If Our Kitchen Tables Could Talk...

The other place we use all the time.

On the surface it is just an ordinary table that is somewhere in a kitchen. Some of them are bigger and some not so, yet all of them are found in the coziest and homeliest part of the house.

It may sound silly, but a dining room table isn't the same as most of them are only for those special occasions and are too perfect to lounge around them. To my mind, a perfect kitchen table is eh, in the kitchen and from it the person making food is always seen and a part of everything.

Especially here in Burgenland, the kitchen table is almost holy and everyone has one, regardless of how modern their house is. This table has a magic attraction and even casual visitor and friends automatically gravitate to sit around it.

A kitchen table is used to do homework, write letters, read papers or have conversations. Oh, of course it is also the place to have family meals. Every day. It is the one place in our hectic modern lives that we get a dose of reality. It makes us realize that there is nothing more important in our lives than family, shared moments and having a meal.

Ideally, a kitchen table should be solid, plain with comfortable chairs around it. Nothing high tech as that usually equates to being uncomfortable and doesn't invite lingering longer.

Bob and I have become reacquainted with this lovely institution of life. In the flat we lived in before, the kitchen was a smidgen and even a cat couldn't have been swung around in it.

Granted, we don't use it for meals all the time, but when we do have family or friends over, we use our table to its best ability. Getting up for refills of drinks is a breeze and not one bit of conversation is missed. Even in our short time here, our table has memories attached to it and I can vividly picture who sat where, when and the conversation we have had.

Our modern lifestyle is extremely transient and it might just be that the endless restlessness a lot of us carry around with us is in fact a search for comfort and a feeling of belonging. Of course having lap-supper in front of the TV is nice and easy, but the true gems of life are unearthed around a simple kitchen table.

Biggi

Bob was making jam in this photo and you can see how nice it is to have a table in the kitchen.