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the Home Cooking issue My Grandmother’s Table One family’s workaday center of the universe words and photo by Pableaux Johnson I t probably happens a couple of times a month.I’mputtering around the house on a Tuesday morning, wiping off my tabletop from the previous night’s red bean dinner, and I’ll spot a circular purple wine stain on the woodgrain surface. My friends consider the oversized colonial- style oval to be “Pableaux’s table,” but to me and most of my extended family, it’ll always be “Lorelle’s kitchen table” and one of the truly magical places in the world.

rapid-fire conversation heavy on family stories, her concerns for all involved and a little something to eat, of course. Never content for people to sit around and not eat, she’d always steer visitors to a seat at the table and rummage around in the fridge with her constant refrain, “ Let me see what I have in here...” Minutes later, she’d have a per- fect little something set up in front of you both. Leftover bis- cuits with fig preserves in the late morning, perhaps an impro- vised meat-and-three (roast, rice, gravy, petit pois peas, smothered summer squash) if you couldn’t stay till supper. And if relatives

In its previous life, the table lived in my grandmother’s kitchen near the University Lakes in Baton Rouge, and acted as the undeniable heart of my mother’s far-flung extended family. My mother was born the second oldest of eight kids — six girls, two boys — in a family that maintained a tight emotional orbit around their parents and childhood home, no matter their geographical distance. The house on Morning Glory Avenue was the family’s touchstone, with Lorelle’s kitchen table its spiritual center. The kitchen — spacious, windows on three sides, linoleumfloors,“newly renovated”in the late 1950s — was the default family gathering spot with its defining feature, the nine-foot, colonial-style table, a most welcome high- traffic zone. As a kid, to me the kitchen seemed like a Great Hall of Feasting, with the stovetop just steps away and the chance to learn about food and family always there (if you were paying attention). Lorelle’s kitchen was the non-negotiable first stop for visitors to “Morning Glory” — whether it was a pre-planned mealtime stopover for pork chops or garlic-spiked roast beef (the family’s standard Welcome Home meal), a morning or afternoon cup of thick black coffee from the French drip pot, or a little snack of summer tomato cut into slabs and dusted with a little salt and pepper. Enter the kitchen outside the traditional three-meal structure and you were in for one of Mamma’s “visits” — a

I look at the ring, shake my head and think the same thing every time: “If Mamma ever saw this table, she’d kill me.” My grandmother was a fierce believer in thick vinyl place mats in exactly the way that I am not . As a way to set a proper table. As a way to “protect the table’s finish.” As a pre-meal civilizing ritual. As a sign that it’s time to be somewhat polite. I can almost feel the stern reproach and slightly sheepish feeling of “being fussed at” as I address the task at hand. A quick wipe doesn’t quite get the job done, so I take the scrubber side of a sponge and apply a little elbow grease. With each pass of the scrubber, the wine fades a bit, eventually leaving a barely visible ghost ring that’s somewhat camouflaged against the durable faux woodgrain. Over the 17 years I’ve had this table in my various homes, I’ve “filled the table” with a dozen or so friends at least once a week (sometimes three or four times a week during colder months). Gatherings are always casual — a simple menu (red beans, gumbo) served in stoneware bowls, with hot skillet cornbread in the center of the table, flanked by beer bottles, wine glasses and an enchanting, ’30s era Duraglas water decanter (for hydration purposes). Equally casual and chaotic, the table lends itself to simple cooking, spirited conversations and late-night storytelling.

were coming in from the road, it was go- ing to be a production, with the trusty table filled to the groaning point. When she asked the magic question, “Are you hungry?” guests learned quickly that “No”was not an appropriate answer, and that polite deference would get them nowhere. “Yes, ma’am” was your starting point, and you negotiated up or down from there. My grandmother, Elizabeth Lorelle Seal Hebert, used that table as her workaday social parlor and activity room. A zaftig woman from North Louisiana’s Catahoula Parish, she acted as the unquestioned head of a fast-talking, bighearted matriarchy, and her kitchen was her headquarters. If you were a true friend of the family, you knew better than to ring the front doorbell, but instead went around back and rapped on the heavy, spring-loaded screen door.

“ When she asked the magic question, ‘Are you hungry?’ guests learned quickly that ‘No’ was not an appropriate answer, and that polite deference would get them nowhere. ‘Yes, ma’am’ was your starting point, and you negotiated up or down from there.”

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MY ROUSES EVERYDAY

SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

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