Table Topics

Oh, hi.

I know, I know . . . it's been a while. We have, indeed, still been reclaiming Sunday supper -- two weekends ago, around a big, long table at Jolly Pumpkin Brewery with two other families on a Sunday afternoon before a treacherous drive home through the snow and ice, and last weekend, at our house with a dear family of five. I walked in the door last Sunday at 5:45 pm, straight from a four-day weekend with my best college girlfriends and an even-more-treacherous drive home through the snow and ice from Chicago, and I've never been so grateful for a warm house, a glass of wine, and a husband who cooks. 

About that weekend with my girlfriends. It was our thirteenth one, we think (the math gets a little sketchy, though there's a journal somewhere in which we try valiantly to record details every couple of years), and though getting together is a logistical nightmare every year, it's a tradition we cling to fiercely. Some years (before we began having kids -- 17 total between the six of us), we did adventurous things: whitewater rafting in West Virginia, horse races in Kentucky, hiking in North Carolina. Then we started having more kids and getting less sleep, and the last few years, our weekends have been largely about gathering somewhere (one of our houses, maybe a spot on Lake Michigan) simply to rest and connect. Some days, we struggle to get out of our pajamas before dinner. We mean to get out into the world and have adventures, but the thing is, we have so many things to say. And last weekend was no different.

We had restaurant reservations each night, sure (and I'd strongly recommend this, this, and especially this if you're hitting the Windy City soon), but, as we told the lovely woman at the front desk when we arrived at our little condo/hotel (another A+ recommendation, by the way), "All we really need is a table."

Our room wasn't quite ready yet when we arrived on Thursday, so the four of us who had driven settled down in the library. A few trashy magazines, a bottle of wine, and a long table surrounded by walls of bookshelves while the snow fell outside? We were completely happy. Later in the weekend, when our whole party of six had finally convened, we cozied up around the coffee table in our condo with oatmeal and coffee in the morning, cocktails and cheese in the evening -- one night until two in the morning.

I love that absolutely no topic is off limits, that these women have known me since I was a college freshman, that our long, tangential conversations cover everything from parenting to fashion, from careers to church, from food to dreams. Thirteen years in, we still haven't run out of things to say when we hunker down around a table. Last weekend, we toasted to that, to our smart friend the doctor who just passed her oral boards, and to not being able to keep track of the years together.

And then, bonus: walking in the door on Sunday night from a weekend around the table with my best girls, I got to glory in one more round of around-the-table talk with my family and one other. Jason had made gourmet mac and cheese (recipe from Clarkston Union), among other things, and the girls had set the table and gotten out the Table Topics. The five kids at the table took turns reading the questions, and we laughed at some answers and were sobered a little by the sweet honesty of a five-year-old, but never ran out of things to say. We got to hear each other's stories, which is what time around the table is really always about.

The Unmentionable

Two crucial ingredients for time at the table with friends (grown-up ones, at least) are a good cocktail and a great story. Our family loves the Table Topics family cube so much that I brought along a dinner party cube to Chicago for my girls' weekend. We barely used it, and that's probably because we're all so desperate to share our most inappropriate stories with one another that basic questions don't quite do the trick. But if you're around the table with someone besides your college roommates, I recommend the cube for fun conversation. And if you're looking for a good cocktail to start off your night, I recommend The Unmentionable, which I had for the first time last winter at Mani Osteria in Ann Arbor. I went back last summer, promptly ordered it again, and planted myself at the bar to watch exactly how it was made. Then I went to Art of the Table here in town to track down the ingredients so I could make as many as I wanted at home. I made a round last weekend in Chicago and nobody was disappointed.

• 2 oz. Bulleit rye
• 1 oz. Antica Formula (vermouth)
• 1 oz. fresh lemon juice
• 4-5 dashes walnut bitters
• 1 t. apricot marmalade
• sprig of fresh thyme and slice of lemon rind, to garnish

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Pour rye, vermouth, bitters, lemon juice, and marmalade into shaker. Cover and shake for 30 seconds, until very cold and marmalade is mixed in. Pour entire mixture (ice cubes and all) into a glass, and garnish with thyme and lemon.

On Imperfection and Messy Houses

Today I'm going to show you a picture of my laundry room. 

I know. And you know what's even worse? It looked like that last Sunday, when we had people over. (!)

Now, maybe your laundry room looks like this. Maybe you look at this pile of soccer jerseys and beach towels and stray gift bags and one lone sleeping bag still waiting to be put away and you don't blink an eye. If so, clearly you weren't raised by the Joyless Dutch, which is my mostly affectionate term for the particular brand of hard-working, God-fearing, tithing, teetotaling farm stock from which I descend.

Now, my mom, if she's reading this, has one million good qualities, some of which I've always appreciated and some of which I continue to recognize, one day at a time, as I move further through this parenting journey. I recently gave thanks, for example, that she and my dad never pressured my brother and me to do anything but our best. Lose a game? "Did you do your best? That's all you can do." Do poorly on a math test? "Well, you did your best, and that's what counts." They tempered this kind of calm reaction to mistakes or failure with an unwavering expectation that we would, indeed, put in the time and practice to achieve our best -- but it was always the effort, not the outcome, that was important. They also took us on interesting road trips, filled the house with books and games, welcomed our friends, drove us to a million activities, made time for our family, worked hard to provide all of our needs and many of our wants, and have done a top-notch job of supporting us as we've grown more independent and of respecting us as adults.

But my mom, if she's reading this, is quietly appalled about my laundry room. That's because, in my whole extended family, which is 100 percent Dutch, rule number one is Take Care of Your Stuff. I can't remember a single time I've set foot in the home of anyone in my extended family when their laundry room looked like this. Go to my uncle's house, and the garage floor is so clean you could eat off it. Go to my mom's and she's probably vacuuming when you walk in the door while my dad waxes the car in the driveway. My entire life, it's been drilled into me that you work first, play later. (And if the "play later" never comes? Well, that's life.)

That work ethic? That commitment to excellence, punctuality, responsible behavior, organization, and follow-through? Makes them awesome citizens, great neighbors, consistent parents, dedicated employees, and the kinds of loyal friends who show up. But it might also, just possibly, create tiny issues around perfection that can prevent people from living big, juicy, creative lives. It might create the kind of narrative in your head that says you can have people over for dinner only when the house is spotless. It might subtly imply that the state of your things says a lot about the state of your life. It might make you focus so much on cleaning the laundry room and washing the car that you forget to invite people into your life to spend time with you just as you are. 

I struggled for this for a long, long time. We'll have people come stay when we get a new couch, I'd think, back when we lived in a tiny apartment in Ann Arbor full of hand-me-down furniture. We'll invite the new neighbors over after the holidays, when life isn't so crazy, I'd say. And there's always been, If we host that here, I'll have to spend the whole day before cleaning. And sometimes life really is too crazy and messy to add one more expectation to your to-do list. But it's just this sort of thinking that causes us to give up opportunities for joy and connection, that prevents us from being vulnerable enough to invite people into our lives -- and homes -- just as we are.

Brene Brown's research and writing have helped me to think differently about this, as has St. Anne (my term for Anne Lamott, who is still very much with us and still very much not-Catholic, but still as deserving as anyone, in my book, of sainthood), as has blogger Swistle, who writes with her unique brand of wry, self-deprecating insight about pretty much everything, including how she finally gathered the courage to host some new friends in her messy house. In her list of reasons why she went for it, she says this:

“Another reason is that I heard one woman saying she wasn’t going to host because her house was too messy. I thought about the houses where we’d met so far, and all were very, very clean, and uncluttered, and nicely decorated. It makes sense that “nicely-taken-care-of house” and “likes to host” would often go together; and I can identify with the feeling that my house isn’t nice enough to host. But…when the only people who host are the people with clean and nicely-decorated houses, that not only keeps a certain cycle going, it makes the cycle much worse over time. Meanwhile, when I go to a house that ISN’T clean and nicely-decorated, I feel RELIEF and INCREASED AFFECTION: I think, “Whew, I don’t have to worry about my house with her!” My mom, who keeps a clean and nicely-decorated house, confirms that she feels that same relief at the sight of someone else’s messy home.”

Yes! Relief! And then there's this, too: "I’d noticed that after I’d been to someone’s house, I felt like I knew that person more than I did after seeing her at other people’s houses."

And that's the crux of it. You don't technically have to invite people into your home in order to foster connection. You can meet at the park with your kids, join a running group, promise to meet at a yoga class, have drinks at a bar or conversations on the sidelines. But there is something a little magical about letting people into your space (in all its imperfection!) that deepens the relationship like nothing else quite can. I think it's why little kids so desperately want to have their little friends over to "see my room," and why there's something so special about family and friends gathered around a fire in the living room or sharing a meal at the table. 

I did (sort of) clean up the laundry room on Monday. (My mom breathes a sigh of relief.) But it'll surely get that way again, much as I attempt to keep up with vacuuming the cat hair and folding the towels. The good news is, when people come over on Sunday, I can just close the door to the laundry room. The good news is, we're not letting our imperfect house stop us from spending time with the people we love.

Key Ingredient: Radical Empathy

I have this friend -- let's call her Martha, as in Martha Stewart -- who I've known forever. And when I go to her house, it always looks like it's ready to be shot for a fancy design magazine: immaculate kitchen counters, lovely candle burning, bookshelves styled just so, and an honest-to-goodness glass dome with homemade cookies inside just sitting on her kitchen island. When she hosts us for dinner, she offers an individually mixed cocktail, followed by an interesting salad, followed by a thoughtfully planned and wonderfully executed meal, somehow healthy and indulgent at the same time, and she does it with grace. She's the kind of person who can whip up a meal from scratch while managing a few kids underfoot and still holding up her end of the conversation, who will send you home with some sort of artfully tied favor that you didn't even know you wanted but you love at first sight. When you leave her house, you feel spoiled, nourished, taken care of. 

I have this other friend -- let's call her Kristen, as in Kristen Wiig -- who I've known for a few years. And when I go to her house, the kitchen is charming and tiny, with 1930s cabinets and a whole wall covered with kids' artwork and happy photos. When she hosts us for dinner (or, more likely, an afternoon of football-watching), there's a mishmash of beer in the fridge and a Bloody Mary bar where you help yourself. She offers a veggie tray she bought at the grocery store and you pile take-out pizza onto paper plates before you settle into comfortable couches in the family room. She's the kind of person who has you in stitches half the afternoon, who will bring you a second beer while showing you her favorite SNL skit on YouTube and offering to loan you a necklace for that work thing you have next week, who will send you home with a foil-wrapped plate of leftover pizza for lunch tomorrow. When you leave her house, you feel lighter, relaxed, taken care of.

I was thinking about both these friends last Sunday as I stood in the kitchen (after church, after the soccer game), pounding chicken breasts thin. See, I was making Martha's chicken for Kirsten's family, who was coming over for Sunday supper. The recipe is one that Martha made for me at her house for one of our annual college girlfriend weekends, and, true to form, she whipped it up while the rest of us were standing around the kitchen, drinking wine and being generally unhelpful. It's the kind of dish that seems fancy but really isn't hard to make, and all of us immediately loved it and wanted the recipe, which Martha subsequently printed out on adorable card stock and mailed to each of us.

In the introduction to the book Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed (Go read it. Immediately. Unless you're easily offended by the f-word.), writer Steve Almond says this about Strayed's wide appeal as Dear Sugar, the advice columnist name she'd been hiding behind for some time:

I happen to believe that America is dying of loneliness, that we, as a people, have bought into the false dream of convenience, and turned away from a deep engagement with our internal lives — those fountains of inconvenient feeling — and toward the frantic enticements of what our friends in the Greed Business call the Free Market.

We're hurtling through time and space and information faster and faster, seeking that network connection. But at the same time we're falling away from our families and our neighbors and ourselves. We ego-surf and update our status and brush up on which celebrities are ruining themselves, and how. But the cure won't stick.

The cure, Almond goes on to say, is Strayed's "radical empathy," the feeling that she gives to those who write in with their difficult situations that, with time or patience or a bit of perspective, things are going to be OK. And, having read the book a few times myself and lent it to several people, I think the way Strayed does it is by opening up her own stories and imperfections to the advice seeker. Instead of maintaining a professional distance from the situation, she shares the messy past of her own life. She says, I went through something like that too, and here's how I got through it. She says, I see you, and you're normal, and you can do this. She writes to these people as though she's talking to them across her kitchen table. She makes them feel taken care of.

So Almond is right, I think, that this kind of connection and radical empathy is the cure to the loneliness that's lurking beneath the fast-paced lives we're living. And it's the reason that, given the choice between spending the evening having a meal with Martha or Kristen, I would happily choose either. It's not about the food, really, or the cleanliness of the kitchen or whether or not the dessert is homemade. It's about spending time with the people who love you best, who welcome you into their homes, and who send you back out into the world again feeling cared for. Nourished. Understood. It's about offering people radical empathy along with whatever you're having for dinner, whether it's take-out pizza or hand-pounded chicken.

To serve eight, I doubled the recipe, swapped Parmesan for Asiago, and served the chicken over a big platter of fettuccine, with the sage sauce on the side.

Chicken with Asiago, Prosciutto, and Sage

• 4 small skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, pounded to 1/4-inch thickness
• all-purpose flour
• 6 T butter, divided
• 1/2 c. finely grated Asiago cheese
• 8 thin slices prosciutto, folded over crosswise
• 2/3 c. dry white wine
• 2 t. minced fresh sage
• 4 whole sage leaves for garnish (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Sprinkle chicken breasts with salt and pepper. Coat both sides with flour, shaking off excess. Melt 4 T. butter in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken breasts and sauté until brown, turning once, about 5 minutes. Transfer chicken to rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper; reserve skillet. Sprinkle 2 T. cheese over each chicken breast. Top each with 2 prosciutto slices. Bake until chicken is cooked through, about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, add wine, minced sage, and 2 T. butter to skillet. Stir, scraping up browned bits, and boil until sauce is reduced to 1/3 cup, about 4 minutes.

Transfer chicken to platter. Top each with sage leave, drizzle pan sauce over, and serve.