WHAT IS COMMUNAL TABLE

(besides a project that we love, and our partner in crime in creating tables full of nourishing food surrounded by curious people)

This table — Communal Table — is all about the conversation. We seek to explore what brings people together and what sets us apart as we sit down to eat together. This happens most often at the table. We break bread together, so to speak (be it garlic-slathered Texas toast or a crackle-crusted handmade loaf), and with it, we hash out thoughts and ideas.

Every quarter we host a wonderful meal. The meal, the conversation, and the related issue is centered around a theme. We publish the menu along with many other recipes that relate to the quarterly theme.

At Communal Table we’re not materialistic. That’s part of why we decided to make an ad-free space that gathers people at our table for the pure enjoyment of food, art, conversation, and thought. We wanted our community to be led by an organic process of sitting together, talking, sharing art, trading recipes. That’s our vision of sitting at a table together. People first.

What do we mean by that? Many things.

First, we publish works rather than content. It’s a semantic shift, but an important one. The vast majority of what we put out is personal essay, and we love getting down and dirty in people’s real lives. We think you might love it, too. That’s what it’s like to sit at a table having a real conversation with someone. When a person writes their heart out—that’s a work, not content to be shuffled around and placed willy nilly in order to gain traffic. Real work takes guts & gusto. It requires a kind of authentic living that makes space for creativity, and we think a world without people who are fairly compensated to do just that is a very bleak place. To us, that sounds suspiciously like fast food, and while there’s a place for it, we don’t want to be that place.

Everyone who contributes to Communal Table (www.communaltable.com) is fairly compensated for their work. We want our table to be pleasurable, but we also want it to be a place that nourishes the people who sit here. Communal Table pays every writer, photographer, illustrator, and artist who shares a piece of their lives.

We are not materialistic. And yet, we do publish materials; something outside of the virtual space of the web. Another semantic shift. 

The recipe books we publish to accompany each issue provide a material way for you to support the writers and artists who bring our conversation to light. At every turn, we choose quality over quantity in our interactions and we hope you do, too.