A St Joseph's Table

Do you just LOVE St. Joseph?
I do, and whenever St Joseph's feast day comes around, it is made even more special by the fact that we have a Joseph. Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised when some friends of ours called and told us that their big Italian family was having a St Joseph's table, and we were welcome to attend. Have you ever been to one? A St. Joseph's table is a meatless feast in honor of St Joseph, usually at someone's home (although many restaurants have them, too). The table includes an altar with an image of St Joseph, candles, flowers, fruit and bread. It usually begins with a Priest blessing the food and saying a prayer. The feast is an open house at the hosts home, and generally anyone is welcome, even people right off the street!
I only had a few hours notice, but I got my babies ready, picked up my Joseph from school, and high-tailed it over there! Poor Dan, he had to miss it because he was at work and it started in the early afternoon.
Anyhow, our friends have a very large family. They have 42 cousins! Not everybody was there, but they still had a nice crowd. The food was amazing. There was baked cod (delicious!), omelettes, baked artichokes, pasta, sauce, squid (I ate it quite by accident..it tasted better before I knew what it was), bread, cheese, etc. There were also tons of great desserts!
There were so many people. We were actually seated in the basement. There were tables set up down there, and it was so cool to see every square inch of the house being used. The dessert station was in the laundry room! These days people have such huge houses, but this house was actually very very tiny, and it just goes to show that you can still entertain a crowd in a small residence. It actually made it nicer, I think.