One More Chair — There's Always Room, There's Always Enough
My grandmother never made exactly the right amount of food.
She made too much. Every time, deliberately, without apology. Because someone always came who hadn't been expected, or someone stayed who was about to leave, or what looked like enough at the beginning turned out not to be once everyone was actually sitting down.
The Sicilian answer to this is simple: you make more. Not a little more. More. And if some of it is left at the end, it becomes tomorrow's lunch — and that's not a problem, that's just good thinking.
That's the whole idea behind The Garden Collection. Sun dried tomatoes and hot pepper cream — things that were made when the garden was giving everything it had, in August, when there was more than could possibly be eaten fresh. Dried slowly. Preserved in olive oil. Kept for the months when the garden had gone quiet.
The preserved summer fed the winter table. It also fed the unexpected guests, the extra chairs pulled in from the other room, the one more who arrived just as the food was being brought out.
There's always room. There's always enough. That's not wishful thinking — that's a pantry that's been thought about. Jars that let you say yes to one more person at the table without doing the math in your head.
Cook a bigger pot of pasta. Open another jar of sun dried tomato paté and put more bread on the board. Pour the wine. Pull up a chair.
The table that always has room is the one worth coming back to. The one people remember. One more chair. There's always room.
The garden remembers everything. So does the jar.
