"table"

The crack running down the walnut table top leads to baskets of bread with fresh salted herb butter; large, smooth black ceramic bowls of field greens colored eggplant purple and lime green. Terra cotta bowls of potatoes au gratin, glistening with melted cheese and butter. Platters of charred and skewered halibut, settled and nestled on a bed of labneh and speckled with pomegranate arils. Fresh pita hides beneath warm towels, the smell twirling like a ballerina out into the open and under my nose. A soft hum of voices slips in between the cracks of the kitchen’s saloon-style doors and the soft clinks of glasses as a toast to the host is made. I am taken, as if by a riptide, and plunged headfirst into an ice bucket full of my time spent in the streets of Lebanon and Turkey. Fish pulled right up from the depths of the sea and seared, held tauntingly over roaring flames eager to consume it. A smattering of small china…