Tables is a serialized memoir by Jason Rodriguez. It’s about the tables that Jason has known throughout his life, the people who sat around them, and the food that they ate. It’s a story about transitions. Start at the prologue for more background and a chapter list.
Pernil (roasted pork shoulder) and rellenos de papa (meat-stuffed, deep-fried potato balls)
I’ve seen Grandma’s table when it was empty; it felt wrong every time. Her preferred style of tablecloth - a colorful pattern painted across a vinyl top and synthetic fiber bottom - laying smoothly over the top of the brown wood. A stuffed napkin holder positioned perfectly in the center as the lone centerpiece. The rest of the table devoid of plates, the chairs pushed neatly underneath. The stove turned off, the windows closed. There was no pernil slowly cooking in the oven. No smell of crisping skin and boiling fat. There were no voices. Titi Denise’s booming laugh was absent. Grandpa wasn’t peacocking to a video camera that was sitting off in the corner. No one was interrogating Titi Lissa’s latest boyfriend. And none of my cousins were trying to fit in with the adults, trying to tell a joke or a story about some kid at school that would get half of the reaction that any joke or story told by Uncle Alex would get.
The few times I saw Grandma’s table empty, it wasn’t a table at all.
At Grandma’s house, the universe centered around the table. The table was where the stories were both created and enjoyed. Mom, Dad, titis, tios, and cousins would get together at Grandma’s house every Friday. The kids would write and perform plays in the hallway or try to find our lost G.I. Joes and Barbies in the yard, while the adults would sit around the table and tell the stories that would be repeated to friends and extended family in the weeks to come. The titis would take turns rounding the mashed potatoes over the cooked chopped meat and olives, spiced with sofrito. They’d dredge the uncooked rellenos de papa in flour and stack them in a pile. Grandma would then fry the rellenos and the kids would smell the oil and run to the table knowing that one of our favorite treats were being served this Friday night. We’d eat the rellenos while we watched television, but when the pernil came out it was time to sit at the table. There was never enough room at the table for everyone, so the kids would eat first while the grownups stood around us and continued their conversations. We ate pork and rice while catching our first glimpses of the types of stories our parents told, never realizing that we were listening in on the stories that we’d live out and retell when we got older.
The Rodriguez family tree (not pictured: the next generation of cousins, this gets way too cluttered, as is).
Grandma’s table wasn’t particularly special or fancy, which is partly why it looked out of place when it was empty. Brown, square, metal legs. A tablecloth that would whisper when you ran your hand over it. It was surrounded by indistinct brown chairs and filled in with metal folding chairs to accommodate the extra bodies.
Mom’s first table was brown with metal legs. That table eventually moved to Grandma’s house during my teen years. Tables were passed on; they retained their purpose in our family. Mom’s second table was black with gold trim. That’s the one Bits, my sister, would know as Mom’s table; therefore that’s the one I associate with our family.
Nanny’s table was the nicest piece of furniture she owned. Its top was made of scattered seashells that were smoothed over and joined together by epoxy. It was octagonal in shape, and Nanny surrounded it with yellow chairs that came directly from the heart of the seventies. She had matching yellow bar stools that we’d spin around on as kids. They weren’t made right, and if you spun around too much the stool would pop off the base, and Nanny would curse at you and tell you to go outside.
Grandma Fran’s table was serious. Rectangular, brown, and real wood. I drank tea and ate Stella Dora cookies at that table as a kid. Grandma Fran had bought the table in the 40s after she got married to Grandpa John, and she kept it in pristine condition.
The DellaPorte (and partial Frasier) family tree. Not pictured: the next generation of cousins.
I remember those tables because I spent my childhood sitting around them. Eating, talking, and doing homework at them. Sitting with my sister and dipping hard-boiled eggs into dye. Playing with my Gameboy at Grandma’s table and pretending I didn’t know my family was about to sing Happy Birthday to me. Listening to Nanny tell stories about Poppy while she puffed a Marlboro and drank Budweiser. Telling Grandma Fran about how I got into trouble at school, and how my parents were going to kill me. These tables were formative spaces.
Ro and I ate out a lot. When we did eat at home, we used TV trays and ate in the living room. I don’t remember any of the kitchen tables that we had early on in our relationship. Maybe I would if I saw a picture of one, but even then the picture would mostly show stacks of mail, papers, and other ephemera piled on top of the table. We only ate at the table when we had guests over, and we rarely had guests.
Liz has a table that has once belonged to her aunt. It was an imposing, solid, wooden table in four parts that could barely stay together. It had years on it. It existed in different apartments and belonged to different people. It was at times a dinner table, but at other times a drafting table, and sometimes it was both. It was loved. When she moved in I had a round, wooden table that had been bought specifically for this house and specifically for this kitchen. It was purchased at Pier 1, it had no history. Much like every table before it, it was a place to put things, but hardly ever a place for hosting and eating. I loved it for all of the wrong reasons. I loved it because I bought it. I loved it because it wasn’t from Goodwill. I spent so much time away from a proper table that I forgot what it meant to love a table.
I gave the table to my neighbor, and we set up Liz’s table in its place. We hung a chalkboard over it that has a Li-Young Lee quote: “One day, when I need to tell myself something intelligent about love, I’ll close my eyes and recall this room and everything in it.”
We spend a lot of time at that table. We talk about our day while I turn some dough or while Liz peels onions and laughs about the tears running down her face. We drink wine. We tell jokes. Liz will tell a story from her days as a pious Christian. I’ll tell a completely different story about a time I got too drunk as a teenager. We catch up on decades of life at that table while also talking about our day and about tomorrow. We host friends - sometimes just a couple, sometimes we cook for upwards of thirty people. We pile food onto our plates and sit and hold hands and sometimes I say something stupid and sometimes Liz doesn’t listen and we live and the table is loved.
When that table is empty, it doesn’t feel like a table.