The kitchen table

Our 2,300 km road trip, with Sherlock and a van full of furniture ended without mishap but honestly, I am not sure I have felt an exhaustion quite like it. 

Still, after unloading in 36 degree heat, the trip had to continue, this time across from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean to Napoli, another seemingly never-ending 270km.

This bit was hugely important for me because a central part of the trullo has been designed around my grandparents' marble top kitchen table - a most cherished gift from my mother as it is part of her childhood memories too. The pick up was now or never as it's unlikely we will ever do a van trip like that again!.

Rustic is probably a kind word for this table: I've no idea how old it is beyond the fact that it was in the kitchen of their house in Palazzo Donn'Anna from the time I was born.

My grandmother didn't cook. Never, ever. She organised and planned what would be eaten each day but the shopping and cooking was done daily by others, in my early childhood by Cosimina (nicknamed Babba who was my nanny as a baby and toddler and later, my cousins too.) I loved her as I do family.

I remember Babba making pasta on the marble top of that old table, pushing her thumbs into the mixture to make orecchiette, the little, ear shaped type that is now one of Puglia's best known exports.
Babba could not read or write but she was the most extraordinary cook and for once, many many years ago, I had the presence of mind to sit with her and write verbatim into a notebook all her (and my) favourite recipes. She could not tell me exact amounts, rather, a kind of instinctive recipe always laced with 'a handful of this' or 'a pinch of that, taste it and decide how much'.

She was four foot 11, had had one love - a soldier who never came back from war - and looked after her hands and feet as if she were a Hollywood movie star. Red nails, long and lacquered and tiny, pedicured feet. One of my greatest regrets is not making it to Lecce in time to see her before she died in 2010: a photo of her, on a Vespa, as a young gorgeous, twenty something arrived in the mail for me not long before she died and has been in my study since. I think it was her way of saying goodbye and 'please remember me'. Her spirit lives in that kitchen table.

The old marble top

But the table is not about Babba but my grandfather, Henri Genevois, Grand Pere (to us, Pepere for short). It was he, the consummate French man, who on special occasions took to the kitchen and oh, the joy of his creations. He made ca nougat, the most delectable sweets on that table, the terrifyingly hot sweet mixture rolled out on the cold marble into lollies that cooled quickly and tasted of magic. He revelled in making crepes for us as children, throwing the thin, perfectly made disc into the air and catching it flamboyantly with his frypan. And he made Gateau de Praline on special occasions. This was an incredibly subtle and delicious almond based cake that floated, like an island, in a sea of light cream made with praline almonds.

When Pasquale took the marble off, he found a huge burn in the table and had to fill it. My job now is to keep up the beeswaxing.

There are seven of us cousins and we all, also remember breakfasts around that table roasting bread straight onto the gas rings (pane abbrustolito) and dousing it in olive oil, salt and ripe tomatoes and then drinking sweet, milky espresso (caffe' latte) all together there. It is one of Robert's favourite memories of our first trip to Donn'anna together.

My mother giving me this table and it having a new home is part of our trullo story. I know my mother is as happy as I am that it lives on and even more familial memories will be layered into it.

But the table wouldn't be where it is today were it not for Pasquale Aversano, my friend and fellow Donn'Anna resident. His family's story and mine are intertwined over three generations and I hope very much this relationship will be part of the book I'm researching and writing. Today though, it is his restoration skills and friendship that not only restored the table from near decrepitude but which also means it has four benches, fashioned out of old wood from the Donn'Anna grottoes (much of it salvaged from the annual dismantling of the wooden 'beach' jetties created for swimmers and sunbathers.) It is where he hand builds boats and restores beautiful old wooden ones from past centuries.

Pasquale at work

My grandfather loved to fix things, what the English call making do and mending and what Pasquale calls 'shushuare'. He decided to enter his mind frame and make four benches exactly the same as two my grandfather made which were in the old bathroom. However he made these ones tall enough for people to sit on at the table which, being a work surface is taller than normal tables. Space is tight in the trullo so he also made them so that they can fit under the table when not in use. When I saw them, freshly waxed, I have to admit my eyes welled up.

The table is in the trullo now. It took Robert, Pasquale and a friend of his to carry it up the 40 or so steps to the ground floor of Donn'Anna and into the van.

I cannot be happier that Pepere's spirit, Babba's cooking skills - and my mother's deep well of generosity and desire to keep Donn'Anna alive for us - are all in that table, thanks to Pasquale's hands.

My cousin, Raffaella told me she has just re-claimed her maternal grandmother's kitchen table in the same way and one day soon, we plan to sit around each one and share stories.

(And I just realised I forgot to take a photo of the marble back onto its old friend, the table! Another time.)

Still, all is as it should be.