The Pleasures of the Table is a participatory installation that seeks to disrupt the traditional cultural narrative of eating, ultimately challenging and proposing a new expectation of consumption. The installation features a five-foot round maple butcher-block table with a central hole designed to accommodate interchangeable kitchen items such as a bowl, grill, or trash can. To amplify the ritual of production and consumption, the table is framed by a bright red wall adorned with eight knives and eight aprons, corresponding to the number of participants who can comfortably gather around the butcher-block.

The title of the installation expands upon a meditation found in gastronomer Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin’s treatise The Physiology of Taste. In Meditation 14, Brillat-Savarin asserts that "the pleasures of the table are a reflective sensation which is born from the various circumstances of place, time, things, and people who make up the surroundings of the meal." However, Brillat-Savarin’s framework centers exclusively on the events occurring at the dining table, neglecting the labor, preparation, and aftermath that precede and follow consumption—an omission that reflects a culturally and class-specific concept of ritual dining.

In response, Reynolds foregrounds his own cultural experience, highlighting the disparity between the extensive time spent preparing a meal and the brief time spent consuming it. Rather than centering the final act of eating, The Pleasures of the Table privileges production over consumption—process over product—shifting the focus to the broader "circumstances" surrounding the meal. In doing so, Reynolds redefines the dining experience, making the meal itself the least important component.

The installation challenges traditional hierarchies of place and role. The round butcher-block table eliminates the notion of a "head" of the table, erasing established systems of order, class, and rank. Participants simultaneously embody multiple roles—chef, patron, host, guest, audience member, and performer—breaking down distinctions and democratizing the culinary experience.

Through the simultaneous actions of preparing, cooking, consuming, and cleaning, The Pleasures of the Table proposes a new ritual of eating: a hybridized site where participation actively alters both the viewer’s and participant’s social and dietary interactions. In doing so, Reynolds disrupts the cultural narrative of consumption, creating a space where the dynamics of food, labor, and social exchange are critically reimagined.