The ‘Welcome Table’
Eating and drinking at the heart of a life well lived
I vividly remember the great writer James Baldwin’s description of his ‘welcome table’ where guests would be taken, immediately on arrival at his home in Saint-Paul de Vence, a small, medieval town in Provence. It felt like something rather wonderful – the idea and the reality. Tables, of course, are always places people come together, usually to enjoy good food and wine, so there is nothing revolutionary in this. And many, many writers, artists and cooks have referred lovingly to the concept over the years, including, of course, the peerless Nigella Lawson, who even called her 2017 book ‘At my Table’. But the Baldwin concept of it as a conscious ‘this will be a place at the heart of my home – a centre of gravity to engage and draw people near’ felt specific and beguiling. And in his case (unsurprisingly!) it meant people such as Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier and Angela Davis visiting to enjoy his “unending hospitality”. I could picture it, long before I saw a photograph of the remarkable dinner parties. As Jules Farber describes in his book about Baldwin’s final years, guests were invited to ‘break bread’ and exchange ideas around Baldwin’s so-called ‘Welcome Table,’ with little heed paid to guests’ wealth and status.
When we moved to Piedmont in 2017, I casually said, I’d love us to have a welcome table, without making clear what I meant. I just knew I loved the general idea – that the right table would present itself at some point. Then, in one of those wonderful moments of serendipity, when visiting a good friend and neighbour of ours, Thor Hansen, we noticed an old wooden table on the top of a pile of rubbish from his rebuilding project. It was nothing special, with some horrible tiles cemented to the top – it had clearly been a practical work surface in its life. But, when I saw it, and its faded blue paint, I thought – that is a ‘welcome table’ in waiting. We asked, and he very kindly gave it to us. Steve lovingly cleaned it up, carefully, preserving and allowing its distinctive sky blue to shine through. Then we placed it under the canopy at the back of our house, and realised it was not just a perfect fit, but also, the right table in all kinds of ways – not least as a pre-used (if not necessarily preloved!), basic piece of furniture. Since then, it has been the place we have spent so many wonderful times, eating meals, enjoying the incredible local wines, and talking long into the early hours. It’s a vital fixture, and when a friend told me a few years after we started using it, it had ‘serious Call Me By Your Name’ vibes, after the incredible film (which was shot just a couple of hours drive away in Crema, east of Milan) I thought – yep, this was ‘bashert’ (a Jewish word for ‘meant to be’). And so, it is.
Skip forward three years, to when we were planning the interiors of Villa Menaluna, we thought again about the right kind of table for everyone who visited to gather around together. Somewhere that could be a centre. So, we looked for and finally found another pre-used table, which was large and sturdy enough to seat eight. The legs were elegant, but the surface wasn’t quite fit for purpose. So, we introduced a little bit of the contemporary, in the form of an patinated zinc top. This not only looked and felt right in the spacious breakfast room, with its views over the local hills and vineyards, but also fitted with overall approach in the house of having individual pieces wherever we could. So now, we like to think we have two welcome tables, with the one at Villa Menaluna ready to host its first guests in Spring 2023 and begin creating a whole new collection of happy memories, mangiare e bere e parlare, long into the warm summer evenings.
Check out Thor’s rental home at www.vignarocchetta.com