A bigger table holds more people

Bowl, with Arabic inscription reading, "Generosity is a quality of the people of Paradise and good health is a blessing." 4th century AH/10th century CE, East Iranian World, Samarkand, or Nishapur.
The al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait City, Kuwait

An internal remembory of a meal last year led me back to this place in the heart of Kuwait where, after the blistering daytime sun has worn through mountains of pale concrete skyscrapers and an endless stretch of low buildings that reflect that sunlight back into the sky and people quickly pass from one shaded or air conditioned space to another, a welcoming reprieve lets people emerge into this souk as old as the city and as the evening deepens the pulse of families and friends quickens and amid mounds of dates and deeply scented cardamom pods, I am drawn to the rows of tables with fans blowing misted water where huge grilled fish and long skewers of meat are served alongside warm billowy stacks of bread and heaps of arugula brightened with lemon wedges, the fresh flaky seabass and sbeiti rubbed and bathed in spices tomatoes and herbs and laid out on platters, pulled from the still rich Persian Gulf, and it is impossible not to think back on these historic waters, the beginnings of human culture and trade and only just a hundred years ago this place had barely changed from what it had been a thousand years previous, when for generations famed pearl divers brought gems of the sea to light and they adorned necks and clothes and jewelry and woven nets cast from wooden boats pulled fish aboard and fed the merchants and traders and families that visited or lived along these remote waters on the edge of deserts and this meal is like the one I ate last year, simple rich and fresh and studded with scents and tastes and the sounds of civilization on the cusp of tomorrow, which in one long generation has pumped an underground ocean of oil into ships and across the sea, transforming this etched land of sea sky and desert sand into a concentrated new world empire whose power and influence is not measured or bound by its borders but whose impact shakes the foundation of our Earth and all of its systems and which, because of that power has been at the center of geopolitics and war and political and climate change, and when I flake a piece of that moist white fish whose flesh is bathed in the flavors and tastes aggregated over centuries of trade and shared influences, and I see kids with their parents doing the same, looking at them to see how they laugh and talk and hold themselves, no different than my own children were at that age, I think about how we communicate and share these similarities and differences, and continue to think the way to connect people is here at the table, where we all belong, because we only have to look to see that a bigger table holds more people, and on my long walk home through parks and along streets still radiating the stored heat of today, through souks crammed with electric tea kettles and everything else modernity has to offer, I'm pulled back home where all these needs remain the same, and as the sun tilts lower and darkness comes too soon, I think I know what I'll serve next.

Khlong Toie Market - Bangkok, Thailand

Almost everywhere the ground is wet, and dirty grey puddles with debris dissolve any semblance of hygiene as wave after wave of people, motorbikes, dollies, styrofoam containers and woven bamboo baskets stream though this massive market in the heart of Bangkok, Thailand. Crossing the khlong – or canal – over a small bridge whose damp thick planks are saturated with the accretion of quantity, and entering the market whose boundary is loosely defined by a brackish canal that shames the Cuyahoga River with a viscous liquid that now fills its channeled, hardened banks, visitors find it hard not to be awakened by the intense smells of rot, filthy water, row after row of crammed caged chickens ducks geese and other fowl, the squawks and bleets obliterated by the regular thump of heavy cleavers dispatching birds on huge wood cutting boards – slices of tree trunks actually, where bird after bird is killed plucked singed gutted and prepared for sale, and just past them are the rows under red plastic awnings of every cut and piece of animal that can be eaten, between the stalls crammed tight with people and carts, the voices of women young and old calling out the prices for a kilo of limes, squash, beans, bunches of basil and lemon grass, bottles of honey from fertile Phetchabun Province, curry pastes and mangoes, watermelon, garlic, turmeric, bitter herbs and gourds, lumps of liver and mounds of gizzards, heaps of feet cleaned and ready for stews and curries and soups, and all this before you come to the tubs of eels turtles catfish and shrimp of every size, fresh dried and salted, piled over ice and fat white-fleshed fish with scales as thick as fingernails being scraped off by men in rubber boots who smoke and cough and talk all the while, girls sitting in a circle de-veining shrimp one after one after another for hours at a time, their wrists tattooed and hard as their weathered fingers fly through shrimp like an old nun’s fingers run through rosary beads, habit and meditation built into the repetition, and cats prowling the aisles thin and tattered, tails mostly missing and eyes alert ready to pounce on the rat that runs between stacks of crates, across the child’s feet who plays with a toy gun as the other children clamber on empty tables used earlier in the day for trimming roots and pulling off dead leaves, tidying up the produce before the rush of another day, hour after hour of noise and people and everything for sale, the coming and going from the far provinces of Thailand to feed the hungry capital. Old men lie asleep on a low platform surrounded by piles of dried noodles or bags of rice, a tired mother snores in a small chair with a television showing soap operas playing only for the toddler who lies curled up next to her, looking at the TV as well as her phone, and a young woman sits among stacks of plastic mixing bowls, wire baskets for frying fish and cooking noodles, charcoal braziers and hand-forged knives, soup bowls and metal spoons, enough goods to let a small town feed, and where does she find love and friends and a breath of fresh air, sitting long hours and when the rain falls and the mishmash of tin roofs and thick plastic sheeting fray or give way or end between two rows of goods, the aisle splashes with a steady stream of water, flip flops and rubber boots the only useful footwear, the pyramids of limes of all sizes splashed with rain and fresher looking than ever, and rough young men moving small loads of wholesale goods from one end of the market to the next, filling the rows with the urgency of the day’s wages, the bags of ice to be delivered up and down the rows to sellers of almost living things that depend upon the cold to keep them fresh, and sitting here and there in dark nooks are middle aged women and men with hand calculators and clipboards tallying purchases and sales, chainsmoking cigarettes in anticipation of the next day’s business, the floods in Trang or relentless heat in Roi Et, the sacks of rice secure and dry under the high corrugated roof, and another motorcycle delivering whatever is was they needed next, and he stops for a bite of grilled fish, the fish coated in a snowy layer of salt pure and simple grilled over charcoal, the sizzle and smoke and smell mixing with salted squid and crispy chicken legs, plumes of smoke sanctifying the hard and endless work of these huge numbers of people whose lives are spent in this labyrinth of life death and sustenance.