OAKLAND, Calif. — For as long as I can remember, gathering people around a table has been a sacred act for me.
I’ve happily lived by myself for over a decade, but I’ve always found joy in turning nearly every space I enter into a dining room. When I lived in a small apartment in Berkeley, I cooked paellas over a rusted fire pit in the yard and churned gallons of ice cream in a wooden, hand-crank machine for dozens of friends, sometimes to my landlords’ dismay.
I’ve thrown dinner parties in friends’ homes across the world, turning their kitchens into my own, and served countless meals in seemingly inhospitable places: abandoned hangars, remote beaches and sprawling farms. But what I remember most clearly is sitting down at a table brimming with friends and raucous laughter and taking joy in everyone’s pleasure.
“There is a realm of time,” writes the Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of my favorite thinkers, “where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share.” His philosophy reflects my own: that the most precious gift we can give one another is time spent together.
After I left daily restaurant work 10 years ago, I mentioned offhandedly to the owners of Tartine, in San Francisco, that I’d love to turn their corner bakery into an intimate dining room after hours. To my surprise and delight, they handed over the keys.
Once a month for four years, the bakers at Tartine and I fed friends and strangers all the dishes I could never justify cooking just for myself — huge shrimp boils, brisket and latkes, rich 12-layer lasagnas and billowy chocolate soufflés. A decade later, I’m still moved by the way those who dined with us recall the details of those evenings with specificity and warmth.
Since then, people have become increasingly reliant on digital forms of communication — choosing to text rather than call, or confusing likes for meaningful interaction — and social media have taken a greater hold over our time and attention. Over the past 10 years, I’ve worried that this shift threatened the ethic of gathering and spending time together that means so much to me, even as I grappled with my own complicated relationship with the new technologies.
But within days of the coronavirus stay-at-home orders, as I realized what we were losing — hugs, brushing one another’s shoulders as we scoot our chairs closer to the table, cooking and eating together, gifts of our time and attention — I let my guard down a bit. I’d always stubbornly avoided video calls (they’re a sad approximation of being together, at best), but in isolation, I quickly came to look forward to them. I missed my loved ones too much not to.
The shortcomings of virtual gatherings are frustrating and numerous. You can’t hold a crying friend, you can’t smell the baking cookies and, most of the time, the image is fuzzier than you wish. But I’m finding the good in them. How else can I see an old friend cracking a smile, my brother’s dogs running in mad circles or the check-in on the many kids I adore?
I still miss setting the table for others. I miss the feeling of anticipation right before people arrive for a meal (and relief right after they leave). I miss that inexplicable moment at the dinner table when any awkwardness washes away and a bunch of individuals, some of whom might have been strangers, becomes a unified group. I miss conversation so vibrant that no one is tempted to pull out a phone. I even miss the inevitable moment when things get so silly and lively that I spill something or fall off my seat.
But now that we’ve shed all pretense, showing up in front of colleagues and friends alike in sweatpants, with five-day hair, and children and pets running amok in the background, I feel at home online. But this version of the internet finally offers exactly what I love most about intimate in-person gatherings — a lack of posturing.
Back in May 2010, feeling inspired after my second Tartine dinner, I wrote a list in my journal of what I wanted out of every gathering I hosted: “delicious, simple, honest food and good wine,” for “good conversation to ensue and friendships to be forged,” for “the good china to be used, linens to be pulled down from the cabinet, candles to be lit and music to be played.”
Most of all, I wanted people “to go on and create another special experience for a different group of folks,” the idea being that they’d spread these values, creating a greater connection to our food, and to one another.
So I wonder, what would it be like if we threw out all of our expectations and showed up to be together, however flawed our cooking, however messy our kitchens, however rusty our skills?
What if we all come together, light the candles, use the good china, for a meal of good food, good wine and wonderful company, in the only way we can right now?
If, like me, you are craving a shared meal, a shared project, a shared sense of purpose (if only for a day), then please join me at a grand lasagna dinner on Instagram Live this Sunday, May 3, at 7 p.m. Eastern time (4 p.m. Pacific). Let’s spend our day cooking together, even if we’re apart. Let us enter a new kind of space together — a digital one — and turn it into a dining room.
And what better dish to make than a grand, comforting lasagna? It’s the ultimate communal dish (though, if you live alone, as I do, you can freeze and enjoy it for many meals to come).
Here, too, we can spend our most valuable currency on one another by investing it in the hours it takes to prepare this meal. This lasagna — a.k.a. the Big Lasagna, the one I’d serve you if you were coming over — is made with diaphanous sheets of pasta layered with rich béchamel, mouthwatering tomato sauce and creamy ricotta speckled with herbs and spinach. And if you can’t get your hands on all of the exact ingredients, I’ve offered substitutions for almost every one.
“What is retained in the soul is the moment of insight,” Rabbi Heschel wrote, “rather than the place where the act came to pass.”
As you look back, it won’t make a difference if your lasagna emerged from the oven picture-perfect, if you decided to wear pajamas while you ate it, or even, honestly, if you made the lasagna at all — make anything and bring it to the table! I’d like to think those sorts of details will be part of the pleasure of the memory.
Join Us for #TheBigLasagna
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Follow us @nytcooking on Instagram to see Samin make the lasagna step-by-step.
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The Big Lasagna Party: Made a lasagna? Join us! Didn’t make a lasagna? Join us! Samin will be on @nytcooking’s Instagram Live, Sunday, May 3, at 7 p.m. Eastern time, to celebrate and answer questions.
And to Drink …
For lasagna with meat sauce, my go-to pairing would be a Chianti Classico or some similar dry sangiovese wine. For this recipe, which offers plenty of tomato sauce with the added flavor of spinach, I might still enjoy a red. If Chianti is not available, barbera is a possibility, or perhaps an Etna Rosso from Sicily, made with the nerello mascalese grape. But you could just as easily drink a dry Italian white. The incisive acidity will cut through the rich béchamel, while the citrus and herbal flavors will complement the spinach. Try a Gavi from northwestern Italy, a fiano from Campania, a verdicchio from the Marche region or a Soave from the Veneto. ERIC ASIMOV
