Some Rooms Stay With You Longer Than Others
Indiana farmhouses, California Sundays, Sonoma in the early nineties.
Jennifer Ann Blair writes. Food, wine, a German Shepherd named Archie, and whatever the day brings.
Some rooms stay with you longer than others. Not the furniture exactly, though a good table is its own kind of architecture, and I have opinions about that. The idea of the table. What it means to set one. What it signals to the people you’ve invited to sit down. That you thought about them before they arrived, that something was prepared, that this particular hour was worth marking with food and light and the specific attention of being fed.
My family gathered around a lot of tables. Indiana farmhouse tables where the food came from the garden, and nothing was wasted. California tables where my dad would talk to anyone within earshot and my mom made sure everyone had enough. Tables in Sonoma tasting rooms in the early nineties when we were young, and the wine was free, and nobody was in a hurry to leave. I didn’t think of them as rituals then. They were just Sundays. They were just how we lived.
Set something intentionally this week. Even something small. See how it feels. The table doesn’t have to be full to be worth setting. It just has to be yours.
Next Time
The tables of my family, what I learned sitting at them, and what I’ve carried into the tables I set now.
Before You Go
I’m at the table. Write back. I read every one.
If this landed, tap the heart. It helps more people find the table.
Jennifer Ann Blair writes about what’s worth remembering — a recipe, a person, a table set just for one.