Communion

The gateway to lifelong friendships? It's through your kitchen door.

Communion (noun): intimate fellowship or rapport.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary

I had been eating out a lot since moving back to San Francisco. It’s fun to let someone else do the cooking from time to time, especially in a gastro mecca like SF, but I get great joy from tinkering in the kitchen. I also love to host. Sharing a home-cooked meal prepared with love for close friends who matter most turns good into great on all counts: the meal, the evening, and the company. It’s the power of communion.

My old kitchen kit arrived from Aix-en-Provence about a week ago, filling out the inventory of pots, pans, utensils, and gadgets I’d been picking up daily from Macy’s, Target, Cliff’s Variety (their amazing kitchen aisle is shown in the video below), and other purveyors of fine homeware within a walk from my downtown flat. I’m back to roasting this and braising that while enjoying a glass or 3 of wine (darn it’s expensive here), while Coltrane or Chopin provides an evening soundtrack. Meals out are great, but give me the homespun zen of an evening encounter with a kitchen counter heaped high with fresh produce. What’s even better? Sharing the creation that’s all a’bubble on the stovetop with others.

I met a lot of fascinating people in Provence. Like Paris, Aix is a melting pot of Gaullist natives and multi-generational immigrants, plus a heaping dose of expats from all points on the globe. Reflecting on my time there, I realize that the closest friendships made where with people who communed on some evening at 7 rue Manuel (damn, I miss that place), enjoying (or suffering through) an alchemy of ingredients from the daily marché and favored boucherie. I would promise the starters and mains, and everyone else pitched in with breads, cheeses, charcuterie, desserts, and wine. The quintessential French dinner party.

(Also upon reflection [over a cold pilsner on the terrace of Anina in Hayes Valley yesterday afternoon]), it dawned on me that dinner communions chez Bill (the cause) begat the deepest and most durable friendships (the effect), and in that order. I didn’t just invite close friends to dinner parties. No, it’s that the people who came for dinner parties often turned into my closest friends. And this was quite a wide-ranging ensemble of ages, interests, talents, peccadillos, and kinks. Always lively, never boring, and rarely ending early.

What is it about these dinner rituals at home that build connections more deeply than an hour or two dining in a restaurant? I think it’s the shared service. In a restaurant we all sit while orders are taken, dishes delivered, silverware replaced, plates removed, wine glasses topped off, and check presented. Off you go now. This communion is elegant, organized, proficient, and performative. Dinners out can be wildly pleasurable, but not deeply communal.

A few close friends joining for a meal at 7 rue Manuel.

In our homes we serve each other, pass around plates, hand each other bread, fill each other’s glasses, forget something or other still steaming on the stove top, stain the table cloth, and then take turns bussing everything back to the sink where clean-up is shared (a couple of volunteers scrubbing and rinsing while the rest of us stand around drinking wine.) This communion is gloriously messy, unscripted, and authentic. As are the deepest relationships, right?

If you find yourself again changing cities or countries or continents you’ll want to find a local tribe. An increasing mountain of evidence shows that strong social connections are fundamental to longer healthspans, particularly with mental health. As we get older this can be more challenging. Consider laying out a dinner table for fun folks you meet here or there, with whom there seems to be a curious connection at first contact. This offer of generosity, this communion ensemble, may plant the seed for friendships that keep you happy and healthy through the many years ahead, … or until you again pull up roots.

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