Lessons learned from one another
In today’s current world, gathering is not permitted and frowned upon. I understand the reason and I totally support it, but I really do miss it a lot. I’ve learned some of my most important life lessons when I have been around a table. These were lessons about life, work, love, food, family and what is really important to us all.
I grew up in a small family. There was only my brother and I as siblings and we had no first cousins. My father was an only child and my mother’s brother never had any children. We had relatives living in Europe and in Western Canada, but not much more than that. So as children growing up there was no kids table during large dinners with our family. We were allowed to sit with the adults and my grandparents at the same table and enjoy the same food.
As I grew older and grew into the adult phases of my life, I enjoyed more and more the conversations and sensations of eating great meals with great people. I loved hearing people argue over food, travel and politics. There weren’t many topics at our table that were off limit to talk about. The more I grew up, the more my brother and I contributed and learned from all the individuals gathered around us.
This past year we lost a central part of our family’s table, in the form of my grandfather. He was so central in my life and the lives around him. I was lucky to know and to have a man like that in my life, up until a point when I was well into the adult years.
He was by far the person who helped our small family always gather for holidays, birthdays and weekly dinners. He usually sat at the top of the table and was always instructing the conversation or cooking of the meal.
I fondly remember starting evenings at my grandparent’s house with some sort of pre-dinner cocktail the adults would participate in and some snacks for everyone to enjoy. Then there would be a commotion in the kitchen before everyone would finally gather to sit down at a table and devour whatever deliciousness was presented before us. The smells and the images of the food and wine still stay with me to this day.
As I grew older the head cook or maestros of dinner changed from my grandparents to my parents. Now it is usually my brother and I who take care of everyone as they took care of us.
As I began working in kitchens, I began to appreciate what we would call “family meal”. Our meals were a time when we would gather around the same table and converse over plates of food. People were from different cultures and religions and were all sat together as one, listening and debating about many subjects. We would sit together at the table or gather in the back alleys, laughing together on top of box crates. These were times to bring people together and times to distract from what was going on in our daily tasks. There really is a relaxing feeling, sitting down and enjoying a meal before going into a crazy dinner service of a restaurant.
Gathering together around a table is now a lot different than it has been in the past. Sitting six feet from one another is helping to keep everyone safe, but I worry that it is pushing us apart. I miss those dinners gathering around the table and I miss eating dinner together with my staff. I learned so much about people from just being able to sit together and eat some food.
I hope in the future we may be able to gather once again. I am optimistic we will have new stories to tell and lessons to learn over food. Our family dinners are now just between my parents and I, but I am hopeful it will not be like this forever. Let’s hope we can gather again soon, over some good food and drinks.
Comments