A friend was telling me about a dinner he had at The 404 Kitchen and how close the tables were to each other. By the end of the meal, they were laughing with the couples on both sides of them. Good thing we didn’t want to have a private conversation, he joked. That’s called community, and food cultivates it better than anything else.
All over Nashville, dinners, supper clubs, picnics, and parties are popping up where friends and strangers gather to eat. Settings range from farmhouses to fields to barns. Being close to where our food actually comes from is intriguing and somehow makes us all feel more connected to the earth. Our story on The Salted Table Gathering at Bloomsbury Farm is such a dinner. As well as our cover dinner at Whooping Crane Farm.
No doubt dining in a field or farm is romantic and fun, but the setting doesn’t always matter when you’re with friends and the food is good. My small, cozy kitchen is the central gathering spot at my house. I have a bigger dining room table, but it’s not unusual to find seven of us hunkered around the small farmhouse table in the kitchen. My daughter has always had a bent for “decorating.” When she was in middle school we had a pizza party where we all made pizza together and, for her, the setting was more important than the food. For her 20th birthday last year she pieced together her own community table. Her friends gathered, and as teenagers do, much shenanigans ensued late into the night. But all over good food and conversation.
Wherever your table is, fill it with good things and good friends… and maybe a couple strangers.