This week, we’re doing something completely different for Hostable. We are inviting a group of five sisters, along with their mother, who grew up in a home where hosting was a central value; Miri Becker, Chaya Miller, Devorah Katz, Esther Roth, Adina Green, and, the MVP of them all, Mrs. Leah Roth.

Chanie Nayman

Hi, Roths!

Thanks so much for agreeing to participate!

Okay, so what I’m looking for is an honest approach to hosting and being hosted. I want to present the reality behind the picture-perfect version we get in the magazine, and even the picture we get when we show up at someone else’s meal as a guest on Shabbos, when everything looks “just so,” but it took so much effort to get there.

What is your general approach to hosting? Do you do it often? Do you have any ultimatums with yourself?

Miri Becker

Every week as I’m about to start serving, I look around at my picture-perfect home and my stunning tablescape and I think, “It is bizarre that Family Table has not made me a columnist yet. I do not understand why we’re not hosting regular recipe shoots here.” So, that said, despite the very mysterious absence of my house in the tablescape roundup, I’m going to answer these questions.

Okay, I’ll start. I’m the older nerdy sister; we live in Israel, and basically, we host every week. We generally host people from the neighborhood who don’t really have their own meal/family, and/or yeshivah bochurim. We usually have 1­­–3 guests; more than that feels overly busy. I’ve learned that I need to keep things low-key — standard Shabbos fare, no trying to show off or impress people — to be able to do this.

Mrs. Roth

When my kids were little, we hosted guests every week, and a Shabbos program twice a month. They were typically people who are not frum or people we got to know through our kiruv efforts. They became part of the family, even. We don’t discriminate against frum guests, but our norm usually is people who are not frum and then, we hope, they will keep coming back till they embrace Shabbos.

Chaya Miller

The real MVP of hosting is here!

Devorah Katz

Yesss! Our mother ALWAYS hosted (even though you denied hosting when things were really crazy, I have a distinct memory of you hosting guests for Shabbos when you were in your ninth month and renovating the house…), served amazing meals, and somehow had the house cleaned in time.

Miri Becker

Yeah, and then I’ll say something about how I’m having four guests for Shabbos and my mother will be like, “Oh, wow, you’re so amazing, that’s so special.” Despite the fact that she had more people than that every single week and had a much better menu and they were all not frum. (We also had much better, well-rounded multicourse suppers every night.)

Devorah Katz

And china always! Never a disposable to be found!

Miri Becker

Or plastic tablecloths!

Chaya Miller

I didn’t know we were spilling all the family secrets on this chat!

We used to host a ton of people from our local kiruv organization every Shabbos. Since COVID it quieted down a lot. The biggest change that we made is that we rarely host on Friday night. I found that it was super stressful and it wasn’t as needed, so I try not to. On a regular basis, I have between 2–4 regulars who may or may not show up on a weekly basis, so I don’t really consider them to be “hosted.” Beyond that, we invite when we remember; we’re terrible at that, so usually I just wait for people to invite themselves. I try to invite young couples who either are new to town or could use a break. Many of the families or young couples we invite are our old kiruv crowd, and it’s cute to see that they’ve grown up and have their own family.

My policy is once I’m hosting, I don’t care if it’s 5 guests or 15 guests, so if I’m already hosting, I’ll typically try to invite some more people who I know are waiting for an invite 🙂

Adina Green

So, basically, Chaya puts me to shame, because 10 people just casually invite themselves on Friday afternoon and she’s totally unfazed. Meanwhile, I’ll have one guest for one meal and it’s all I can think about, starting on Tuesday.

Devorah Katz

I love the idea of hosting in theory, but in practice it’s very over-whelming for me to make it happen often. I work full time, I have 2 little kids k”h, and I’m a teacher, so during the school year it’s really challenging. During the summer I try to host, at least in theory.

I live in a very social community and we are invited out very often, so usually it’s just families from the community that we host. I try to have people who’ve just moved in or people who are new to the shul.

Esther Roth

I do all my cooking on Friday. That’s the day I don’t work. And the more time I have, the more dishes I’ll make. I prefer having homemade food — there’s nothing like homemade challah or sourdough and dips, so I try not to buy. I like to cook, I like to be in the kitchen, so I’ll have fun with it. I don’t really make much of a menu; I’ll kind of just have a general idea. I go to the store, see what they have, sometimes get inspired, and sometimes just keep it simple, but I don’t really plan out 100% what I’m doing. I’m a little bit last minute 😉

Miri Becker

Okay, but Esther, I know you don’t make menus, but can you share a sample one anyway, because you make sooo much good food!

Esther Roth

Okay, here goes:

First course:

>Either challah and dips — like onion, jalapeno, olive, matbucha, tomato puree

>Or sourdough and dips — roasted garlic, techina, pesto, fresh salsa, harissa *that I buy

>Sometimes gefilte fish — or a side of salmon if I’m having more than 4 guests

>Small salad — lettuce, avocado — something like that — depending on what’s in season

>Soup — chicken soup — always — because I married a Roth

>Matzah balls — if I could; when I make them, I double or triple the recipe and freeze

Main:

>Usually chicken — mostly chicken on the bone (I don’t serve meat often), usually a more savory one — like with lemon, garlic, and rosemary

>Roasted vegetable — cauliflower, broccoli, or green beans

>Starchy side — potato kugel, rice, sweet potatoes

>Sweet side — some version of apple crisp — apple cherry/strawberry

Dessert:

>I’ve been very lazy about this lately — it’s hard to make good desserts on Friday when I’m also cooking the meal. So if it doesn’t happen Thursday, it just doesn’t happen.

>I used to make a bunch of ice cream pies and have them in the freezer for when I need them, or I’ll bake cake/brownies to serve with ice cream. Sometimes I literally just melt chocolate and serve it with pretzels, banana, strawberries, marshmallows, or just serve fruit and candy.

Chanie Nayman

Hosting is hard! What motivates you?

Esther Roth

It’s really nice to have a Shabbos seudah with guests. Especially when you have guests singing, it’s so much nicer. That motivates me to get through the preparation.

Adina Green

I really do enjoy cooking, sometimes it’s a little crazy that it all happens on a Friday. And if I have time, then sometimes I’ll try a new recipe or experiment in the kitchen, which I also really love. Even if we don’t have guests, I tend to make most of the menu anyway. It’s not so much about the guests; I do it because I enjoy it and I have fun with it.

Chanie Nayman

What do you do when you have an intimidating guest?

Miri Becker

Clean the fridge.

Devorah Katz

LOL, I literally did not invite guests this week for Shabbos because I’m afraid someone will look in my fridge! Last week I hid everything old behind the new stuff, but we’re beyond that right now.

Chaya Miller

I don’t really like to have intimidating guests, but when I do, I just mostly freak out. That’s pretty much the extent of it. When I try to do fancy stuff, it doesn’t usually work out.

Adina Green

Either I force Devorah to give me a menu or I stalk the internet until I find cool things to make.

Mrs. Roth

We do try to steer clear of intimidating guests, because I am very easily intimated. It has happened, but I try to avoid those.

Miri Becker

I find seminary girls to be more pressure, and hosting couples the most pressure 🙈.

Chanie Nayman

What do you wish your guests knew? What do you wish you could tell them?

Miri Becker

When we have yeshivah bochurim, they’re completely oblivious to the process of how food is created. And by that, I mean that they have no idea that there’s a process involved. So I guess there’s a twofold message here. One is that if you ask someone to host you, and then at the last minute you back out, you should know that they worked hard, they prepared food for you that’s now going to waste. They put in effort that’s now purposeless.

And the flipside is that if you ask someone to host you on Friday or late on Friday, that’s extra pressure on them and it could be hard to pull off. I really never like to say no to people who need a meal, especially on Friday when you know they’re kind of stuck, but I think much of this stems from the guys genuinely having no clue that cooking takes time and that people need to prepare food for them.

We once had guys call at 3 p.m. on a short Friday — Shabbos was in less than an hour — to ask if I could have 3 bochurim for Shabbos. So we said we’d have them for a seudah. They called back 20 minutes later to tell me that one of the guys has multiple severe food allergies, very common ones, to many of the ingredients that I had already cooked with. I said, “I’m so sorry to hear that, but Shabbos is in 35 minutes and I already cooked.” They just had no clue.

Chaya Miller

If you have significant dietary restrictions; A. Let me know in advance; B. Don’t tell me after you already invited yourself to a large meal that I already created a menu for.

Mrs. Roth

With college students, very often I’d get a very last-minute cancellation or a no-show. Or, “Yes, I’m vegetarian” as I’m lighting candles, etc.

Chanie Nayman

How do you make things easier for yourself?

Chaya Miller

I really stick with very basic recipes and I kind of do the same things again and again. I pride myself on finding easy recipes that I can make on a very regular basis.

Esther Roth

I don’t spend too much time thinking about plating or how things look. I’m not very good at that — I’m much simpler. Plating is not my strong point and not what I focus on. I just let little things like that slide. Many, many times guests have come into my home and my table is not set; they’ll help me set the table, and if it’s guys, then it usually looks pretty ugly when it’s done and I don’t really care. I can’t focus on everything, so that’s what I let go.

Adina Green

I basically make the same thing every time I have guests, so that makes it easier on myself and I really, really try not to have anything left to do on Friday.

Mrs. Roth

I am not as talented a cook as some of my daughters. Certainly not as efficient as some of the flow-charting ones. I don’t love to bake like some of my others. So I stick with recipes that are really easy but I try to just make them look nice. That’s my thing. I don’t particularly enjoy cooking or baking (I don’t hate it, but I don’t enjoy it especially), but I do like the presentation, so I save my real efforts just to serve nicely; not that I work hard at it, but I do enjoy putting the platters down and having them look nice.

Miri Becker

One thing I’ve come to realize is that many of the things that I initially had on my “must do when hosting” list, or the pressures that were imposing, were self-imposed and they were more for my ego than for the guests’ comfort. I mean, yes, everyone enjoys dips and everyone enjoys having 5 different types of salads, but the pressure I was feeling was really more directed toward the impression that I wanted to make rather than toward the actual end result of how people feel when they spend Shabbos in our home. And right now, I’m just not superwoman enough to pull off making the amazing 7-course Shabbos with everything filled in and still host all the time. So I’ve tried to make the conscious decision to lower my self-imposed standards and swallow my pride and keep hosting.

Devorah Katz

I can’t believe we’re having a forum about hosting and no one has said the word “meatboard” yet. I feel like that’s a good hack for Shabbos day: Just put everything on a board, it always looks nice. Another thing that I did to make my life easier, I realized that when you serve store-bought schnitzel or chicken fingers, it’s a million times better than I can ever make it, and it’s just an easier thing to do.

Mrs. Roth

I don’t prepare anything elaborate. I go through phases were I’ll make the same things over and over again and then get very sick of them, and then go through the next phase of making the same thing over and over again.

I am very proud of my daughters, who just do a much better job than I do.

Adina Green

Basically, I’m remarkably geshikt.

Devorah Katz

For the sake of balancing out our family’s dysfunction, I reaaaaally hope you touched on your color-coded spreadsheets.

Chanie Nayman

You guys are awesome!

Chaya Miller

I’ll try to find a spreadsheet. I basically plan out menus and color code them according to when I plan on making it (i.e., stuff I can freeze, dressings that stay good in the fridge for a while, foods that need to be made fresh, etc.), and I add the tabs to track guest lists and shopping lists.

Chanie Nayman

How do you balance kids/life/obligations when you host?

Chaya Miller

My kids actually really love hosting. They are upset when we don’t have company.

Devorah Katz

I feel like every stage has different challenges. When the kids are little, it can be hard to stay at the table. I remember a couple of months ago, when the baby was very young, we had guests on Friday night; at one point, my husband and I were both just not at the table and simply left our guests at the table, totally by themselves, because one kid needed help getting into pajamas, while the baby was screaming and needed to be fed. And now, some of my kids are a little older and we want to be able to give them attention when they’re at the Shabbos table, so that’s definitely hard. I think like everyone said, it’s a hard balance.

Chanie Nayman

What do you do when something doesn’t come out the way you wanted?

Chaya Miller

I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m a perfect cook. Everything is always perfect.

Adina Green

I’ll honestly probably throw it away, because I get anxiety if I’m serving food that’s not good. Or I’ll give it to my husband to eat or I’ll eat it Thursday night when I’m cooking.

Mrs. Roth

I probably would not serve it. Definitely a little insecure that way.

Chanie Nayman

Hosting can get pricey! Do you have any tips on that?

Chaya Miller

I’m pretty cheap in what I serve. I do very little meat; it’s mostly just chicken. I usually don’t cook by choosing things I want to cook and then shopping. I kind of figure out what ingredients are affordable and cook from there. I rarely serve broccoli. I try to stick with ingredients that I can buy at Aldi as opposed to going to regular grocery stores. But also, hosting is just expensive, and I’m okay with that.

Mrs. Roth

I’m going to sound a little rebbetzin-y. It’s so interesting that as our lives have changed and we’re not hosting that much, and we’re not home for Shabbos as much as we used to be, I would have thought that I’d have all this extra disposable income — and I don’t. I really do see that hotza’os Shabbos seem to be their own cheshbon and I don’t really feel that I have extra money when I’m not hosting or less money when I am. But that being said, we definitely aren’t extravagant; we just try to make it look nice.

Devorah Katz

Yes, it’s really hard because it’s not easy to balance wanting to make lots of food and wanting to make different things, unique foods. I’m a huge foodie, I enjoy food. But then again, if you go over the top, it’s very expensive, and it makes me not want to have guests. I probably have to work on paring things down so that it’s not as expensive and I can do it more often. I try to make things in bulk and freeze them, so that, let’s say, I make a London broil salad; you don’t need a whole London broil so I buy one, cut it in half, and stick one half in the freezer. Things that I know that often go to waste — I’ll buy a whole pack of chicken; I’ll marinate it all and just make half of it one week and the rest of it another week. It’s financially smart and also time efficient.

Chaya Miller

I have a recipe that I’m asked for all the time, and it’s a little embarrassing because it’s not even a recipe, but it’s sushi salad. I like to individually plate it.

Basically, put sushi rice on a plate, flatten it a bit, add julienned cucumbers, thinly sliced avocado, and strings of kani. (I make sure the kani is fully defrosted, then roll each piece quickly in my hands, and then it strings really easily.) Drizzle with soy or teriyaki sauce. Top with French’s fried onions. Drizzle with spicy mayonnaise (I like to make my own, haven’t found a store-bought brand that I like. It’s basically mayonnaise, sriracha, and sesame oil.)

It’s my least original “recipe,” but it’s honestly the one I share most often.

Chanie Nayman

Thank you Roths so much for your insight and honesty! We wish we could be your guests one day!

(Originally featured in Family Table, Issue 805)