E34: Embracing Hospitality in Your Kitchen and Family | Stacy Lyn Harris

We talk a lot on this podcast about raising our own food, but today we are chatting all about preparing and serving the food we have worked so hard to produce! Stacy Lyn Harris is the perfect person to join us for this conversation because she has been using produce from her garden and meat from her husband’s hunting trips to prepare delicious meals for her large southern family for decades. We are not only diving into the practicals of creating amazing meals, but we are also digging into the heart of hospitality. Feeding good food to our families and friends is a beautiful way to put our love into action!

In this episode, we cover:

Diving into the heart behind Stacy’s cookbooks
What is hospitality and why does it matter?
A look at hospitality when you are in the trenches of early motherhood
Practicing hospitality in your marriage and family

Thank you to our sponsor!

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About Stacy Lyn Harris

Southern lifestyle guru, television host, celebrity chef, best-selling author and speaker Stacy Lyn Harris wants her readers to pull up a chair, hear some funny and poignant stories, and incorporate her unfussy, delicious recipes into their special occasions and daily life. After all, like the title of her new cookbook states, food is the “Love Language of the South.”

“I don’t go to my home and kitchen expecting perfection,” Harris writes in “Love Language of the South.” “It’s simply the place I go to return to what matters most: my family, my faith, and spending my days at home in the South. Time I spend cooking is time spent loving. And that’s why I call it my love language.”

In addition to being a best-selling author of three books and host of “The Sporting Chef” on The Outdoor Channel, Harris is also the founder of the popular Stacy Lyn Harris blog. The Alabama native and mother of seven has grown a following with her simple approach to sourcing and preparing meals – often including wild game and ingredients from her garden.

With multiple cookbooks and cooking shows celebrating Southern charm, lifestyle and seasonal, fresh protein, Harris is just getting started bucking the ordinary. She’s showing the world that Southern culture is more than bless your hearts with a side of sweet tea. It’s also a family Sunday dinner of crispy fried chicken with a side of caramel cake so simple that even her newlywed self could execute it to perfection.

Resources Mentioned

Check out Stacy Lyn’s cookbooks

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Embracing Hospitality in Your Kitchen and Family Transcript

Amy Fewell Welcome to the Homesteaders of America Podcast, where we encourage simple living, hard work, natural healthcare, real food, and building an agrarian society. If you’re pioneering your way through modern noise and conveniences, and you’re an advocate for living a more sustainable and quiet life, this podcast is for you. Welcome to this week’s podcast. I’m your host, Amy Fewell, and I’m the founder of the Homesteaders of America organization and annual events. If you’re not familiar with us, we are a resource for homesteading education and online support. And we even host a couple of in-person events each year with our biggest annual event happening right outside the nation’s capital here in Virginia every October. Check us out online at HomesteadersofAmerica.com. Follow us on all of our social media platforms and subscribe to our newsletter so that you can be the first to know about all things HOA (that’s short for Homesteaders of America). Don’t forget that we have an online membership that gives you access to thousands—yes, literally thousands—of hours worth of information and videos. It also gets you discount codes, an HOA decal sticker when you sign up, and access to event tickets before anyone else. All right. Let’s dive into this week’s episode.

Amy Fewell Welcome back to this week’s episode of the Homesteaders of America podcast. I’m your host, Amy Fewell. And this week we have my friend Stacy Lyn Harris with me and you’re going to learn all about her this week. So welcome to the podcast, Stacy.

Stacy Lyn Harris Oh my gosh, this is going to be fun. I’m excited. Thank you for asking me to do this. This is a treat, a real treat.

Amy Fewell Yeah. Well, I’m happy that you’re finally on. I don’t know that we’ve ever had you on the podcast, that I can think of.

Stacy Lyn Harris I don’t think so.

Amy Fewell I think we’ve done some YouTube videos together. So Stacy Lyn and I go way back, like a few years, like the beginning of HOA. And so we’ve had some in-depth conversations that we’ll probably take you more into. We’re going to have like a two part podcast here. Today we’re going to talk about Stacy Lyn and her cookbook that’s coming out and southern hospitality in general and hospitality on your homestead farm. And then I think in the next episode, what we’ll do is we’ll kind of start talking about some in-depth, real life conversation between moms and homesteading moms and homeschoolers and homemakers. I’m really looking forward to that. But this week, Stacy Lyn, I wonder if you would tell us a little bit about you for those who don’t know you, and then we’ll jump into your cookbook.

Stacy Lyn Harris Okay, well, I am a mother of seven and my husband is an avid hunter. He’s a dentist also but, you know, if I had to describe him, I would say that he is a hunter through and through. We got married and we went, well, I had just… actually my last year of law school, so I practiced law a little bit in Birmingham. But at that point I already had a baby and then I had another baby, like while we were there. And so it was like, you know what? I really want to stay home with my kids. And I was already staying home, I was just doing law, you know, here and there and taking my kids. And I remember going into the bathroom — that was like my office — while they were toddling around, and I was like, oh, please don’t make any noise, please don’t make any noise. But I’ve always wanted to try… I just wanted to be with them. So I became a full time homemaker, homeschool mother. And we homeschooled and I’m just given a synopsis, but we homeschooled all the way through. My oldest son is 30 now, and so he’s practicing dentistry with my husband, and my second son just ran for Congress, which was really a fun, interesting situation. And he didn’t win, but he came fourth.

Amy Fewell That’s cool.

Stacy Lyn Harris Yeah, it is, it is. And he and his wife are both lawyers. And then I have a daughter, and she just got her MBA and she’s doing investment work, and then, my other two are in school, they’re at Auburn and they’re engineering majors. And then I have one that hasn’t declared her major yet. She’s in college here locally, and then I have one that I’m still homeschooling. So, there you go. Yeah.

Amy Fewell Amazing! So you have all of these other things that you do on top of being a mom and a homemaker and homeschooler. So let’s talk a bit about your books, because you’ve written more than just your new books and they’re all amazing. I have pretty much all of them, I think.

Stacy Lyn Harris Well, thank you. I wrote my first book… Scott, being an avid hunter… my dad was, but I didn’t grow up with my dad, so I kind of grew up in a home that was very career oriented. My mom wanted to make sure that I could take care of myself. So it’s been a really different thing for me to stay at home and to trust a man to take care of me and he did. But I wanted to mold myself, too, around him and help him with the endeavors he wanted to do. So we bought land and at first it was just hunting land then we built a cabin on this land, like an off grid cabin that only ran with solar panels and all that. We had gardens, we’ve had gardens we still do. And now we have 2 or 3 gardens, one where I’m at. I live kind of in the city on about seven acres and then we own some property about an hour from here, and we go there every weekend so we planted a garden there also, we have orchards. And so anyway, about ten years ago, I guess it’s been 10 or 11 years ago, I’d always wanted to write a wild game cookbook because I felt that there weren’t enough beautiful pictures to go with them. And I’m very visual and I’m like, there’s so many women out there that could support their husbands in this if they could just get on board in some way or another, but they didn’t really want to go hunting. And so I was like, okay, so I want to make this cookbook. So that’s how it all started. And we were visiting a church in Tennessee, and the girl there said, “Hey, you know, you ought to just do it.” Because I was telling her my dreams, you know, and I was like, “Okay!” So I had the book outlined and ready by the time I got home. Three months later, I had a book. So that was my first book. So I self-published it, through a company that I created. And then a media company wanted me to write another book with them called Sustainable Living. And then I did a DVD with them. And so things just kind of started snowballing, and it was really all from this one man who on a Sunday, Christmas Sunday, talked about my first book in the newspaper in Birmingham, Alabama. Somebody saw it and then it just went from there. So that is where I’m at now. So, yeah.

Amy Fewell Yeah. Well, and so your first cookbook, I think it was your first cookbook that we kind of got introduced to for this same reason that you just said, it was that my husband was an avid hunter and I did not grow up around that. My grandfather hunted, but I really didn’t eat anything that he hunted. And so my husband and I had this kind of battle, like, how do I even cook this stuff? He was lucky I even knew how to cook when we first got married because I didn’t know how to cook a whole lot.

Stacy Lyn Harris I knew how to cook cakes. I knew how to cook cakes, but that’s about it. Yeah.

Amy Fewell Yeah. And so, I mean, I knew how to cook little things, but the beginning of our marriage, I had to learn all of this stuff over again. And so, you know, him bringing me back strap of a deer was like, I have no idea what to do with this. And the first time I cooked it, it was like rubber. And I’m like, oh, this is horrible if this is what deer tastes like. And so I was thrilled to get your cookbook because it really did make a difference. I mean, people told me for forever, “You know, you’re not cooking it the right way.” “Well, that’s great, but how do you cook it?” You know? And so I got your cookbook. That’s kind of how you and I linked up with HOA. And, the fun part about it was, for the first couple times that Stacy Lyn came to the HOA events, that’s what she did — she taught people how to cook wild game. And so here she came with her pots and pans and her wild game meat, and she actually cooked in front of our audiences and allowed them to taste what she cooked so they could see, oh, this actually is really good, this is how you cook it, my husband’s not crazy. Or in some people’s cases, it’s the wife that hunts. I’ve met plenty of women that hunt and the men don’t, which is kind of fun. But, we were able to get a lot of people that experience and you’re actually coming back this year to do that at a couple of our events so that’ll be fun… and a couple of other topics too, that you’re going to go through. So we’ve really just enjoyed having, you know, cook… There’s so many cookbooks, right? And that was my thing — I love cookbooks, but I needed functional cookbooks for my family. And there are very few functional cookbooks that I have found over the years. But Stacy Lyn’s have been some of the best that I’ve had, including your new cookbook that just came out. And so why don’t you tell us a little bit about that? Because I’ve cooked so many things from that already and it’s very, very good.

Stacy Lyn Harris Oh, good! Well, they are staple recipes that, you know, Southerners usually will have on their table. But I made sure that they were foolproof, that these are things you can turn to all the time in a pinch, they’re not a ton of ingredients that you can’t get your hands on. They’re things that I grew up eating and elevated just a little bit in some, you know, special way. Like I have my favorite cookies in there and you use pretzels — pretzels really give it a nice crunch. Everything kind of has a special meaning because it’s also a memoir kind of book, and you get a background story, and maybe something I’ve learned or something funny, or maybe it was sad, but you have occasions in there like celebrations. And I felt like as a mom, it’s very difficult to find the time to have people come over, find the time to think about what you’re going to make for somebody that’s just had a really big loss in their life. And you want to help them, you want to care for them. But you already have four young toddlers running around your feet and you’re like, I can’t think about that right now. I can barely make it through the day. So I wanted to give people ideas for that and make it simple for them to be able to love on other people through food, which is, you know, the love language itself. So that’s pretty much the gist of why I created this book.

Amy Fewell Yeah. And so all of your books are this way. That’s the one thing that I really enjoy about your cookbooks is that it’s not just recipes — there are stories, there are examples. I know in one of your cookbooks you actually talked about gardening and preserving. And so it’s a kind of an overall handbook to the recipes that are in that book. And it kind of gives us a glimpse into your life that you’re not just writing the recipes, you’re living the recipes, too. Like you’re actually using them everyday and that’s why I really loved this cookbook, because I’m like, if Stacy Lyn is cooking these recipes almost weekly, they must be good. And so the very first recipe we tried was those little popover rolls that you make a muffin pan and they’re so easy. I told my family, I’m like, “You know, bread in general, we love bread. But it’s like, sourdough takes 18 hours to make, you know, and then a loaf of bread takes a while to make.” But these are like the perfect size. They take me like an hour to pull together and make and it’s fine. And so I really appreciated that because, you know, it is easy. So let’s talk about hospitality a little bit. So that’s one thing that you’re very good at. Anyone who follows you online, they can see that you really take pride in your family, in your home, in your cooking, in your community. And so for homemakers in general, that’s something that especially a lot of young homemakers are trying to learn how. What are some tips for women especially to be hospitable? How does that make it easier when you do have a family that you’re taking care of?

Stacy Lyn Harris Well, how to make it easier is to realize what hospitality is and what it isn’t. And people think that hospitality is entertaining, and entertaining, you know, has a place in hospitality. And, you know, if you were to do an outline you could put entertaining in there. But true hospitality is really touching the needs of people. What do people need? And they don’t need everything to be in order in your home. They need a nice space. They need it to be clean when you go in, but not necessarily picked up, and not having the best curtains ever, or the best sofa or anything else. They need it clean, they need good company. And really, to me, when you’re hospitable, it’s your job to find out what do these people need? Do they need a good conversation? And with a glass of tea and some cookies, do they really need a whole meal? Are they even going to want a whole meal? So it’s finding out what the need is and then meeting it. And often it’s not nearly as hard as getting everything ready, having brand new dishes. I mean, this was something that okay, like last week — and I don’t know what y’all are going to think of this year, probably going to be like, this girl knows nothing — but last week, my daughter-in-law is in the Air Force and she’s going through JAG to get her… well, she’s done now, but anyway, officers training. And so she had friends that had been here in a hotel for like three months because it was a three month training thing. And so she said, “Hey, can they come over to Sunday dinner?” Because we always have Sunday dinner here, which, by the way, everyone needs to be flexible. Some of my kids now are going to a different church. It doesn’t get out till 12, so it puts us behind an hour because we get out at 11. So I’m not sure how we’re going to handle all of that. But for the moment, they came over and it was a couple and their three children. So I did it on paper plates. I always do it on paper plates every Sunday so that we’re not staying in the kitchen cleaning up. They can be pretty paper plates. I’m not sure that I did it, I think it was regular. But it was good food. I had really good food that I created, you know, the day before and everything was ready. But we were able to really just have fun and not that everybody needs to do that, but for me, I just know we’re not going to have to stand around, you know, washing dishes afterwards because I can put everything up in the refrigerator. Everything’s done, very few dishes in the sink. They didn’t need that. They needed relationship. They needed somebody to care for them. They needed a different space to go instead of looking at the same four walls. And I don’t think that it really made that big of a difference that we didn’t eat on, you know, glass plates. So it’s stuff like that keeps people from loving on other people that need help. So that would be my first piece of advice. And then the second piece of advice would be to make something that pretty much everybody loves, and that is a comfort food, because most people just need comfort anyway and just do a comfort food. And if they’re coming a lot, you’ll want to add some healthy things, you know, healthy food in there. And there’s lots of healthy comfort foods, as well. But make something you’re familiar with that isn’t going to be that difficult, and don’t worry about it being perfect. I have a hard time because I’m like taking food to lady that just had surgery for cancer, taking some food to her Thursday, and I’m like, oh my gosh, there’s this big expectation — I just wrote a cookbook, that I have to cook everything just perfectly and it’s got to be great. No. It doesn’t. They need to eat and yes, it needs to be really good. But I don’t need to be thinking way outside the box. I’m not trying to impress them, I’m trying to serve them right. And I think having that mindset changes everything.

Amy Fewell It does. Yeah, and it kind of throws the ball back on us. Right? So I think about it as a new mom. You know, I could have cared less becoming a new mom, if somebody brought me a hot chicken pot pie or Chick-Fil-A. You know what I mean?

Stacy Lyn Harris Yeah, exactly.

Amy Fewell It didn’t matter to me because my need was met for myself and my family. And so it kind of throws it back on us like are we doing this to impress others, to make us feel good? Are we doing it to impress others because it’s a false expectation? And so I love that, just the idea of we’re just we’re just here to serve. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Although it’s fun when we do have those perfect moments. But, you know, hospitality is about servanthood. It’s not necessarily about being perfect, which I love.

Stacy Lyn Harris Well, and there are some places that maybe you want to do that. Like I have a whole section in there about celebrations. Well, I used to downplay celebrations and I used to be like, this is some tradition that man made up. Who cares? You know, that kind of thing, but no, it’s a good thing to have traditions and to celebrate in big ways. And weddings are so important in life. They’re the second biggest, you know, decision you’re going to make your entire life. So let’s really celebrate that. Christmas is a big celebration. There are things that we really do want to make beautiful. Doesn’t have to be expensive, but we want to really celebrate that in a bigger way, in a more genuine way and have nicer things and maybe not eat off paper, but I’m not going to tell people not to. I mean, if that’s their cup of tea, then, you know, okay. Tradition is super important too, way more important than I originally thought. It gives people grounding. It gives people the sense of belonging. That’s their group. That’s their people. We do this every Sunday. We do this every, you know, whatever. All of those things in life are very important, and I really do think we should hold to some traditions for sure.

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Amy Fewell I agree. I mean, I think back about my grandma. So my grandma was really good about holding traditions and the certain holidays and birthdays and all of those things. And so when she aged, it became harder because she still wanted to do those things, and she was kind of the glue that held the family together because of those traditions. And unfortunately, when my grandfather passed and she’s aged now and she can’t do any of this on her own, it was kind of like a lot of the family just broke up. But they did go and make their own new traditions too, so that was fun to watch. But my kids only got to experience it for a little while. But it’s true, it kind of gave you that sense of belonging. But I think more than anything, it inspired me to make my own traditions and say, “Okay, well, grandma did it this way. These are the things I liked, and here’s how I’m going to tailor it to my family.” And so traditions often revolve around food, right? There’s certain foods grandma made that I really loved, that I’ve, you know, tried to remake and so I’m sure that as my kids get older, that’s something fun for them to remember: Mom made it this way because her grandma made it this way. And so I agree with you, I think traditions are really important to some degree. And celebrations are important because they make your family feel good and that’s part of hospitality for your family as well.

Stacy Lyn Harris It is, you know, and the thing is, it is hard to keep traditions. I am seeing with having seven kids, you know, off on other people’s schedules, it’s very difficult to come together, all of you at one time. And so, you know, as they continue to make their own families in places, we’re probably going to have to change a lot of the traditions that I originally thought we should do. And I’ve got to be flexible with that and figure out, you know, what can people do? The other part of it is if they can’t do it, you know, I’m trying to serve. And so therefore if they can’t do it, they can’t do it. And let them be free to do the things that they can and they can’t do. Things are so different with adult children. It is an interesting transition. I used to take everybody everywhere and now it’s like they may come, they may not get to come. Actually, I was on Huckabee this past week and I was like, I wish everybody could be there. But really, only I think four of the kids came. But it was good. It was still fun. It was great. It was an experience for them. And just, you know, to enjoy life with your people. And to make every day a joyful place. And one of the things I say in the book is what I want my home to be like is I want to be able to say, “Drop your baggage off by the door.” And I’m talking about your baggage, man. I mean, I’m talking about physical things, your phone, everything. But I’m also meaning your internal baggage. Let’s come in… You can share it. Let’s just open that baggage up if you want to, don’t if you don’t, but come in and enjoy a little bit of solitude. Letting your home be a little piece of heaven to other people. And that’s always been a dream of mine, and a very hard one, because I was so busy with so many, you know, children and so many demands. But I also want people to remember that if you can’t do what you’re thinking in your mind — hospitable — if you have children, you’re being hospitable every minute of every day. You are giving them water, you are feeding them, you are talking to them, you are tending to their colds or you know, you’re washing their clothes. That’s hospitality.

Amy Fewell Yeah, that was my next question actually is, you know, what have your seasons of hospitality looked like? Because I know there’s some moms on here who are like, yes, I want to do those things but, you know, I’m just not in that season of life, you know. What has that looked like for you from early motherhood until now and how has that changed?

Stacy Lyn Harris Well, I grew up… We didn’t do a whole lot of extra because my mom worked and she was so tired and she had like a high power job in the Postal service. But anyway, so she was super tired. We didn’t do a whole lot of that and then I started having babies, you know, and then we didn’t really know anybody in the town that we were in. So I didn’t do a whole lot of entertaining or anything like that, really, until we came back to the town we’re in. And then I would have family over from time to time. But I didn’t do a lot of so-called entertaining. We would have people over that maybe had a need that they wanted to talk about or that, you know, like a single guy that… He came over a lot and had dinner with us. So there were people like that in our lives, but I didn’t do anything on a big scale. And I remember talking to a homeschool mother at the time — which when I started homeschooling, there was only like, I don’t know, like 8000 in the whole United States. I didn’t know that. I probably might have chickened out — but this lady I knew was doing it, and she was like, “You are being hospitable.” She’s the one that told me, you know, “Look, you’re being hospitable all day. This is not the time for you to go taking food to people when you can’t even hardly make enough, you know, for your growing family. It’s okay for you to be hospitable to your husband.” Because that’s the other thing: A lot of times you can do all kinds of stuff for other people and get all kinds of accolades but are you serving your husband and, you know, you kind of have to serve your kids because they’re going to scream and yell and stuff if they don’t have food. But, you know, are you serving your husband? And to look and to be mindful and prayerful, how can I make his life better? I’m supposed to be helping him in his life and for him to meet his goals. And with you and I, you know, we have a business and we want to excel in our business, but if we don’t do first things first, it doesn’t matter what our business looks like, we have failed and that’s my opinion.

Amy Fewell Yeah. One of the things I love about my husband, we were just joking about this the other day. There was an older couple at church that has been sick. So Mark is always very good at checking in on people and even me, he’s like, “Can I bring you something? Can I… Do you want this? Do you need…” And so he’s extremely hospitable. And so this couple at church had been sick and he’s like, “Have you checked in on them?” I said, “I did check in on them.” And I’m like looking at my watch and it’s, you know, 4:00 in the afternoon already. I’ve already started on our dinner. And he goes, “We should ask them if they want dinner.” And I’m like, uh… And so I did. I texted them, I’m like, “Do you want any dinner? Do you want us to bring you food?” And they were, you know, they were so humble. They were like, “No, but…” And I knew they felt so bad. I’m like, “Okay, I’m going to bring you chicken noodle soup.” But we were joking about that recently because a lot of times as a mom and an entrepreneur, I am not the first one to be hospitable because I’m like, I have all of these other things to do. And he is the one who is hospitable. And he did help me, he helped me get dinner ready and going. And so I love that, you know, I was busy serving him and that gave him time to be busy serving someone else. And so we love that so much and being servants to one another, too. I know we will have some men listening if they’re still with us at this point, but wives listening too who have husbands like that. And I’m sure your husband’s the same way. They have a servant’s heart, they’re hospitable, and I’m sure their hospitality looks different in different ways for men, too. Of course, we can’t necessarily understand it fully because we’re women, but it’s certainly there.

Stacy Lyn Harris Yeah, I agree with that. And Scott, he will serve, you know, anyone. I mean, he is like, you know, on that. And he wants to serve his parents and, you know, he’ll mention that. And I’m like, I’ll have to go to the grocery store. I’ve got to do this, you know, I’ve got… Because it’s extra. So I think planning — that’s another thing is planning to be hospitable. And it’s not always about food, but often it is about food. Because like, I know when you lose a loved one and, you know, and I have a story in there about my grandmother and, you know, there’s no words. No one can say anything that is really going to help you. I mean, I’ve never had that with a death, you know, you just can’t… No one can say anything unless you say something like, you remember that person and you say something good about them or a memory about them. But to say I’m sorry or anything… it just doesn’t do but to have some food, to bring it and just to say, “If you need anything please let me know.” Or to look around and say, oh, their grass needs cutting. Especially, you know, if it was the man of the family that may have died, you know, to think of things that he would have done. “Did you get your all changed?” You know, “Would you like me to get your gas for you in your car?” I mean, things like that, that it is hard to know until you’ve been there because I think about things with like my husband’s parents and, and I’m like, what can I do to really help them? I don’t know, because, I mean, I’ve never really lived out what they’re they’re living, but I can kind of think of things. But I think just little kindnesses are important. In fact, I heard this two times this week, which was really interesting to me, but about what happens in the deterioration of marriages, a lot of times, what makes a marriage work and what doesn’t, is kindness. And it’s showing hospitality ultimately, and it’s that kindness that makes things last. But it’s as simple as just your response. Say you’ve had a hard day yourself and your husband comes in and he’s like, “My back is hurting.” It’s the difference between saying, “Well mine does too. Get it together.” Or, you know, saying, “You know what? Why don’t you sit down? I’m going to get you some Motrin, and maybe in about 20 minutes you’ll feel like getting back up and doing whatever.” It’s just showing benevolence, I guess. It’s just whether you’re kind or not and you know, whether they’re deserving or not. A lot of times you’re just like, I have been working so hard and you’re exasperated and you’re like, I wish somebody knew my back hurt. But no, I mean, it’s just the simple little things. And that’s what it is with all society, too. You know, if you say just some people just need a little bit of extra kindness, I think. I don’t know that it works with everybody because I’ve run into that here. But like at the store or whatever, you know, and it’s like, that did not work.

Amy Fewell Well, you know, it’s funny because we were actually talking about this at church yesterday and one of the church leaders was saying how… he said, “If I had a dime for every time someone told me that love was enough.” Right? And he’s like, “I know a lot of divorced couples that love each other still, but they’re still divorced and it has nothing to do with ‘love.’ If they were just a little kinder to each other, if they just took that next step to say, I’m going to set aside…” And that doesn’t mean you’re a doormat, but you’re going to set aside your needs for that moment and say, “Okay, what can I do for you? How can I help you?” And so this was something I had to learn, and I’m still learning. I feel like all wives have to check themselves, right? All the time. But, you know, when we first got married, one — I had to learn how to cook because I really didn’t know how to cook and two — I had to learn what he liked to eat, because what he liked to eat was totally different than what I liked to eat. I could have eaten, you know, salads and sauerkraut and, you know, the random things and he just wanted meat and potatoes. That’s all he wanted. And so, you know, I had to learn those little nuances of the things that filled up his love tank and what were his different distractions and different needs and wants. And so now when you go into motherhood, my son, my oldest son is the same way: food is the way to his heart. I’m not even kidding. He loves food and food is the way he feels loved and, you know, acts of service I would say, more than just food. But he lights up, like if he gets Chicken Alfredo, if I make Chicken Alfredo one night, he’s like, “Oh, you love me!” You know, because that’s his favorite food and that’s what he… And so it’s really interesting to see, you know, food, hospitality, love, kindness, all that goes hand in hand. And it’s super southern, right? That’s why your book is called that but it’s also just kind of the general love language of everywhere. When you feel taken care of, whether it’s with food or emotional or spiritual, you feel loved and that’s the difference. Like, you can love somebody all you want, but them feeling loved. And that’s kind of the motive of hospitality, I would say, in our house and I’m sure it is in your house too.

Stacy Lyn Harris It totally is, and I will say that I did not really know this until I had three boys and a husband, but they will… Food is everything. I mean, to men especially. You cook them something… Like, if I was to go in there and make a pie for Scott right now (he likes pecan pie), he would be thrilled. He would be like, “Oh my gosh, you do — you love me!” And it makes a difference. And same with, you know, all of the boys. But you know, they all know their birthday meal immediately when I ask them, “What would you like for your birthday?” “Oh, I want fried catfish.” You know, which is in the book. But fried catfish and hush puppies. And, you know, somebody else might say, you know, venison steak. I’ve got that in the book, too. So I’ve got their birthday meals and birthday cakes in the book. So all of their favorite foods are in there. And then I have, like, menus for special occasions, like you might need to take your husband on a date. Maybe he is a workaholic type and he will not rest. You need to maybe plan something where you surprise him and take him on a picnic, so there’s a picnic lunch in there. And there’s other situations, anniversary meal — some fancy, some not so fancy, you know. Anyway, anything that you need food wise will be in there. I mean, in some way, some form or fashion and it’s all really easy. But food is the way, especially to men’s stomachs. You know, to men’s hearts. It really is. It’s amazing.

Amy Fewell Yeah. And I would say the same about women, too. I know I have a very close group of girlfriends, and we are always like, you know what? We just need a food day. We’re all going to make something, and we’re going to get together, and we’re just going to not have kids and husbands around, and we’re just going to eat food. We’re going to eat the things that we like to eat. And so I’m really excited about this cookbook. You added all your favorite things to it and all of your family’s favorite things to it, and it really is easy. I know my family has been begging me to make that strawberry cake that’s in there.

Stacy Lyn Harris Ah, so good.

Amy Fewell That’s on my next list. Maybe this week I will get to it. I am not a baker, at all.

Stacy Lyn Harris Oh, you can do it.

Amy Fewell Yeah, it seemed easy enough.

Stacy Lyn Harris That’s how I started though, because I was like, I just have such a sweet tooth. So I was baking cakes all the time, pound cakes — and you know, all of those are in here, too — pies. I just loved it and my other books are so live-off-the-land kind of feel. And my second was Stacy Lyn’s Harvest cookbook, and it is about harvesting and cooking what you harvest, pretty much. And so I don’t really have a lot of sweets in them. And so I was like, okay, I have got to share these things with people. So, that’s where Love Language of the South… And there’s a lot of homesteaders and sometimes they’re so busy on the farm, on the homestead, that they forget about being hospitable to one another within the home. So I feel like this is a good time to add this book into homesteaders repertoire and arsenal so that they’re ready for any kind of occasion and a reminder that they fell in love and need to stay in love with their families.

Amy Fewell Yeah. Awesome. Well Stacy Lyn, tell me where we can find all of this goodness, whether it’s this cookbook or others, and where people can find you online.

Stacy Lyn Harris So StacyLynHarris.com — that’s my website and you can pretty much get everywhere from there. So I have all of my socials — they’re all Stacy Lyn Harris. So that is how you find me and subscribe to my newsletter and get updates and new, you know, recipes in your box. Or, you know, if you want to go straight to the book, you can go to Amazon or anywhere books are sold.

Amy Fewell Awesome. Thank you for joining me this week. We’ve really enjoyed having you. Just a reminder, you guys, we are going to record a second episode coming up soon, and then we’re going to just… we’re going to talk about all kinds of things. And so I’m really excited for that episode. So for you ladies especially, if you’re wanting to hear more about homemaking and husbands and children and entrepreneurship too, I think we’re going to get into that a little bit that day. That’ll be a really great episode for you to listen to. So thank you guys for joining us and until next time, happy homesteading.

Amy Fewell Hey, thanks for taking the time to listen to this week’s Homesteaders of America episode. We really enjoyed having you here. We welcome questions and you can find the transcript and all the show notes below or on our Homesteaders of America blog post that we have up for this podcast episode. Don’t forget to join us online with a membership or just to read blog posts and find out more information about our events at HomesteadersofAmerica.com. We also have a YouTube channel and follow us on all of our social media accounts to find out more about homesteading during this time in American history. All right, have a great day and happy homesteading.

Homesteaders of America

E34: Embracing Hospitality in Your Kitchen and Family | Stacy Lyn Harris