The
Gift of the Kitchen Table
By Janet Peterson
I
recently toured a remodeled kitchen that had everything new and
beautiful – gorgeous wood cabinets, sleek granite countertops,
and shiny state-of-the art appliances. However, one significant
part of the kitchen was missing. There was no longer a kitchen
table! The owners had opted for a bar and got rid of their kitchen
table. I couldn’t imagine functioning in a kitchen without a table.
Several
years ago I heard a report on National Public Radio that many
couples setting up housekeeping skip buying a kitchen table, opting
instead for state-of-the-art entertainment centers and other household
furnishings.
If
there isn’t a table in a home or apartment, how can family members
gather around it? Eating at the bar or on a couch in front of
the TV is not the same. Family members are not looking at each
other – they're either lined up or looking at the screen.
Our
kitchen table has changed with the years from a rectangular white
Formica table in our graduate school days to our now oval light
oak table. The size of our table has changed with leaves put in
or taken out as our family has grown and then shrunk. On Sundays
and special occasions we have set the more elegant dining room
table. But for thirty-seven years, our family has eaten dinner
around a table.
Making Memories
Some
of my fondest family memories have been formed around those tables:
watching our six cute toddlers, each, in turn, learning to feed
themselves and looking as if he or she – and the floor – had been
finger-painted with mashed potatoes or applesauce; hearing the
heartfelt blessings on the food of three-and four-year-olds; laughing
as one of the kids said something funny, like an 8-year-old''s
“these cookies are as hard as the ice on Pluto”; having “Miss
Manners” try to teach table etiquette to five sons; preparing
favorite dinners for each of our departing missionaries, then
on their return trying out new cuisine from Brazil, Japan, Hungary,
and Slovenia; getting to know our children’s future spouses during
their first dinner at our home; marveling as our three-year-old
grandson says he loves green beans because they make him strong
(our own boys did not like vegetables); thrilling as our six-year-old
granddaughter exclaims that dinner that night was “just delicious!”;
sharing countless meals with the love of my life who thanks me
for cooking dinner for him.
Elder
LeGrand Curtis, a former member of the
Seventy, said, “One of the most important furnishings found in
most homes is the kitchen table. Now, it may be small, it may
be large, or in the form of a little counter with barely room
to put the food and utensils. Its major function seems to be a
place for the different members of the family to receive nourishment
…
“My
plea … is that each of us will look carefully at our homes and
at the kitchen table and continually strive to bring heaven into
our homes.”
A Multitude of Purposes
Pampered
Chef president Doris Christopher in her
wonderful book Come to the Table: A Celebration of Family Life
aptly describes the purpose of the kitchen table:
“Round
or square, mahogany or oak, the table is the heart of every home,
the nucleus of domestic life, where we pay bills and wrap presents,
fold laundry and toss mail. When the chores are done and daylight
is fading, the work table becomes the dinner table, and as we
gather around it, we, too, are transformed. No longer separate
and solitary, we regain our identities as part of a much greater
whole: We become a family, sharing not just our suppers but also
ourselves.
“It
is here, at the table, that we rejoin the pack, in a timeless
ritual. Surrounded by the people who matter, gazing into the faces
we love, we count our blessings and share our burdens, reliving
the daily dramas of missed buses and skinned knees. We raise jelly
glasses and champagne flutes, toasting accomplishments in classrooms
and board rooms. And over homemade casseroles or haute cuisine,
relatives become loved ones and acquaintances become friends.
“The
table is where we mark milestones, divulge dreams, bury hatchets,
make deals, give thanks, plan vacations, and tell jokes. It’s
also where children learn the lessons that families teach: manners,
cooperation, communication, self-control, values. Following
directions. Sitting still. Taking
turns. It’s where we make up and make merry. It’s where
we live, between bites.”
Office Space
Elaine
L. Jack served as the general Relief Society president from 1990
to 1997. She and her husband, Joe, are parents of four sons. The
kitchen table has been a gathering place for the Jack family and
was for Elaine the most familiar and comfortable place for her
to do her “homework.” She wrote:
“When
I was serving as Relief Society president, I brought home work
from the office nightly. In those days dinner was never elaborate.
If it took more than fifteen minutes to prepare, we didn’t have
it, and Joe never complained. Although there were two rooms in
our home fitted with desk and workplace, my work was always done
at one end of the kitchen table, right after dinner. That was
my ‘place.’
“The
kitchen, with a washable floor, was a natural spot to feed grandchildren.
Somehow, even with a dining room set formally, the kitchen remained
the gathering place. Even after the children had left to play
elsewhere, the adults conversed freely, more comfortably and humorously
around the kitchen table, discussing passionately world, political,
and professional problems.”
Nightly Interrogation
Marianne
Jennings’ reminiscences of her childhood kitchen table and the
legacy she is endeavoring to pass on to her own children convincingly
describe “the gift of the kitchen table.” A law professor at Arizona
State University, she wrote in her syndicated newspaper
column:
“Much
of what I have learned and hold dear is inextricably intertwined
with the kitchen table. This 4-by-6 scratched and worn piece of
furniture was a small physical part of my home. Yet as I look
back on what we did there, I realize that it was a key to the
life I now have.
“Each
night during my youth it was the kitchen table where I was held
accountable for the day's events. ‘When is the next report card?’
‘Did you clean up the mess in the basement?’ ‘Did you practice
your piano today?’
“If
you wanted dinner, you had to accept the accompanying interrogation
that would have violated my Miranda rights if I had done something
more than attempt to bathe the neighbor's parakeet. There was
no escaping the nightly confrontation with accountability.
“But that kitchen table was not just
a source of fear, it was my security blanket. No matter how rough
the day's tauntings had been and no
matter how discouraged I was over long division, the kitchen table
and its adult caretakers were there every night to comfort and
support … Regardless of the day’s schedule or demands, the kitchen
table brought us back together for roll call at 6:00 p.m. every
night …
“That kitchen table nurtured. It was
my constancy amid the insecurities of crooked teeth, more freckles
than skin, and geography bees on state capitals …
“As I struggle each night to get dinner
on my kitchen table and round up my children from the four corners
of our neighborhood, I wonder why I just don't send them to their
rooms with a chicken pot pie and ‘Wheel of Fortune.‘ I don't because
I am giving them the gift of the kitchen table.
“In all of the treatises on parenting,
in all of the psychological studies on child development, and
in all of the data on self-esteem, this humble key to rearing
children is overlooked.”
Gathering the family often for dinner
around the table provides a priceless opportunity to talk, laugh,
discuss the day, and strengthen family ties. This Christmas, why
not give your family a lasting gift – “the gift of the kitchen
table”?
1 “A Table Encircled with Love,” Ensign,
May 1995, 82, 83
