Story on the table
The hard-packed dirt floor of a mud house, swept meticulously clean, is the most poignant dining table at which I’ve eaten. Upon arriving at a refugee camp in Gaza, still Israeli territory in the 1970s, boys appeared and began flinging small stones at me and my American friend. Our Palestinian hostess shooed away the boys and welcomed us with a huge smile into her earthen home. Sitting cross-legged on cotton rugs, we took food with our fingers from a platter of spicy chicken and rice that had been placed on the floor between us. There were no plates, utensils, or napkins; no tablecloth, place mats, or centerpiece. Who needed those? Our friend’s hospitality was both decor and service. Her meal was a time-honored observance of what we held in common despite political, religious, or racial differences: our humanity; our faith, our respect.
Summers in Europe influenced me too. My favorite dining room is the great outdoors. A grassy-knoll fanatic, I recently learned that the late queen mother of England was also a picnic epicure, which is after all a Victorian art. Paintings of the era depict ladies in white dresses and large hats spreading wonderful food on delicate tablecloths. My picnics happen from a backpack They are spread on a sensible blanket along a river or served from a sunny rock. I like to hype special occasions with a picnic or three-course breakfast under my backyard aspen tree. Afternoon tea may be served on a table bedecked in pansies. For barbeques I set my red, white, and blue dishes alongside potted geraniums in cobalt planters.