“Memories are made when gathered around the table” – Unknown
“Families that eat together, stay together” – Unknown
With the children settled in the UK, we have fallen into a routine of summer holidays. There is a great joy, between my husband and me, in just the planning. Every summer we return to plan for the next holiday. At the same time, given the nature of our work, there is always this nervousness about last-minute cancellations or rescheduling.
Last summer was a little different. Just two weeks prior to travel, I needed to be hospitalized due to some excruciating pain. What added to our worries is that while the pain persisted, I was discharged with an uncertain diagnosis. Should one take the long 14 hours flight and go so many miles away from home, was the question. The smart thing to do given our lifestyle is selecting the right family physician. This is something we did over a decade back. Our family GP’s favorite statement is “surely you will go on holiday. We shall duly equip you with a jhola (bag) of medicines. That’s why I am here”!
The children had been planning a road-trip but immediately adjusted to the new situation and changed plans. We promised ourselves a lot of family time, with a one-off visit to London. I have always been pampered by a husband who enjoys dishing up meals – from the fancy to the regular daily chore. I knew for sure that this had rubbed off on my daughter but must take the credit for initiating her, first, into baking. Luckily the son-in-law shares this passion, but more about that later.
The absolute surprise in this tour was my son. He used to send me an occasional slow-cooked lamb curry or some fried fish photographs of dinner that he had cooked but that he had imbibed the ‘spirit of homecooked’ was the discovery for me. After a day tour to Buxton (a spa town close to Manchester with its highpoint being the Poole’s Cavern, an extensive limestone cave with stalagmites and stalactites), I returned exhausted and fell into a deep slumber. Waking up about ten in the evening, I figured that the father and son were waiting to go out for dinner. We were in Manchester and staying at an Airbnb.
On a weekday, you may very well catch a glass of whiskey or wine at a pub or restaurant, at that hour, but not food. After checking out a couple of nearby places, I suggested that we grab some pre-cooked at the convenience store and return to our home-stay. My son said, “what rubbish! Let me make you a Spaghetti Carbonara”. We picked up the provisions and returned. He insisted that we relax with a drink, while he chatted with us and effortlessly turned out the dinner.
We had gone to Manchester for his graduation ceremony and a couple of days after this dinner, moved towards my daughter’s. She had prepared for our visit with attention to every detail in our room. An uber-comfortable bed overlooking her planned and affectionately nurtured garden. I was still coping with the pain and announced that wild horses would not drag me out from her home.
Thereafter began our very own week of Masterchef evenings. Food is not just about eating, it is a ritual. In my previous tours to countries as far removed as Japan or Armenia, this ritual began around the table and, fairly, early in the evening. Either, we, colleagues (Japan), or my distributor and his entire family (Armenia) would sit down at the table. Food and wine, well paired, would be continuously served as we discussed the politics of the country, matters of business, heard the children’s poetry, shared jokes, and laughed – a lot!
Such were our summer evenings. The delight, additionally, is the long summer evenings in the UK. We looked at options such as making our meals at the table. So, a hotpot or a barbeque was about sitting out on the lawns and chatting while the batches of meats and greens either boiled slowly or were roasted to perfection.
An Abbott Pharmaceuticals survey showed that the one thing that makes Indians feel most fulfilled in the family. And, the one loved icon of family unity, the shared meal, is the source of numerous benefits. In my early childhood, it was at the table that we sisters sought permission for out-of-station school tours, my elder sister checked out how well I was prepared for my exams (typically ended in my Mother pushing me to after-dinner study-time) discussed books we were reading and caught up on the latest from my father’s official tours.
A homecooked meal, they say, is a labor of love. Particularly, when you are making pasta from the scratch. Here I digress a little to touch upon the very important role a spouse plays in supporting gender diversity. My daughter, fortunately, is lucky like me. In fact, theirs is a good partnership in the shared hobby of cooking together. As parents, we watched affectionately the day the young couple decided to give us an all-Italian meal. Beetroot pasta, pulled pork and pepperoni pizzas meant frenetic action and heavenly aroma. Dough flying in the air, the red pasta strips rolling out of the pasta-maker, three-cheeses being grated or sliced, pulling apart the pork shoulder, and no rationing of the pepperoni!
That night we sat out on the lawns and watched the lunar eclipse. As the earth’s shadow partially engulfed the moon, a quietness set in. The quietness of confidence, shared love, togetherness, family time; those moments when silence is its own conversation!
