Table Legend
Mother Hazel
Memphis, Tennessee
Signature move: The set she serves right after the second helping
“Have some more cobbler, baby. You're gonna need your strength.”
Everything at Mother Hazel’s table happens in the right order. First you eat — and you will eat, there is no version of this where you don’t eat. Then the dishes get cleared, the good cloth comes out, and the cards appear like they’d been waiting in the walls.
Hazel raised five children, eleven grandchildren, and half the block in Memphis, and every one of them learned the same lesson at that kitchen table: love is unconditional, but books are not. She’ll pat your hand when she sets you. She’ll fix you a plate to take home after. Both things are completely sincere.
Her grandson Lil Mo sits at her elbow most Sundays now, watching everything, the way she once watched her own grandmother. When somebody at the table plays over their partner, Hazel doesn’t say a word. She just looks at Mo, and Mo nods. Class is always in session.