BEING A GOOD (?) HOUSE GUEST

Mark Kolke has asked me to do a piece about being a good house guest. He knows, as do many others, that my wife and I are "home exchangers." We travel very inexpensively, but even more, we get to be guests in someone else's home, and we get to know the neighbours and the local shopping in a way no hotel or resort guest can.

We are just back from another jaunt and the experience was from wonderful to horrid.
Wonderful was to reacquaint with a man in Charlotte, North Carolina. We had already done an exchange. He and his wife came to Toronto and spent two weeks at our place. Unfortunately, we were also away, so we never met. But when we returned to take up our part of the exchange, he and his wife "hosted" us. Meaning: we visited as guests while they were in residence. Being a house "guest" instead of a casual visitor has many advantages. Aside from the obvious - getting to know your hosts, they will take you to visit places you might never have found on your own. There was an emergency. My wife developed an infection requiring a trip to the emergency. They took us. They sat with us. It was as near to being home as one could get. To add to the pleasure, she got up every morning to go to her gym, but also to make hot oatmeal for us. Long story with a bittersweet ending: we were heading south to visit a cousin in beautiful Asheville. I called him, learned his wife had died last December, but that he would be delighted to have us visit with him. The only "price" we had to pay was that I cooked. No problem - it's a joyous experience for me, and he needed it because his wife did all the cooking. Her departure left him helpless in the kitchen. We shared a dinner of a butterflied chicken I make. He was so impressed he asked me to do dinner for neighbours who have been generous to him. I did. I trotted out a sumptuous menu of veal Cordon Bleu and a mushroom/onion risotto. He was delighted, and we met three engaging people, one of whom took us on an art tour of Charlotte.

This almost always happens. In Holland we are welcomed regularly by a couple in The Hague. In Paris we4 have access to a studio apartment in the Porte Maillot district.
In Barcelona a toung couple hosted us in their apartment and when we were robbed, lent us 500 Euro until we could get replacement credit cards and passports.

This week a couple from Stockholm who had previously stayed in our place visited us for the day. They took us to lunch. I responded with a dinner of turkey cacciatore.
We'll be in Stockholm next June. Next week a couple from Scotland will spend most of the week with us. Two years ago they hosted us in Aberdeen where I cooked for them. They had never had French toast. They called it "fried bread," a dish well-known to them.

All these details are simply a background look at the joy of being a special kind of house guest or host. It is enriching and I get a chance to show off in the kitchen.

It doesn't always work out as well. Our trip to Asheville was marred by a kind of jarring meeting with a long lost cousin. I may have said the wrong things but she responded with her own challenge. It was a tense three days, eased a bit by being able to cook and to have civilized conversation. Ironically, Asheville was the boyhood home of Thomas Wolfe, and my visit there proved Wolfe was right: You Can't Go Home Again. I apologized but it was not enough.

So all house guesting does not work out perfectly. Truthfully though, with all the tension, I would not have missed the visit for anything.

It is trivial of me I suppose to quote (or paraphrase) the famous: "house guests are like fish. if they stay too long they start to smell."