Gathering Round the Table

Imagine transforming your chilly winter evenings into a cozy celebration with the comforting tradition of raclette. Inspired by tales from friends who've journeyed to Switzerland, we share the delightful essence of this communal dining experience. With an array of cheeses, meats, vegetables, and pickled items at your fingertips, this interactive dining style offers a heartfelt alternative to bustling holiday parties and brings warmth to your table.

Gathering around a table has a unique way of fostering connection, reminiscent of the Last Supper's intimate setting. We explore how inviting a neighbor for dinner can be a simple yet powerful gesture to enhance winter well-being and foster joy in togetherness. These smaller, personal gatherings can light up the darker days of winter, offering a sense of peace and warmth. 

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Chapters

• 0:06 Winter Well-Being
• 6:24 Table Gatherings for Winter Joy

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

you've just joined the create harmony podcast. This is a place where we use our imagination as a way of listening to god and we work to tune our senses to the magical presence of the holy spirit, and you can find your place right here, and while you're doing that, our hope is that you'll also find some peace. So this is episode 107, and I'm your host, sally Burlington. So we are journeying on. We're doing what we always do in the winter. We're doing a series called Winter Well-Being, and this is the time of year that we really look around ourselves. During these darker, colder days, when the weather's not nice to get outside, we look around for new ways to find joy and just really trying to celebrate a darker season. So far, during Winter Wellbeing, we've covered how to make joy more accessible and the concept of house hushing. So if you missed either of those discussions, you could just go right back and check them out. So if you missed either of those discussions, you could just go right back and check them out.

Speaker 1: 1:07

And today we're going to talk about a type of gathering called raclette, and I think I'm pronouncing that correctly. If you're not familiar with this, it comes from Switzerland, it's of Swiss origin and the word actually refers to a style of grilling as well as the type of cheese that you use if you're going to host a raclette dinner. The word originally comes from a French word, which means to scrape. So here's the backstory. Why are we talking about raclette? I'll tell you the backstory. So my parents have some friends that have family that live in Switzerland and they visit there, you know, often, and one year they went in the winter, they went during the holiday season and they came back and described their trip to my parents. So picture the scene. It's a snowy village in Europe where you bundle yourself up and you and your party walk through the snow to a local restaurant and once you arrive, there are all these tables with grills and skillets right in the center where groups gather and cook around those little skillets. It's a really communal and celebratory type of meal. So after my parents' friends came back from their trip, they loved the Ray Klett experience and they decided to buy a little Ray Klett grill. They didn't create a whole table, but they bought a little tabletop grill and invited friends over to enjoy and learn about Rayclet, and my parents went to this dinner and then they passed on the word to me and when I heard about Rayclet I knew it was for me. I loved the idea of cooking and visiting around a warm grill, so we got a Raycllette grill several years ago and here's how it has worked for us.

Speaker 1: 2:51

I'm not sure that we're getting the essence of the charming Swiss village, but we have hosted a few friends and the menu includes some cheeses, some meats usually something the meats are something like bacon or prosciutto or those little smoky sausages Some veggies often. People sometimes use potatoes that have already been parboiled and a variety of other vegetables that you could cook on a tabletop grill. And there are always pickled things, like a tray of little pickled, delicious types of pickles. So last weekend, like I said, we've used our Ray Klett grill and in past years to host friends and small groups. But last weekend our oldest daughter was home for winter break and she had a couple more days before she had to go back to college and we got the prediction of inclement weather. It was going to be snowy and icy.

Speaker 1: 3:41

So we decided that it would be fun to do a small raclette dinner for just the three of us. She had never done it, so we were going to test it out with her. So we got the menu and we bought at our little small raclette. We had brie and raclette cheese, we had those little smoky sausages and some prosciutto, we had artichokes, peppers, mushrooms, broccoli, we had a tray of little pickled things and we got some French bread and the way it works is a little bit like fondue, if you're familiar with the concept of fondue. It's sort of like that, except the raclette grill has a flat top so you can cook things on that flat like griddle type top and then underneath each person has these little skillets and so you can create your own cheesy, delicious combo, like put a few onions and some cheese, or I'm a big fan of mushrooms, so I put a lot of mushrooms in mine, cook it up, and then you talk and you laugh and it was so fun. I mean I just loved cooking and eating and trying new ways to combine all of our different ingredients and I have several other groups that I would love to host. I have other friends that I would like to do Ray Klett with, except some of those groups are just one step bigger. It really works best for a party of four to six and I have a few groups that it would be a group of eight and that might be a little bit too crowded, and I don't really want to invest in a second Ray Cleck grill. So I haven't solved the mystery of that yet, but I'm going to work on it. So I've got. Maybe I just need to convince another friend to get a Ray Cleck grill and then we can combine them and have a little small dinner party.

Speaker 1: 5:19

Anyway, I'm telling you this long ramble to introduce an idea for a fun way to gather with friends this winter, and this is really only one option, but it's the thing about it. What I want you to think about is sometimes, during the holiday season, we go to these loud parties where you stand around and chit chat and you see so many different people that you haven't seen in a long time, and that is really, really fun, but it's boisterous. What I'm suggesting is, during the winter season, when you're not going to large barbecues or big holiday parties or whatever, maybe you want to have a small gathering of people. It can be a cozy, casual theme. Maybe invite all your friends over for hot cocoa and some sweet treats, or invite your friends over for a comfort food dinner and serve some soup. But just small gatherings. That intimate feeling inside of a warm house can be really restorative during the winter season.

Speaker 1: 6:20

Now for our closing today, I'm going to just leave you with this thought.

Speaker 1: 6:24

I want you to think about how powerful it is to gather around the table with good friends and have intimate close times.

Speaker 1: 6:32

Gathering around the table in a small group is the setting that Jesus chose for the Last Supper. That's one of the most life-changing events that have ever happened. That Jesus gathered his friends and talked about what was to come and how they were to respond to it, and that's the place that he chose. They were together in lots of different places and lots of different scenarios, but gathered around the table, communing with one another, was that powerful. So just think about that as you're trying to work your way through some winter well-being, and maybe you want to get together with a neighbor and have a little dinner and celebrate these colder, darker days. So thanks so much for joining us today as we worked our way through winter well-being, and hopefully this gave you an idea of a way to find some joy as we are snuggled in our warm homes. And we'll be back next week with another concept that you can use to brighten your winter days, and hope you'll be back then too. And until next time, peace, thank you.