Are You Sitting Comfortably?

At the recent Bondi-Bronte  Sculpture by the Sea exhibition, I was captivated by a whimsical work by artist Sally Kidall entitled “At The Table: are you sitting comfortably?” Situated high on the cliff above the blue sea at Bondi, it instantly captured my imagination. Made from four timber chairs and a table coated with river sand, the tablecloth and chair seats are filled with soil and germinating grass seed.”A table and chairs are culturally symbolic for the sharing of meals, a family meeting place, or a place to present, discuss, review ideas and opinions,” says Kidall. “Phrases such as ‘on the table’ or ‘turn the tables’ emphasise the metaphorical use of the word table. Famous table scenes come to mind, like Miss Haversham’s decaying wedding feast in Great Expectations, or the Mad Hatters Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland, King Arthur’s table of wisdom The Round Table or Jesus’s Last-supper.” Kidall is well known for ephemeral, unpredictable, site specific environmental installations and for her expperimentations with a wide range of materials including turf, seeds and plants, fruit, salt solutions and crystallisation, casting salt compounds, ice, soap and sugar. Admittedly the “tablecloth” was rather overgrown by the time I visited (which was on the last day), but even so, I wondered what dishes I would serve in this setting (see this week’s recipe for Paradise Soup),  and what conversations such a magnificent setting would inspire. Today, so many of us eat on the run or in front of the TV, and local councils still make it very difficult for cafes and restaurants to provide outdoor dining. As Theodore Zeldin points out in  Conversation – How Talk Can Change Your Life, shared food can contribute a sense of well-being and friendliness, and a great deal more. “But good talk at meals is a rarity, an art we still have to develop. To have conversation at meals involves a special kind of hunger.  The great French philosopher of gastronomy Brillat-Savarin made a distinction between the pleasures of eating and the pleasures of the table, the latter meaning convivial talk about subjects worth talking about”. How different would our lives be if we shared simple delicious meals around a table surrounded by nature? “It is by conversations with others, by mixing different voices with our own, that we can turn our individual life into an original work of art,” says Zeldin. Postscript: Here are the lyrics from the Moody Blues song of the same name, Are You Sitting Comfortably?: Take another sip my love and see what you will see, A fleet of golden galleons, on a crystal sea. Are you sitting comfortably? Let Merlin cast his spell. Ride along the winds of time and see where we have been, The glorious age of Camelot, when Guinevere was Queen. It all unfolds before your eyes As Merlin casts his spell. The seven wonders of the world he’ll lay before your feet, In far-off lands, on distant shores, so many friends to meet. Are you sitting comfortably? Let Merlin cast his spell.