Around the Table

I have a deep an abid­ing love for large tables with lots of peo­ple squished around them eat­ing and laugh­ing and enjoy­ing each oth­er’s com­pa­ny. I love potlucks, study ses­sions with snacks, big lazy break­fasts, tra­di­tion­al and non-tra­di­­tion­al hol­i­day gath­er­ings, birth­day dinners…the list goes on. In addi­tion, I adore table linens, can­dles, cen­ter­pieces, and matched

The table that is spe­cial to me has essen­tial­ly noth­ing to do with a phys­i­cal table. It can take place at any table that can seat sev­en peo­ple. What is real­ly impor­tant is the peo­ple, specif­i­cal­ly my cousins. There are sev­en of us, my old­er broth­er, me, and five girls rang­ing in age from 10–16,

The table that spikes a sweet mem­o­ry for me is my Grandmother’s round oak table. Extend­ed for the Christ­mas hol­i­day with three leaves, it could accom­mo­date most of the fam­i­ly of eight and their wives. We cousins were seat­ed at aux­il­iary tables on the porch and liv­ing room. But the round (extend­ed oval) table was

  My moth­er was one of sev­en sis­ters and my grand­moth­er (Gran) had 20 grand­chil­dren. Hav­ing a Christ­mas gath­er­ing for all those rel­a­tives was a week’s long under­tak­ing but one Gran accom­plished every year well into her 70’s. At the cen­ter of this gath­er­ing was a large, 54–60 inch wide, mul­ti-leaved oak table, like­ly dating

The oval table sits at the end of the kitchen in the 1950’s ram­bler. It is tucked into a cor­ner with a win­dow look­ing out at cousin Leroy’s house. A pock­et door lead­ing into the din­ing room inter­rupts anoth­er wall. A counter, held up by bot­tom shelves, extends like an arm pre­pared for a handshake.

Back in 1903, my great-grand­­par­ents guessed how many cof­fee beans were in a jar and won a table from the gen­er­al store in Cano­va, South Dako­ta. And what a table! Sol­id oak, mea­sur­ing 52” x 52”, with beau­ti­ful turned and carved legs. The best part, though, is that the table has six leaves. At its

  Pet­ti­coat Tails This is my Gran’s recipe and one of our fam­i­ly’s favorite cookies–a light short­bread cook­ie. They’re like pota­to chips–can’t eat just one! 1 cup soft but­ter 1 cup sift­ed pow­dered sug­ar 1 tsp flavoring–vanilla, almond, rose etc. 2.5 cups sift­ed white flour 1/4 tsp salt Cream but­ter, sug­ar and fla­vor­ings until well com­bined. Sift the flour and

Five years ago I began the slow emp­ty­ing of my child­hood home. While pick­ing through the heaps of mem­o­ries, I found myself in a far flung cor­ner of the fur­nace room. There, under­neath piles of old news­pa­pers and mag­a­zines, lay a small chess table, legs loose, but oth­er­wise exact­ly as I remem­bered it. My table! Grow­ing up, there was a

Franken­stein has few­er scars than this table. Pen­cil scratch­es next to the unfin­ished math page, nail pol­ish in the mid­dle fold-out, a sliv­er chun­ked out at the edge, divets and dents and ball­point pen dragged 10 inch­es. I don’t have a sto­ry for every scar—they often appear with­out expla­na­tion and we assign blame accord­ing to

  Now and then Patri­cia and I go into IKEA to buy meat­balls. There is a direct route from the entrance to the meat­balls (which are, in fact, next to the exit), but that takes all the sport out of it, so we obe­di­ent­ly fol­low the yel­low arrows through the store, pass­ing all man­ner of