Little Tables, Big Memories
Did you ever sit at the "little table" for family dinners? Or the "children's table"?
A dozen or so grandkids would squeeze around a little homemade table at Big Mom's house. We'd lift up the plastic poinsettia tablecloth and try to carve our names in the many layers of aqua-painted surface with forks and fingernails. The "little table" was pushed against the bathroom door which was good if you had to go in a hurry and not so good if Uncle Billy had to go in a hurry.

But the first "little table" was at Cousin Ethel's in Johnson City, TN. It was a dark wooden fold-out card table in the family room and four children gathered around it waiting to be served. We'd peer into the kitchen where the adults sat at the "Big" table. A shiny aluminum and red laminated set. Mother would seat us girls and tuck napkins into our collars.

My teen cousin, Brenda, got to sit at the big table. But everything she did was cool. She played a new song for us on her record player, "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes", and I admired her jewelry box that's very opening made the ballerina inside twirl and dance while the music box played. Brenda wore lipstick, rolled her hair, and knew all the latest dances. She wore capri pants and mohair sweaters that featured her pointy boobs. When would I get pointy boobs? (bra-makers would later learn how to 'lift and separate')

Family tables steeped in love and tradition have a lot of history and now from the cook's vantage point, I find all those "little tables" have many big stories to tell.