Candlelight and Friendship

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well,

if one has not dined well."

Virginia Woolf, 1882-1941, from A Room of One's Own

Before the whirlwind hit the kitchen

Phew, I made it. For the past week I fretted over the upcoming storm. Don't get me wrong; I wanted the storm; we need the water; but I wanted it AFTER the gathering at our little house. To have a comfortable sit-down dinner, we needed to use the farm table under the grape arbor as well as the long harvest table in our dining room.

My friend Kary and I talked on and off during the week. Kary's husband John was to be the bbq man, and I was worried about him working in a storm-all alone, but my luck held. The clouds broke, the sun shone through and slowly a trickle, then a rush of my oldest friends arrived with FABULOUS foods in hand.

Ciro Pasciutto's homemade bread and Susie and Ellis Bassetti's focaccia

When we all gathered in a circle in our kitchen, I felt my eyes fill with tears. As I scanned each face, I saw the history of friendship–Kary, David and Julee, Steve and Heli, and my someday husband had all helped me move to Cambria in 1982. Patrick and Susan had provided Noah and me with a home we could afford, Susie and Ellis were two of our first friends (Susie filled Heart's Ease with her legendary wreaths). Vicki and Dick, Bonny and Lee, Ginny, who is a friend from both Maine and Santa Barbara, Kim and Ciro, Johnny the bbq King, and Karin...all a part of the colorful patchwork of my life.