The Kitchen Table
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I so well remember my mother rolling out pie dough for the holidays at our kitchen table and I sat across from her and watched and learned. As children we always got a piece of the dough to form into some sort of tiny pie, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, folded in half and we learned to crimp dough with a fork that way. Baking the tiny creation and deciding we were "good" pie bakers. We watched our mothers and grandmothers faces as they prepared meals, saw their words come out of their mouths like golden bits of instruction. I could tell if they were teaching me something and I wasn't quite doing it right... their expressions would change or you could notice that stifled grin when it was really silly what I was doing.
Our kitchen table was the hub of our house....breakfast, lunch and supper was eaten there. We didn't have a dinning room until the children were grown. The kitchen was it. I rolled out gingerbread men with the girls there, kneaded bread dough, and sewed there too. Machine at one end and the cutting board at the other. We had school there and did crafts there. We sliced bushels of peaches there and sat down after they were canned, exhausted, sipping iced meadow tea. That table hosted lots of laughter when games were played and it was the place were many lessons were taught, life lessons where a tear might even have been shed. It was the place where friends of mine sat as we sipped coffee and talked, eating some doughnuts perhaps that were made at this very same table. We might even shell peas together as we sipped our coffee. It was that kind of table, busy, full of life. One time a friend of the childrens was over for a visit and someone came to the door asking for me, this little girl told them I was in my room. I laughed a bit at hearing that and she said, "well you are always there, so I figured it was your room ! Her house was not one with a kitchen table.
How did we get away from this wonder of the home ? Is it too hard to have a multipurpose item like a table ? Did women just want their own space ? I am glad we kept our kitchen table and didn't put in some Island. Remember, no man/woman is an island unto himself/herself : )
I say, bring back the kitchen table and I bet families would just be a bit more together.
Comments
It's not a great table, in fact one that we found abandoned by (not in) our dumpster, but it does the job.
Margaretha
We stand around our kitchen now cleaning, cooking, eating, talking, but most importantly- sharing our lives. There is a counter that separates the kitchen from the dining room table, but the space is small enough that we are still close together.
At our table, we make crafts, prepare meals, bake holiday goodies, do homework, play games and sometimes we just sit and talk. We eat almost every meal there- not zoned out in front of the TV. Our kitchen table has certainly brought us closer together.
Thanks for this wonderful post.