When the last plate is cleared and the candles have burned to short stubs, something remains that no recipe can account for. A meal is the one ceremony most of us still perform on a regular basis, and the table is its stage.
This issue we asked readers what they keep on their tables when no one is eating: a bowl of lemons, a stack of unread newspapers, a photograph of a grandmother's kitchen. The answers were less about objects than about anticipation — the table as a promise that someone will sit down again soon.
In the long season, when the light stretches past dinner, the table becomes a place to stay rather than to pass through. That is the meal we set this magazine around.