Dinner Diary: 28/52

Week 28 of Having People Over, and taco night is back.

Carnitas tacos with all the fixings, cilantro lime rice, black beans, chips and homemade guacamole to start, and fresh watermelon and pineapple to keep things summery. This menu is one I could put on the table in January or July and it would land exactly the same way. It’s evergreen, it’s reliable, it’s always a crowd pleaser. And the carnitas, if you somehow end up with leftovers, are arguably even better the next day; scrambled eggs, quesadillas, a burrito bowl, eaten cold straight from the fridge at midnight, there is no wrong application. I’ve said it here before and I’ll keep saying it: taco night deserves a permanent spot in every hosting rotation.

I also forgot to plan dessert, which is very unlike me, but our guests showed up with homemade chocolate chip cookies that were so good it almost seemed intentional on my part. It was not. But I’ll take it.

Our guests this week were neighbors we’ve been meaning to have over for a long time. Once again, this resolution did what it keeps doing: turned a “we really should get together!” that might have floated indefinitely into an actual Sunday with actual people at our actual table. We finally did it, and it was so worth it.

I can’t believe this is true, but we realized last night that, after 28 weeks of hosting, this week featured our first baby! 

Baby Benny is ten months old, crawling, climbing, and in that stage where the whole world is a hazard and every cord, cabinet, and coffee table edge is an invitation. Our house has not been baby-proofed in years. I had completely forgotten about the drawer locks and cabinet latches we used to navigate daily life with small children. Benny was a vivid reminder. He was also completely delicious and kept the whole room thoroughly entertained.

I had my girls scrounge up some baby toys to keep Benny occupied, but his preference ended up being a silicone-coated whisk from the kitchen drawer. Winner. They really never want the actual toys, do they? My “baby” is now six and heading to first grade, and it is genuinely staggering how completely you can forget what the baby stage actually feels like until one shows up in your living room and starts scaling your furniture.

Benny has three older siblings, two girls and a boy, and his sisters lined up nicely in age with ours. The girls all hit it off immediately and had a great time together, which freed the adults up to actually talk, which is always the goal.

And the conversation went somewhere unexpected. Sometime in the middle of taco night, it came out that Robby and the older brother of our guest spent time together as missionaries in Mexico more than twenty years ago. We had no idea. We have known this family for over three years. Three years of friendly hellos and neighborhood waves and the connection was just sitting there, until we finally sat down together.

That’s the thing that keeps catching me off guard about this year. You think you know the people around you. You think the surface-level version is mostly the whole story. And then you invite someone to dinner and find out there’s a whole chapter you never knew existed.

Some fun texts were sent. Some old memories got jogged. A lot of stories came out that never would have otherwise. Still always happy we hosted.

See you next Sunday at 5.

xo, Kelsey