There’s Always Room at Our Table

I think one of the first times I understood what food could do had absolutely nothing to do with a fancy restaurant.

I was at my best friend Chino’s grandmother’s house.

And Grandma made chuleta y arroz amarillo.

Now…

Today, I’m somewhat fluent in Spanish.

Back then?

Baby.

Arroz, I knew. Chuleta?! What the hell is that?! 😂

Turns out—

Pork chop.

Yellow rice.

Okay. We’re safe.

So I sat down and ate.

And listen…

I love you, Chino, but that pork chop was just a little dry. 😂

The flavor, though?!

Soooo good.

That had my attention.

I wasn’t exactly sure what I was tasting. Some of the flavors were familiar—I knew I had tasted them before—but dissected? Separate? Put together like this?

Nope.

I couldn’t have told you what every seasoning was. I wasn’t sitting there analyzing ingredients or asking how much of this or what brand of that.

I was just eating.

His grandmother smiled as I ate. They talked. I listened. And I sat there like the fat little foodie girl I was and ate until I was full.

But when I think about that day now, the food isn’t actually the part I remember most.

I remember how I felt.

I didn’t feel like a stranger.

I didn’t feel awkward.

I didn’t feel like somebody’s friend who just happened to be hanging around somebody else’s grandmother’s house.

I felt loved.

Like family.

She didn’t make some separate guest plate because I was there.

She offered me what she had made for her grandchildren as though I was one of them.

I was invited to the table.

And I think I’ve been chasing some version of that feeling ever since.

So, consider this your invitation.

There’s always room at our table.

And before you start thinking you don’t know enough to sit here—

Stop that.

You don’t have to have traveled the world.

You don’t need a passport full of stamps.

You don’t need to know twelve varieties of pepper or be able to identify a spice by smelling it with your eyes closed.

You don’t have to know how to pronounce everything on the menu.

You don’t have to be a chef.

Hell, you don’t even have to be a particularly good cook yet. 😂

Maybe you haven’t experienced half the things you dream about.

So what?

Dip your toes in.

That’s how you start.

Taste something.

Ask the question.

No question is dumb. Maybe just badly timed. 😂

Make the recipe badly the first time.

Order the thing on the menu you can’t pronounce yet and politely hope for the best.

Read about it.

Ask somebody who knows more than you.

Listen when they tell you.

Try again.

All we ask is trust. 🤣🤏🏾🤏🏾🤏🏾

Just a little trust.

Because every now and then, I might hand you something and say:

“Don’t ask all those questions right now. Taste it first.”

See?

Bad timing. 😂

But that’s what I want this place to be.

Not somewhere you come because you already know everything.

Where’s the fun in that?

I want you to come because there’s something you want to know.

Maybe it’s an ingredient you’ve never tasted.

Maybe it’s a dish you’ve heard about but never tried.

Maybe it’s a tea from somewhere you’ve never been.

Maybe it’s a seasoning you’ve walked past a hundred times because you had absolutely no clue what to do with it.

Or maybe it’s something you’ve eaten your entire life—and one day you finally stop and wonder:

Wait. Where did this actually come from?

That’s enough.

Curiosity gets you a seat.

And I’m sitting at the table with you.

That part is important.

I’m not building this from some imaginary mountaintop of culinary knowledge. 😂

There are foods I haven’t tasted.

Ingredients I’ve never used.

Places I haven’t been.

Techniques I don’t know.

Things I’m going to pronounce incorrectly.

Recipes I’m absolutely going to mess up.

And probably at least one ingredient I’ll order because it sounded fascinating, only to stare at it when it arrives like:

Okay…now what the hell am I supposed to do with you?

😂

That’s part of this.

I want to learn.

I want to taste.

I want to cook.

I want to know where things came from and why people make them the way they do.

I want to understand the difference between tasting something and actually understanding something.

And when something isn’t mine culturally, I want to listen to the people whose table it came from rather than pretending curiosity suddenly made me an expert.

Because being invited to somebody else’s table is a privilege.

I learned that before I had the language to explain it.

Sometimes food is the invitation.

That plate at Chino’s grandmother’s house wasn’t presented to me with a lesson about culture.

Nobody handed me an itinerary.

There wasn’t a tasting card explaining every ingredient.

Grandma fed me.

That’s it.

And somehow that simple act told me:

You’re okay here.

Eat.

Sit.

Listen.

Stay awhile.

There was room for me at her table before I knew enough to understand what being invited to it would eventually mean to me.

And now, all these years later, I’m building my own table.

There will be tea here.

There will be spices.

Recipes.

Stories.

Things I’ve sourced.

Things I’ve cooked.

Things I’ve screwed up.

Things I’ve learned.

Things you’ll probably teach me.

And occasionally something so good that we all need to stop talking for a minute. 😂

But you don’t have to arrive already knowing.

You don’t have to pretend you’ve been somewhere you haven’t.

You don’t have to perform sophistication.

Come curious.

That’s plenty.

Pull up a chair.

Taste something.

Ask questions.

Tell me what you know.

Let somebody else tell us what they know.

And if the pork chop is a little dry?

Eat the rice. 😂

Because all these years later, I don’t remember exactly what was in that seasoning.

But I remember that table.

I remember Grandma smiling.

I remember being full.

And I remember feeling like there was a place for me there.

You were invited to the table.

Just like I was.

There’s room.

— RI