excerpt
from A Platter of Figs, and other recipes, a cookbook by David Tanis.
Here is what I remember: I’m five years old, or a little younger. I awaken one early morning and determine to make breakfast for our little family. The sun has not yet risen. In the kitchen of our brick cookie-cutter, look-alike two-bedroome cottage on Rutland Drive, on a mid-twentieth-century day, I set the table. It’s a chrome-legged, speckled, and shiny red-top dinette table. My mother used to tell a story about my grandmother being born on a kitchen table in the olden days, and I imagine she was born on just such a table.
I put the spoons, the juice glasses, the folded paper napkins, the cereal bowls in their places. I put cereal in the bowls and pour on the milk. I fill the juice glasses. I toast the bread and spread the margarine. Everything is ready now, but no one is showing up. It must be early. It must be Sunday. I go back to bed.
