Welcome to my table. Actually, it’s a table made out of an old door with new legs…kind of like me. In the midst of a new beginning, I’m a well- seasoned , Danish/Italian woman who loves having people around who love good food, conversation, sharing of stories about food. I’m in my 1783 house in the heart of the North Fork’s Wine Country. A house where the floors slant, doors don’t always close and you can hear echoes of conversations past. I’m a fledgling food historian, writer and cook who wants to hear your stories about food and memories that revolve around them.
The kitchen table was the place where you told stories about today and yesterday, where you passed around the big bowl of spaghetti at Sunday dinner and where you sang happy birthday before slicing the chocolate and vanilla cake decorated by Daddy. The kitchen table is the place where we shared stories with laughter, good-natured teasing and sometime a small tear.
I’ve always loved these stories for their insight to who we are and who we were. They touched all the senses—hearing the voices of family whose voices are only a memory now, smelling the simmering Sunday sauce, touching the fresh loaf of Italian bread and breaking off the heal, and of course, tasting the best meatballs in the world.
“That’s the nature of food memories. They aren’t just based on fact, or our need for survival, but are shaped by context–the company, the situation and the emotion involved,” explained psychologist Julie R. Thomson.
“We all have our food memories, some good and some bad. The taste, smell, and texture of food can be extraordinarily evocative bringing back memories not just of eating food itself but also of place and setting. Food is an effective trigger of deeper memories of feelings and emotions, internal states of mind and body.” (The Harvard University Press on John D. Allen’s The Omnivours Mind)
Through this blog, I will be sharing topics with you that I hope will evoke food memories that you are willing to share. You will be taken to another time and place where we can use all our senses to tell our stories and share a bit of humanity during a time of isolation and sadness.
We’ll start with a simple, sense provoking context of going to your favorite diner!
Stories From Around The Table 