At Table: A Photo Essay

Not much time for extra writing around here—the deadline looms—but this is a growing photo collection I’ve been wanting to share. Hope everyone is having a good week.



This is the photo that started it all: my brother’s hands after a rare meal together, just the two of us, at Wild Ginger. Of all the photos I’ve ever taken this may be my favorite. Part of this is because I adore my brother, far more than he will ever know (he drives me crazy too, far more than he will ever know). I also love this picture because it tells a story.

For years my brother worked in restaurants as a waiter. When you eat out with him he always stacks his dishes and moves them to the side, to make them easy for the busser to grab. He also tips well (waiter karma). When dining with our notoriously frugal mother, he’s been known to return to the table after she's paid the bill in order to leave a few extra bucks for the server. He never forgets the days when those few dollars made a difference for him.

I fell so in love with this picture that I started taking more like it. I’ve been doing a 365 project on Flickr, where you take a photo a day for a year (though I am ages behind in actually posting them). I noticed how these pictures began to accrue. There is something about the act of sitting down together to a meal that I wanted to capture. I love the ritual, the pleasure—I even love the phrase at table, which sounds grandly archaic. I don't know about you, but that's where I want to be most of the time. It doesn't even matter what is on the table—some time it's as simple as tea. For me it's all about the act of sitting down together.



This is my friend Austin at Boom Noodle in Seattle (all of a sudden those Boden cups seem to be everywhere). Austin and I share a name—her first, my middle—and every Austin I know (or Austen, as is my case) is just very cool. We all seem to have last names that start with W as well. My other Austin friend is the musician Austin Willacy, who is perhaps the epitome of cool. If you ever have a chance to see him play, you'll know what I mean.

Boom Noodle is cool too—a modern and angular interior with huge windows that is lovely to drive by at night when it is all lit up from within and looking like a jewel box. Also, their pickle plate is addictive—they had these small pickled tomatoes earlier this year that I dreamed about for days after. Next time I’m ordering a pickle plate just for myself, no sharing. I'm afraid that anyone else will just need to get their own. There were only three tomatoes and I want them all for myself.



You’ve seen this shot before—beers with my faux brother Paul at the Starry Plough in San Francisco (or is it the Plough and Stars? Things get fuzzy after a couple of beers with Paul). His hands are always in motion, always talking, gesturing.

Paul has a scar that runs across his hand from a snowboarding accident. Every time I see it I remember him visiting me in the mountains of Japan and how we went snowboarding for the first time ever, a hilarious day of flopping into snowbanks that ended in an outdoor hot spring alongside a rushing river of pure mountain snowmelt. It was a day to remember—and not just because we were having so much fun that we forgot to eat all day and then the hot water—and the beers we drank while in the hot water—made me faint (such a nicer word than pass out, don't you think?) and Paul had to feed me noodles at midnight to bring me back to life.



This is Jen Maiser, at our favorite Korean restaurant in San Francisco. It’s actually her restaurant, but she’s shared it with me and now every time I come to town I make her go there with me. We always order the same thing—beef bibimbop, no egg, with a stone bowl this is extra hot (be careful to specify you want the bowl extra hot, and not the contents, or you might end up with an extra spicy bibimbop as we did once). The key here is to use your spoon to press the rice against the bowl as soon as you get it, when the bowl is fresh out of the oven. This way the rice will get extra crispy. I love this dish—I’ve had it elsewhere and it wasn’t as nice. I also love the ritual of going here with Jen. I walk across Golden Gate Park from my house and meet my friend to talk and catch up. I’ve never been here with anyone else. While I really do love the food, I sort of want to keep it that way.



I had a rough time this past winter, my first in Seattle. It was bleak, isolating, grey, wet, soggy, depressing. I wasn’t prepared for it. I’m used to my life in San Francisco that is filled with friends, community, activities, sunshine (ahem). One day in March my friend Knox—the one Seattle friend that I’ve made all by myself, a fact I’m rather proud of—asked me to meet him at Remedy Teas and it felt like a lifeline. That day had so much that makes me happy—good tea, warmth, chat with a friend, a walk through a leafy neighborhood that was just beginning to unfurl into bloom. It was exactly the remedy for what had been ailing me.



It snowed one day, nearly into April—something that any Seattleite will tell you never happens. It was a Friday and, instead of working, Shauna and I took a snow day. We went to Volunteer Park Café, one of my very favorite places in Seattle, where we ordered hot chocolate, as any snow day deserves. Then we sat at one of the cosy tables and watched the snow come down and blanket the leafy neighborhood and talked about food and writing and life and love in one of those conversations that you can only have with a good friend. The snow soon melted, but the warmth of that day will stay with me forever.



I love my mother’s hands—how they look; how they feel; how even though I am a grown woman she is still able to run her hand over my head and no matter how turbulent, sad, or scary the world is in that moment her fingers on my hair make me feel better. She recently told me that's what she did to soothe me when I was a baby. It still works.

Mushrooms make things better as well, we both love them. I had been waiting for morels to come back in season since last year, when I read Molly’s dreamy ode to them and became fixated on making her dish. Happily my mother was in town when they showed up at the market again (and at $18/lb, rather than $49/lb the way they are in San Francisco). Sauteed in butter and cream and piled on toast, they really do make things feel better. Especially with wine, and your mom, on a day that feels like spring might just be right around the corner.



The morels put me on a mushroom kick. Next up was mushroom ragout with fresh pasta, which I made and brought over to Molly and Brandon’s as a thank you for loaning me their pasta maker back in my ravioli phase. The ragout was a version of this recipe and when we started eating we all got a little silent—sign of a good meal. This photo makes me laugh because it looks so very Orangette-esque. Only food bloggers sit down to eat with their camera on the table.



Here’s a better shot of the dish itself—it was swoony.



I met my friend Rosie for drinks at the Orbit Room in San Francisco, one of those bars that are a constant thread, the place you end up from time to time over the years and it never seems to change (and they still only accept cash). We used to come here for drinks after book events back when I worked in travel book publishing. I used to meet my friend Darrin here after work, back when we were both newly home from Asia and just starting out our careers, trying to grab hold of the lowest run of that ladder. I may have had my first mojito here, back when they were the hot new cocktail. There’s no food or drink in this pic, but Rosie looks so lovely and cosy I couldn’t resist.



Here’s the drinks shot. These tables always make me think of the Flintstone's, they are distinctly cavemen-like.



Mrs. B and her family came to visit Seattle earlier this year and I got to play tour guide. One of the required stops is brunch at Volunteer Park Café (are you sensing a theme? I truly want to move into this place). On the weekends they make waffles (and a baked French toast that is even better than the waffle). This is Mrs. B’s daughter Alex, who I think has the most beautiful hands. Doesn’t this image make you long for a lazy Sunday morning? It does for me.



My first and last meal on any trip to San Francisco is usually Burma Superstar, the restaurant I miss the most when I am in Seattle (I know, with all the good food to eat in that town, but that's the one I miss). It's the first restaurant whose number made it into my cell phone, still only one of four.

That last night I was joined by Cheyenne, a dear friend that I never get enough of. She’s a busy girl with a high-powered job. She had just come back from a business trip to New York, where she had been wined and dined at a series of restaurants belonging to name brand chefs. At the end of the night she told me our meal at Burma Superstar was better than anything she’d eaten in New York. I loved that.

We devoured our dinner: samusa soup, fermented tea leaf salad, and nan gyi dok (mild curry with chicken over rice noodles). It's my standard order.



I’m sure my little photo collection will continue and grow. Sitting down at table with people I care about is one of my dearest pleasures in life. Each of these images carries such memories, such meaning. Eating is a necessity, but to gather at table, to dine together, is more than necessity. For me it is a joy.

I'm also fascinated with the aftermath of meals. I recently started a Flickr group called The Detritus of Dinner, to capture such images. I've been too busy to tell anyone about it yet, but feel free to submit your shots if you're a Flickrite.



I’m off to the salt mines, friends, much work to do. May you enjoy your time at table this week. I hope to be back soon.

No hands in this final shot, but it's the end of a luminous evening of friends and good food at my new favorite restaurant-to-be, Contigo. This picture is a promise to myself. I bought a bottle of champagne yesterday. It will be chilling until I hit the send button on this manuscript. It's the home stretch—at least I'm hoping. It had better be. There are bubbles waiting.



UPDATE: since people seem to like this concept, I've set up an At Table group on Flicker as well (any new excuse to use that phrase makes me happy). I've dumped a bunch of these shots in there, but feel free to add your own. I'd love to see them!