Welcome! Let’s talk about TABLES

Welcome to turtle^haus!

I started this blog because I want to share my experience in interior design, house renovations, and how the space we live in affects our lives. I like to think of our lives as stories, and of us humans as storytellers. I think that by improving our relationship with the spaces we inhabit we promote the feeling that we are the authors of our lives and not vice versa. We want to tell the story, we don’t want the story to tell us.

In various phases of my life I have lived in… let’s say less than ideal conditions. I grew up half in New York and half in Florence, Italy, and have been exposed to an aesthetic sensibility shared by the populations of both sides of the Atlantic. I realize that this is a great privilege and I would like to share some insights with all of you.

Let’s start with the story of my kitchen/dining room table:

my kitchen table

Two summers ago, after being away from Florence for several years, I had the opportunity to spend a whole month there, without my family, with a group of students from New York. I was the graduate assistant of my professor (also from Florence) in a class on Art and Museum Librarianship. The professor and I went ahead of the class, a week early, to set up all our visits and lectures and tours and schedule – a lot of work but extremely fun – and once the other students arrived we started a grueling and rewarding regimen of two tours with lecture a day, with a brief break for lunch on the go. Our days started promptly at 9 a.m. and ended usually by 6 p.m.

In the evenings we were free to do as we pleased, and this of course was wonderful for me, as I have family and lifelong friends in Florence. I got to see most of my friends and relatives at least once and many close friends and family several times. It was a very, very happy month!

At the time, summer 2006, I was living in Brooklyn in a rented apartment. I had a small house in a small town outside Florence that I had been trying to sell for a while, and finally it looked as though I had found a buyer. I knew that it would take some time, but I figured that when I returned from Florence I would start looking for a new house, in Brooklyn, slowly (the search for a new home will be the subject of many posts, but we won’t get into that just now). In any case, let’s say that I was at least subconsciously paying attention to things related to houses, living, living spaces, furnishings, etc.

One evening I was invited to dinner at the house of a very dear friend, one of my oldest, and his family. His name is Stefano and we have known each other nearly all our lives. He had been married for many years with his first wife and they had three lovely children, a son, Agostino, and a set of fraternal twins, Bernardo and Camilla. Now, after his separation, he had a new companion, the lovely Germana, and together they had had a delightful little boy, Damiano. Shortly after my arrival at their apartment, after the introductions, Stefano pointed out to me, “the kids’ names are in alphabetical order, A, B, C, D, had you noticed?” I hadn’t, but it’s the kind of thing that tickles me. He’s a physicist (I think he’ll win a Nobel prize one day, he says I’m crazy, but that’s another story).

Stefano had spent the last hour or so before my arrival preparing one of the best risottos I have ever tasted. It contained onions, garlic, artichokes, sausage, other things I can’t remember, and was cooked with the most delicious homemade stock ever seen east of the river Arno. They had also bought a couple of enormous buffalo mozzarella balls and there was a huge bowl of cherries. I had brought ice cream, so we had enough for a great meal.

Finally, the risotto was ready. While Germana prepared Damiano for the night, putting him in his pj’s, Stefano proceeded to “set” the table. I put the word in quotes because his method was slightly unorthodox and different from the way I had been taught by my mother. He put all the plates in a pile in the middle of the table, with the glasses and cutlery and a pitcher of water. Then he put a trivet next to the plates, on which he put the steaming pan with the risotto, a bowl with the mozzarella in its own water, condiments and bread. All this he put in the middle of a square table, about four feet long on each side. Then everyone sat down together, and he just grabbed plate after plate from the pile, filled it with food and passed it around until everyone had a plate.

The three big kids had each invited a friend over, so there were a lot of people around this table. Three adults, six teenagers of various ages, and a toddler. Not only did we all fit around this table, but everyone could help him or herself from the middle of the table without putting their arm in someone else’s face. I found this arrangement so delightful that I consciously took a moment to analyze why it was so pleasing.

This is what I came up with:

• The fact that the table was square allowed for this reaching without putting our arms in each other’s faces;
• The size of the table (about 4′ x 4′) while not gigantic, could accommodate three people per side, if necessary, and I thought that it would take up less room than a rectangular or oval table for twelve;
• This setting everything in the middle gave a great feeling of community, highlighting the communal aspect of coming together like this for a meal.

Right there and then I thought to myself: I don’t know where I will be living, I don’t know what kind of house it will be, how big it will be, what the kitchen will look like, but I know one thing. If and when I get my house, I will have a square table and I will serve my meals like this.

I will skip over, for now, the process of acquiring my house, which is in itself a kind of magical fairtytale which I will definitely share with all of you, but I will say that it came to pass that I did in fact acquire a home in Brooklyn, and it is the home of my dreams. I have the kitchen of my dreams and in it is the table of my dreams.

Here is a shot in afterschool snack mode:

afterschool snacks

This table was a gift from my sister Ippolita. We bought it at ABC Carpet in New York. The painting you see in the background is by a wonderful artist friend of mine. Her name is Kloe and you can check out her blog here.

Since finishing the renovation on my house I have had only a few dinner parties, and I have usually set the table the way I was taught (old habits are hard to break!), with a setting for each person at their place and the food and condiments in the middle. But once in a while I remember that night with my friends in Florence, and I promise myself that the next time I have friends over, it’s going to be set like that, everything in the middle, and people can serve themselves or help themselves randomly!

If you have a table you’re proud of or would like to comment, please do so!

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Tagged as: Brooklyn, Florence, Tables