Crowded Tables and Blood Tomatoes

Like most women of her generation, Lorelle Seal Hebert ran a high-traffic high-volume kitchen with a table that was never quite empty. As the mother of eight and grandmother of twenty-five, she could feed the Mongol hordes at a moment's notice and still have plenty left over for dinner time. Her refrigerator contained rows of magical makeshift Tupperware capable of bringing forth impossible amounts of food, enough to " just throw together" a midday meal for whoever stopped by within an hour of mealtime. When a caller heard her battle cry -- "You going to eat with us?" -- they knew the decision had already been made.

I

Summer lunches were an edible three ring circus, with kids jumping around the chairs, adults passing and serving platters of heated pork roast and potato salad, and Mamá acting as the kitchen ringmaster. With a quick command (bordering on sweet but unmistakably direct) she could instruct a grown daughter to make an iceberg salad or send hyperactive grandkids to fetch another jar of her homemade mayonnaise. Under her direction, the family became both a smoothly-choreographed kitchen crew and well-fed guests of honor. You had to work if you wanted to eat…

While the assembled throng munched their way through endless plates of cool cucumber salads and anything over Louisiana rice, Lorelle kept moving in the background, filling the table with "just one more thing.: Still working with her back turned the table, she would tell whole stories through my mostly-deaf grandfather ("Tell 'em about the new tractor, Daddy. Tell 'em…"), stopping only to wrap a moist hug around the smallest grandchild in attendance. Cries of "Come eat with us…" were met with a pitcher of tea to pass or calls for another helping.

Mamá maintained this constant, energetic hover until the last diner pushed back from the table in bloated defeat. The biggest eater at the table usually drew her attention ("Now look at that boy EAT!") and signaled the end of the meal. After a few minutes of post-mealtime coma, she'd whip the crew into reverse action -- washing plates, re-stocking the fridge, and clearing the table for the next meal.

II

"Go on, now. I love you -- but you need to go…" With the kitchen restored to semi-order, Lorelle subtly cleared the room for her favorite meal and post-lunch quiet time. Stopover guests would wobble off to home or work. Far-flung cousins would head out to play (or nap if they'd been bad). And our perpetually moving hostess would sit down to her favorite midday meal.

Unnaturally heavy and deep red, Mamá's prized Creole tomatoes were the best in the world and her trademark summer lunch. Once nicked with the house's only "sharp knife", the huge beefsteak monsters left pools of tart juice over every possible surface -- cutting boards, stoneware serving platters, and the chins of enthusiastic eaters. She would cut the vine-ripened beauties into maybe four slices apiece -- thick slabs of tangy perfection-- and arrange them on her plate.

Lorelle tried to grow tomatoes like these herself -- a few token plants in her flowerbeds -- but invariably stocked up through the generosity of her vegetable-gardening friends. They'd come by as long as their plants were producing -- always carrying a grocery bag full of their overflow. "Well, Lorelle, we just can't eat 'em all…" they'd say, "and everybody know how you like your tomatoes."

She liked them big, ripe, and (most importantly) eaten in the quiet of early afternoon. Even though the grandkids were banished outside or to a restless naptime, we'd sneak back and peek into the kitchen. An hour before, Mama managed to feed fifteen guests within an inch of their lives. And now, with an empty table and a single blood-red plate, she took her solitary summertime reward. One slow, quiet bite at a time, with just a pinch of salt.