffee cake!) and cute dishes were all it took to make me feel special as I stayed with my Aunt and Uncle last week.  You see my parents' place in Florida was full of relatives over Easter vacation and my aunt offered to have us stay with her. 
Each night we tip-toed away from the family after watching Dancing With The Stars or American Idol (so much fun to watch with a big group!) and went up to her condo to sleep.  And each morning we were greeted with the smell of coffee brewing and an arrangement of pretty mugs and dishes for our breakfast.

She'd plate some scones or a coffee cake ring and the 3 of us (my husband, aunt and I) would have breakfast together out on her balcony overlooking the ocean.  It was a relaxing way to start each day and it became an unexpected bonus to a week already full of activities.
A cute mug and ocean air - that is hospitality.

Pretty Pretzels

A new friend came over for a visit this week and brought with her a sweet treat.  Don't these look great?  The packaging was perfect too - a stack of hand-decorated pretzels in a narrow cellophane bag.  The layers of colors and textures looked so good together.

I took them out of the bag, arranged them on this plate (covered with cling wrap) and I have been breaking them apart and eating them section by section all week.  Yum!  I'm determined not to "save" them, but to eat them at their peak as intended.

I love them all, but my hats tips for the white chocolate pretzel with the white sugar crust.  The sugar gives a lovely crunch and the white chocolate tastes perfect with the salty pretzel underneath.  In fact, I think I will make something in white chocolate with a sugar-crust sometime in the near future.  And you'll know it all started here.

Have you ever made chocolate dipped pretzels?

Welcome Mat

What is the first thing you do when company is coming over?  In my house growing up, we would always head out to the garden to cut a fresh bouquet of flowers.

Because really, aren't flowers the ultimate "Welcome" mat?  When my aunt was about to arrive, we went out and picked this pretty bouquet in celery green, pale yellow and white with a few touches of deep red. 

I love the wispy effect of the celery green Lady's Mantle, the dry platform-shaped blooms of the mustard and deep red Yarrow, and the "bad hair day" look of the white Shasta Daisy.  The bonus flower that really made this bouquet for me was the hydrangeas blossom.  This variety of hydrangea, when fully developed, has blooms that are pure white, but for some reason (too much rain?  funny soil?) they look greenish-yellow right now.  All the better for my bouquet, so I cut them!

How do you throw out the Welcome mat? 

City Series, Birmingham, AL: Banana Pudding

Ahhh...the southern classic, Banana Pudding.  The only problem was that I'm not southern and I had never made or eaten this classic.  Yet I was in charge of helping Melanie make it for dessert at a party hosted in our honor.  Yikes!

I used a Food Network recipe and it was a hit.  This is our masterpiece at the banana stage.  I knew that once it was coated in a blanket of meringue, it wouldn't look as pretty in a photograph.  So here it is so far: Nilla wafers, homemade vanilla pudding and bananas.

Our dear friends, Melanie and Jon (who now live in Birmingham, Alabama) wanted us to experience true southern hospitality during our stay with them.  They decided to throw a dinner party, serve "bar-b-que" (which means bar-b-qued pork in Alabama) and asked their friends to bring a southern dish to pass.  I tried sweet tea, fried okra, fried green tomatoes and homemade peach ice cream...and then banana pudding! 

What a night!  It was all delicious, of course, but what I loved most was seeing the smiles, hearing the stories and feeling so welcome.

It is a big deal when a friend moves far away.  You call.  You write.  And you can only hope that they will make friends as nice as these.  Good job, Alabama.

Hospitality

I really felt like I was walking around inside hospitality last weekend.  Hospitality as a living breathing thing. 

We were visiting friends in Washington, D.C. and there were small touches everywhere designed to make us feel happy and welcome.  Fresh flowers.  Newspaper clippings of events around town.  Brochures and maps to help us plan a day trip to Gettysburg.  And sweet treats in the little refrigerator to eat when the mood struck (Dan was eating chocolate chip cookies before the suitcase was even open).

My favorite moment of the weekend was our big breakfast together.  We ate in the dining room with pretty dishes, delicious food (muffins right out of the oven!), hot coffee and bright conversation. 

When I was a teenager, my dream was to own a country inn.  I read and re-read a North American edition of "Country Inns and Back Roads" trying to decide which descriptions sounded like the inn of my dreams. 

I wanted to make people feel comfortable and happy with beautiful linens, helpful travel information, homemade baked goods and friendship.  My teenage dreams came rushing back to me when I sat down to this breakfast.  This was what I loved; this was hospitality.