Eric and I went to Memphis a couple weeks ago to visit his folks. It’s one of my favorite places-their house-nestled in Germantown, Tennessee where moss climbs the old oak trees and the front stoops are flanked by azaleas. Every house looks like it has been plucked from a Thomas Kinkade painting; windows are aglow and the landscape is impossibly lush. Evening rolls around and Mama P asks us when we would like breakfast the following morning. We awaken as if in a Folgers commercial , with the smell of coffee tickling our noses and luring us downstairs. We sit around the breakfast table eating deliciously fluffy egg casseroles and fresh fruit and special bialy bagels and cream cheese. Hours pass before we clear the dishes and move on with our day. Life happens around that table.
My Grandma, Thelma Mae was born and raised in the Yampa Valley of Steamboat Springs, CO. Even after moving to Denver years later, she always kept the country in her home cooking. Her buttery homemade rolls could have won an award and served as a fine accompaniment to her golden fried chicken and velvety mashed potatoes. Her skillet-fried cheeseburgers melted in your mouth and featured the same Velveeta cheese that she used to top our scrambled eggs on the mornings of our cozy sleepovers. She sliced our toast diagonally to make perfect triangles topped with strawberry preserves. She took great delight in feeding me and my brother, and we always left her house filled to the brim, both of scrumptious food and of her abundant love and care.
My Oma, Erna Martha was born in Rotenburg, Germany and brought her European palate to the United States in the late 40s. She married an Italian, so you can only imagine the feasts. Under the stubborn thumb of my great-grandmother, Vincenza Lafata, my German Oma learned a thing or two about Italian cooking. But she still snuck in her potato soups and plum kuchens and her rolladen with rotkraut and mashed potatoes. We had liverwurst sandwiches on German bread and salami and onion sandwiches on Italian bread. Our meals were eaten the way most Italian meals are eaten, in the tiled basement under a long fluorescent light with dozens of relatives packed around a table sitting upon creaking folding chairs and laughing boisterously in between bites.
My favorite moments in life have taken place around the table. I feel as though it is one of the most intimate ways a family can connect--unplugged from the world and plugged into each other. I have had a long time to contemplate why I want a child of my own. Of course the list is endless, but near the top resides my strong desire to feed and nourish and pass on traditions. In fact, I lose sleep (seriously!) trying to decide if I want to carry on my Mom’s tradition of making homemade cinnamon rolls on Thanksgiving morning while we watch the parade or if I want to start our own tradition of, perhaps, monkey bread.
Underneath the stairs at my Oma’s house in St. Clair Shores, Michigan sits an old, slightly rusted highchair. Probably a decade ago I “claimed” it with a sticky note: “Please save for Monica Lafata.” I was not yet even married when I envisioned raising sticky, chubby babies in that cold, metal highchair. I thought of the generations who have been raised in that chair, maybe even my own dad. Certainly my cousins. I picture pulling that old highchair up to the table where aunts and uncles and grandparents are seated and sitting back as old life mingles with new life and stories are shared. We will bow our heads, say a blessing and break bread.
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