The Beginning of "The Table"

From the earliest ages of childhood I’ve loved to cook. My mom, although a great cook, hated (& still hates) the kitchen. But that didn’t stop her from teaching me how to cook. Most of the meals I cooked were southern household staples—fried chicken, mashed potatoes & white gravy, a side of canned green beans seasoned with bacon drippings & a homemade biscuit. And one should always leave room for at least half a biscuit with some Steen’s syrup to finish off the meal. Another favorite in our house was a pan fried pork chop, with a side of mustard greens, lima beans, and a pan of thin, crunchy cornbread straight from the cast iron skillet. If you know about the cast iron skillet, then you can appreciate this all the more. Saturday mornings were known for the hearty meal of biscuits and gravy with a hefty side of bacon, and occasionally a fried egg cooked in that good ol’ bacon grease. I can still see my mama with her metal spatula flicking that hot grease onto those eggs and it cooking the top perfectly. My dad was a meat, potatoes and bread kinda guy, so we didn’t venture out too far from that. He had a (sort of joking) rule that he’d eat spaghetti once a year and we might have a casserole here and there. So we typically stayed within those bounds and ate pretty good. 

As I got a little older, I joined our local 4H club and Girl Scouts, and took the cooking classes they offered. I entered their contests and began to win ribbons for the dishes I entered, so my confidence in cooking continued to increase, as did my desire to learn new recipes and foods. Now my family was on a tight budget and still very narrow minded when it came to our food, but little by little we began to turn the tide. My dad got interested in cooking at some point, and decided that onions and bell peppers weren't all that bad to cook with. And that led him to working on a gumbo recipe that he perfected and everyone fell in love with…which led my parents to start having people over for Sunday dinner, and even Sunday nights after church for grilled cheeses. Watching my parents host and serve people around their table and seeing the community of family that was built outside the four walls of the church inspired me to do the same when I got married and we bought a home of our own. 

My husband, Joey, worked offshore 7 & 7. For those unfamiliar with this lifestyle, that meant he was gone for 7 days at a time in the Gulf of Mexico and home for 7 days. On the Monday night he was home, we’d drag an extra table into our small dining room and feed our friend group of about 10-12 people. They all looked forward to these nights of our southern cooking. Most nights were the same meal I’d cooked growing up, except we traded fried chicken for fried deer steak and added a couple boxes of Kraft Mac & cheese. And just like my parents, we built a family in these friends and realized community is best built around a table and good food. This concept has held throughout our entire marriage. It’s been over 27 years now and I could never count the

amount of people who have sat at our table or the amount of food we’ve prepped. And it never gets old! 

As jobs and circumstances have changed through the years, so have our experiences with food and friends. What started at two small round tables in a tiny house, moved to a trailer house with one small round table but enough couches and floor space to still host. Then on to our dream house we designed and built ourselves because our hearts were to have as many people as possible around the table, the bar and the open living space. We loved this space and thought it was our forever home, so my husband designed and built an outdoor kitchen space to even further our love for feeding and loving people. And it’s seen its share of food and family! From springtime crawfish boils, to summertime church youth events, to our most favorite time of year…Fall. Obviously, we love the cooler temperatures, but there's nothing like having a fire going in the firepit, and a boston butt smoking on the Kamado Joe. The smells of firewood burning and a waft of fresh smoke from the boston butt as it’s slowly cooking while the breeze blows through the trees…ah, there's nothing like it. But add some twice baked potatoes, baked beans, garlic bread and banana pudding and you’re really talking. Then the crew shows up in their purple and gold ready to watch some LSU Tigah football. And that’s the best Saturday a girl could ask for! 

But what really happened here was so much more than food and friends and football. We were couples from different backgrounds and different denominations, but the food and football began building a community that became our family. Our conversations began to turn from football and turn to Jesus and what He’s doing in our lives and in our churches. And we realized that we needed more time than just a Saturday afternoon to talk about Jesus. So we decided to get together on Monday nights to study the Word. I had no plans to cook a meal each week, but realized after offering snacks the first week that it was such a help to those who had worked all day. They could come and get fed, physically and spiritually. Our Monday nights were precious times of prayer, worship, and hearing from others what God was showing them in His Word. We literally dissected the Bible, verse by verse. It was such a faith builder as we were able to speak over one another and bring encouragement. It truly felt like the church of Acts. And it all started around a table just eating a meal together and watching football. 

A few years into that journey, the Lord moved our family to south Louisiana through my husband’s job. It was no doubt a God appointment, which I’ll share in detail one day because it’s a really cool story! But it meant saying goodbye to everything we’d ever known–family, friends, church, our home, our community we’d built. These decisions are easy to make when you know the Lord is leading, but it doesn’t make them any less difficult to walk out. We packed up our belongings and moved to south Louisiana, with me only knowing one family of friends and one other person. Although my nature is shy and reserved, I made friends somewhat easily at the church we decided to attend. And then we did what we do best–we began having a few people over and cooking a meal for them. To our surprise, central Louisiana food and southern (read “Cajun”) Louisiana food are not even close. I obviously knew there were differences, but it’s basically like a foreign country. However, people really love our food. And we’ve been able to make lots of sweet friendships around our (much) smaller table. 

This has been and always will be my heart – loving people through food and hospitality.

All my love,

Angie