WVPE - “At Fiona’s Table” April Lidinsky for Michiana Chronicles, Sept. 6, 2024
I know I’m not alone in sensing that the country hungers for healing, for repair.
So, I want to tell you about a place of repair that friends and I found during a fierce rainstorm on the far northwest corner of Lewis, a Scottish island known for its Viking-era carved chessmen.
The four of us aging hikers had driven up from Tarbert the night before to twin huts we’d rented near the seaside cliffs. We awoke to torrential rain — not the spitting stuff we’d hiked in, happily enough, for days, but serious stay-put-inside rain. And it might have been lovely to stay tucked in our adorably appointed cabins. Ours had an antique colander lampshade and tiny tea table with a view of the crashing sea.
The problem was that we were out of food. For breakfast, we’d split our last slices of seeded bread, an apple knifed into rough wedges, and the remaining morsels of Red Leicester. And now it was past noon and we’d just learned from the shepherd-slash-artist who owned the huts that the village store was closed. But, he yelled through the rain from his muddy truck, we could see if Fiona had room at her table down the road at The Edge Cafe. He shouted her number with a hopeful shrug.
So, our friend Kathy leaned into the corner of our hut that had a wisp of cell service and called Fiona, whose voice carried through the tiny speaker: We could come by; she was busy; she may or may not have room. Click.
Stomachs nagging us, we followed the Satnav to a hand-lettered sign announcing “The Edge,” an inauspicious low building perched within sight of a rocky shore. Shaking off rain, we ducked into a cheerful room split between a home-sized kitchen — a jumble of stacked dishes and cooling cakes visible over a cupboard— and the dining room — one trestle table with ten chairs. Four chairs were open and we sank into them, amazed by our good fortune. Fiona emerged from the kitchen, sliding two Welsh rarebits in front of the young couple at one end of the table, wiping one hand on her chintz apron and pushing aside a gray tendril with the other wrist. She sized us up, along with the two women who’d sat down moments earlier. Six new people to feed, then, since the Dutch couple at the other end of the table was already starting on cake.
Fiona got to it: “What’ll you have?” We shifted to read the busy chalkboard menu and aimed for easy— quiche? “Out of that.” Then, “I make everything from scratch - the board is just ideas.” Indeed, the sign said “Menu IDEAS,” also listing stews and savory pies. “I could do a fish chowder,” she offered, and our hungry foursome and the friend pair quickly agreed — yes, that sounded perfect on this rainy day. One person couldn’t eat prawns — “no problem,” said Fiona, warming to the challenge. Another couldn’t do dairy. “I’ll do a soy roux for you,” she said, entering a flow state and setting us up with tea in mismatched china before she vanished into the kitchen. We heard the sizzle of leeks in her pot; she was actually building the chowder in real time, and it would be slow … and there was nowhere we’d rather be than at Fiona’s table with fellow travelers on a stormy afternoon. Repair was underway. But the next part was up to us.
We discovered, with gentle questions, that the Welsh rarebits were disappearing into newlyweds from Edinburgh, the groom sweetly self-conscious of his shiny new ring. The Dutch couple pressing their last cake crumbs from their plates were on their sixth trip to Scotland. “We love it here,” they said, Fiona now beaming as she appeared to rewarm their teapot.
The two women, longtime friends, were a transplanted New Jerseyan and a Scottish-born strawberry farmer, who bemoaned the chilly season but was cheered by our interest in a berry-farmer’s life. Hands curled around our teacups, conversation floated like steam.The Dutch couple said goodbye, replaced by rain-soaked Germans, one of whom turned out to be a Mexican national. Our friend Martin teased them sweetly, guessing which language they used for home, business, and love— Spanish, English, or German - amidst blushing laughter.
By now, the sizzle from Fiona’s pot had bloomed into an ocean of aromas, and she set three versions of her rich chowder tenderly before us, slices of fresh brown bread on the china saucers. Flecks of sea green leeks set off the pink, amber, and gold of the prawns, mussles, and smoked haddock. A hush fell as we ate, worshipfully. I realized then that while Fiona had set the table for our gathering, she left important work to us. That we formed unexpected human connections on a day of pitiless storming brought to mind the Japanese art of kintsugi, mending broken vessels with seams of gold.
Later, over cake, I marveled at Fiona's method: Set the table well, and we humans just might remember how to be whole.
