Why Two Tables, and Lentil soup
Lentil soup has always been a bit of a go to soup for either a cold night, or when there’s not much left in the fridge. If you have tomato and lentils, you have soup.
But this is a story of two tables. Tonight, at the International Womens Day event at the multicultural centre, a lovely young woman did a slam poem called The Table. It was the story of her table, as well as ‘The Table’. The place, the space , where life revolves around in a family. Where food and drink is shared, where arguments happen, where love happens, where mum cuts out the new dress, where she makes you stand up on so that she can do the hems. The heart of the home.
And I have two of these tables, and they both have stories, and they are always in the backgrounds of my food pics.
I have my kitchen table. It’s a Qld maple bedroom table, in the refectory style. It was bought for my grandmother as part of a bedroom suite, later split up, my sister has the wardrobe. I remember this table first of all as being in the kitchen of my grandmother Doris Ashwin , when she was in East Brisbane. By then she had my grandfather paint it black, and nail vinyl flooring to the top of it so that she could cut up on it!. I remember that she was quite proud of this adjustment to the old table. But it was always there. It was there when she would make us her specialty, boiled mince with onions, served with green beans and mash. We would sit around her table in her overcrowded kitchen, and she would take out a large coffee jar full of cooked mince (she never used plastic) and reheat it for us to have in front of the telly, with the remote, in the recliner .. bliss.
Mum then inherited the table, and took it with her to Blackbutt. This was her first posting out of Brisbane, back in the 1970’s when you were made to go west to get a promotion. It was dry, but it was pretty friendly town. Mum scraped and sanded the table , then finished it by using large pads of steel wool with oils, over and over until the table had a warm honey glow, and wouldn’t mark with hot pots.
I cant remember when I first got the table. But its been about 20 years. Mum isn’t a hoarder, and is happy to share or pass on everything if you ask her. A minimalist before her time (opposite to gran) The sad thing is, I have not had the time or the energy to give it the next lease of life, it badly needs a good sanding down. Its been my office table for years and is now back in the kitchen.
My second table is older, but also newer (to me) My dining table is a long, skinny table, probably pine, and was found in the basement of The Old Museum, a little mouldy so was going to the tip. I took it home, scrubbed and cleaned it, and decided to do nothing else. Every paint mark, every scrape, every hole is a mark made by one of the many Museum staff over generations of work and investigations. Its patina is a work of art, and I will never sand it back. There are far too many stories.
But now it is my story. It has seen many great dinner parties, many glasses or bottles of wine, many dress patterns cut out, and more recently many baby baths. It is my ‘Table’ my story, and will stay with me and grow many more stories in the future.
fry off onion, garlic and whatever vegetable ( this time kale, sweet potato, capsicum , mushroom..but just onion will do)
add 2 tins brown lentils, washed first
tablespoon vege stock powder
season salt/pepper/chilli/soya sauce
wont need long to cook, as soon as the vegetables are soft. its GREAT!
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