The Sunday Table: Stories From the Balowa Kitchen

Our Sunday table started by accident. Years ago, a rainstorm kept everyone indoors, so we pushed two tables together, emptied the fridge and cooked whatever we could find. Somebody made pancakes in the afternoon, somebody else made a pot of soup, and by evening the whole family was squeezed around one long table, passing plates and talking over each other. We have done it almost every week since.

The one rule

There is only one rule at the Sunday table: once a month, everybody brings a dish from a country we have never cooked before. That is how jollof rice, bulgogi, ʻotai and pão de queijo found their way into our family. Some experiments were a triumph. Others, like the time David tried to make congee in twenty minutes, became stories we still tell.

The pot that never emptied

My mother kept a soup pot on the stove all winter long. Every day she added a little of this and a little of that, and nobody ever knew exactly what was in it. I have never managed to recreate it, but I think of her every time I make lentil soup, which is the closest I have come.

A recipe is just a set of instructions until someone you love cooks it for you. Then it becomes a memory.

Little cooks

The youngest members of the family are in charge of tasting, stirring and setting the table. They are surprisingly honest critics. If a sauce is too hot, you will hear about it, and if the pancakes are good, they disappear before they reach the table.

Share your story

Every family has a dish that tells its story: the cake for birthdays, the soup for sick days, the sauce nobody else can quite get right. If you are part of the Balowa family, add yours with the family recipe form on our home page, so the next generation can cook it too.