Notes from a 212-foot table

Last September, the organizers of the Sonoma Harvest Supper asked whether we could light a single table running the full length of the Two Rock barn. We said yes before anyone had measured it. It was 212 feet.

The arithmetic

At one votive every eighteen inches, 212 feet comes to 141 votives. We brought 160, because Martin plans for a fifteen percent breakage rate on every job, including the ones where nothing has ever broken.

Nothing broke.

For tables with food we pour only unscented votives. A scented candle at dinner is like a second conversation happening at the same volume as the first. The votives went down the center of the table; three glasses of Mission Fig went on the bar, where people are allowed to be distracted.

Lighting a road with chairs

The trick to lighting 141 candles is that you don’t do it all at once. We start forty minutes before guests sit down, with long matches and two people walking in opposite directions from the middle. By the time we reach the ends, the first glasses have settled into a steady flame.

“Two hundred and twelve feet isn’t a table. It’s a road with chairs.”

June Hale

Afterward Martin calculated that we had walked the length of the table twice to check the wicks, a total of 424 feet. He has submitted this as mileage.

Afterward

We collected the glasses at midnight. One hundred and fifty-eight came home. The other two are, we believe, on a mantel somewhere in Petaluma. We consider this a compliment and have stopped looking into it.

If you’re planning a long table, or an ordinary-length one, write us a week ahead. We’ll bring the votives, the long matches, and a spare.

— Teodora Vance