These stories talk about dinnertime culture.
From fast food to five-star meals, dinnertime means something different to each of us. Convenience, cost, availability, and tradition - all influence the decisions we make about the meals we eat. How we eat defines who we are.
By Josh Leskar
When I moved away from my home in Florida, college-bound, I often found myself craving all of the home-made, delicious, heart-warming meals that my mother makes.
All five of them.
That's not to say that of all of her concoctions, only five of them were incredible - in fact, she's batting 1,000. She ONLY makes five things.
Well, six, if "making" reservations counts.
Once upon a time my mother would implore me to grab something – a Pop Tart, a Toaster Strudel, a cereal bar, ANYTHING – before I scampered down the stairs, out the door, and down the street with just enough time to play a round of hacky sack and catch the bus to school. On occasion, I would reluctantly pocket a pre-packaged meal, but more often than not, I’d decline. I simply wasn’t hungry, and if I was, there were more pressing issues at hand.
Like hacky sack…ing.
Lunch was nothing special and more-or-less typical: a sandwich of sorts, some fruit and a dessert. In the evening, our family dinners consisted mainly of my father grilling a protein on our infrared grill, Chinese delivery, one of my mother’s aforementioned "signatures," or the ever popular "fend for yourself” option, which often meant warming frozen pizzas or simply falling back on cereal.
Yet despite this hodgepodge of disjoined food options for any given meal, we almost always found time to have dinner together as a family. We had a tradition of completing the crossword puzzle throughout the day: my sister and I would start it in the morning before school, my mother would work on it during the day, and when my father finally arrived home from work (sometimes at 6:00pm, other times not until 9:00pm), he would help complete it, as we all took our seats around the dinner table.
Sometimes the murmurs of sitcom reruns or a televised sports game would hum in the background. Other times we’d play cards over our plates, trying our best to keep the two separate. Regardless of the activity, this was the one time each day during which we could talk about our days, our lives, and be together as a family.
We all need to eat. Yet in this fast paced world, it is often more convenient to grab fast food and rely upon microwaved, processed meals, eschewing the healthier, home-cooked, often tastier choices. However, as I see it, dinnertime provides the ideal atmosphere in which to simultaneously partake in something that is both necessary as well as enjoyable.
I’m not quite sure when the switch flipped, but by junior year of high school I relished the idea of cooking and baking, not so much because I loved the concoctions I created, but more because of the opportunity to gather those closest to me. Who is going to turn down free cake? Now, I view every meal - from park picnics to formal dinners - as a chance to highlight food’s greater potential.
When I made my latest move to San Francisco as a full-fledged adult, I arrived with two suitcases, one job offer, and zero friends. With a refusal to take a backseat in my own quest for a social life, I turned to the one pastime that I knew would help me explore this new city, help me meet fun and interesting people, and feed my stomach as well as my soul. These lessons I learned so long ago are the same ones that helped me start a new chapter in my life, and they will no doubt continue to help me moving forward.
Today, I teach at an after-school program dedicated to imparting the importance of cooking, while simultaneously teaching skills like math, culture, science and geography. But not a day goes by when I don’t attempt to also stress the importance of building a community of friends and family around the dinner table, and the unifying power of food, no matter what that food is.
By Shifra Whiteman
My life changed dramatically during my senior year of college. I always intended on returning to NYC after graduation, but that no longer seemed to be a healthy route. Instead, I decided to be adventurous and move somewhere completely different - Chicago! Why? Why not! I was packing up, moving to a new city and ready to start fresh. I started planning the next step with my best friend, Yonit, whom I’d been living with for 3 years at that point, and her friend from the theater program, Rebecca.
During those few months between graduation and the big move to the Windy City, my sister gave me an amazing birthday gift: a waffle iron. I had always wanted one. Once I actually had it in my hands, I thought about how often I would actually be making waffles and how you can't just make one waffle, the mix makes three at a time…but that didn't matter. I had more important things to think about, like finding a job, learning about Chicago and, most importantly, making friends.
Moving to a new city takes a lot of emotional and physical work. I knew very few people, and most of whom I did know were acquaintances (mostly my roommate’s friends from the theater world). I had one friend from camp and one from my study abroad program, but going out every night, meeting people and keeping it up had drained me. I quickly learned that getting together with people outside of a college atmosphere was incredibly different. Grabbing dinner seemed to blur the lines between hang out or being considered a date. Was meeting up for drinks or coffee about getting to know the other person and become friends, or did it seem like I was fishing for job advice? Giving each person individualized attention felt like I was interviewing or being interviewed over and over again. It reminded me of speed dating when all I really wanted were friends!
Over the first few weeks of unpacking and organizing our new apartment, I took out the waffle iron and made my roommates waffles for dinner. We sat around and ended up talking about meeting each other's friends, acquaintances and people we wanted to get to know better. A party would be too dramatic and costly, but eventually we found a solution. Waffles! And because we love alliteration, we would host these waffle dinners on Wednesdays.
Waffle Wednesdays began as a bi-monthly potluck-ish meal where we provide the waffles and guests bring a topping of sorts to share. Each dinner was given a theme where waffles were always the star of the meal. They started out small but have grown over time. We make grilled cheese waffles with tomato soup, Fawaffles (falafel mix pressed in the waffle iron) and cornbread waffles with chili, to name a few favorites. Not only is the food great and exciting, but all sorts of people come. We invite our friends, everyone we liked at work, people we meet at events, and friends even bring their friends. We noticed that it made it easier to meet or invite people to a casual group evening activity, like Waffle Wednesdays. Instead of speed dating my way to make friends, these dinners helped me and others create friendships organically.
This bi-monthly ritual my apartment started has become a staple within the community we created for ourselves in Chicago. Our friends look forward to it and we love meeting new people in our warm and delicious atmosphere. In the last few months, these dinners have become less frequent due to many reasons, but we still make it a priority to have them somewhat regularly. Waffle Wednesdays helped me transition into a new city and helped me find and shape a community I feel comfortable, excited about and proud to be part of. It's amazing how a simple waffle iron changed my life. I now more than ever hold fast to the words of the great Leslie Knope, "We need to remember what's important in life: friends, waffles, and work. Or waffles, friends, work. Doesn't matter, but work has to come third."
By Trace Williams
I grew up in the restaurant business, with my Master Chef “Papa” as the father figure in my life, which is much like growing up in a circus family. While most of my friends would go home to their stay-at-home mums’ dinners, I would go to Il Topic, work as a pastry cook and then sit down to a glorious five-star staff meal just about every night. My dinner time family included chefs from Portugal, Spain and Italy, and our “family time” consisted of colorful tales of conquests and passionate arguments over the best way to prepare an exquisite dish. On our days off, Papa would cook at his home (next door to ours) or we would drive an hour to my grandmother’s house for a very proper English Sunday dinner – succulent roasts, Yorkshire puddings, fresh vegetables and always a fabulous cake. Dinner was always a spectacular group event, made and enjoyed with gusto!
And so my love affair with dinner began – not in a traditional sense, but rather with the fascination of trying new things, eating perfect things and the joy of learning to cook them. When it was my turn to cook the staff meal, with every precious resource at my disposal in the vast five-star commercial kitchen, my only thought was pleasing these esteemed chefs. Dinner then was about approval, accomplishment and showing the utmost respect for the ingredients. It didn’t occur to me that it was a social foundation. At that time in my life, dinner was all about winning!
I met my future husband, in a bar in Berkeley nonetheless. He courted me by whisking me away to dinner at a mediocre chain restaurant. I always joke that he had no idea who he was dealing with. As I poked the food around on my plate, I told him that I could cook the dish better. Of course that led to a second date, where I did just that. He tells almost everyone he meets that this is how I won his heart (I thought it was my boobs, but no). After all, he grew up in a household of three Southern women who doted on him and cooked him whatever his little heart desired. He had just found a girl who could cook him whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it – jackpot! We soon moved in together and I cooked dinner every night, always thrilled to watch him enjoy the meal.
My only problem with this situation was that I had no ability to cook for only two people, I was used to cooking for a hundred. No matter what I did to scale it down, we always had a ton of food left. I had taken a break from working as a chef, but it felt like a piece of my soul was missing. This epic problem was solved when a group of eight teachers, straight out of college, moved in next door. One evening, one of them knocked on our door, conveniently around dinner time, to ask what he was smelling. In a flash, dinner time included a sea of men on my living room floor with plates of deliciousness, talking sports, women and music! We made a deal: they would show up with groceries and I would cook dinner. They were always happy and adored me. My life was back in order!
As time went on and my own family grew to five boys, dinner time became a time to connect, share the details of our days and laugh together. It was no longer about cooking to win hearts or earn respect. It was about time for bonding and sharing. Each of our boys takes a turn in choosing what they would like the family to have for dinner, either from our vast collection of cookery books or from a memory of a previous meal. Dinner for my family remains the center of the wheel and is the time I look forward to the most in my day.
As my boys grew older and their friends would visit, I learned that most of them did not have this experience with their families. Many of them ate fast or processed food almost every night. I had no idea that cooking and eating dinner together was not the norm. They were all missing out on a fundamental touchstone to health, family bonding and joy. I decided to join Chef Jamie Oliver’s Food Foundation as an ambassador/evangelist and embarked on a journey to teach and encourage people to cook and enjoy meals together. I work with children and families to teach them where their food comes from and how to cook with ease. My hope is that dinner will once again become a regular part of family life.
In a country and time where obesity, diabetes, and disenfranchised family situations are prevalent, we have to get back to real food, cooking and eating together. Whether your family is comprised of a bunch of burly chefs, hungry friends or five boys and a husband, the experience of connecting, eating well and maybe even a few passionate debates can make a difference! I still aim to win, but now I have an entirely different perspective on the criteria for what winning means.
By Sandra Osorio
My fondest childhood memories were from dinnertime. I loved the smells, the conversation, the closeness I felt to each and everyone at the table. There was a sense of fullness that wasn’t due to the food or amount consumed. It was all about what the food brought together.
The most vivid memories come from our extended family dinners where close to 30 were having dinner in every corner of the house. Standing sitting, it didn’t matter. We were together. To me, this was the REAL, “happiest place on earth.” Disneyland couldn’t hold a candle.
I live far from my parents and siblings now, but I can close my eyes and it all comes flooding back to me. I can’t help but smile. Now, I am an attorney and a home chef with a real passion for food. My zeal for cooking over the years deepened as I eagerly pursued more knowledge and experience in the field, reading every Bon Appetit magazine I could get my hands on and learning from anyone and everyone who had something to teach.
After several months of putting incredible dishes on the table and putting on more than a few pounds, I set out to fulfill another dream to help people and children in need. I attended Hastings College of Law and practiced in the field of litigation and volunteered helping domestic violence victims - all the while continuing to experience the best food the city had to offer.
I gave up the active practice of law when my two children Jessica and Rob were born, opting to spend as much time with them as possible. I shared my passion for cooking with my children and to this day we are side by side in the kitchen sharing laughter, love and creating magical meals and memories when they are home from college.
While I continued practicing law by volunteering for many cases of domestic violence as well as helping to coach law students at Hastings, I never let my passion for cooking die. In my spare time, I learned from different chefs in home kitchens. I took courses at the Culinary Institute of America in St, Helena, California as well as a multitude of classes at Sur La Table in San Francisco where I met Barbara Dimas, a strong, smart woman with a passion for cooking. Barbara urged me on and ultimately I attended short course classes at Le Cordon Bleu in Ottawa, Canada.
In 2011, my daughter was off to college and my son soon to follow. I was having dinner with my husband and told him that I wanted the dream job of having summers, holidays, and weekends off plus a long winter break. I wanted to enjoy every minute with my son and daughter when they were home. I also wanted to stay involved with children and help empower them. I entertained returning to the practice of law but I wanted a more hands-on approach. I wanted to make a bigger difference.
His response was simple. “That job doesn’t exist, so you will just have to create it! Do what you love and do what you know.” It all then became so clear to me – teach kids to cook using real, local, fresh and organic food, and La Petite Cuillère was born. My husband and kids, Jessica and Rob, were my biggest cheerleaders. And I love the La Petite Cuillère team that has come together. Like ingredients, I have surrounded myself with the best, and it really does make a difference.
We have built a wonderful organization that teaches children to cook healthy, wonderful, delicious food. We use only the freshest ingredients while teaching with heart and making it fun. I continually incorporate new insights I get from regular travel and ongoing cooking classes.
And it’s all about empowering children to know they can do i; it’s not hard! I have so many parents ask me, “How did you get him/her to eat that?” I respond, “I just let them make it. If they are actively involved in making the meal, and if it’s FUN, they love to dive in. And, a good chef always tries their own food!” They try it, and they LOVE it! Kids CAN cook and they can make healthy and wholesome choices for themselves. In doing so, they turn their kitchen - our kitchen - into the happiest place on earth.
La Petite Cuillère never feels like work for any of us because we know we are part of a bigger picture – we are a part of the future of each and every one of these kids. We are filling them up (and ourselves as well!) with something that has nothing to do with the actual eating of food. Sound like my fondest memories from childhood? It’s come full circle; a perfect circle.
By Anne Wilson
My 80-something Benedictine nun friend Judith says that we need to feed each other.
She’s not talking about a literal feeding but about what my mother would call “rattling some pots and pans.” Judith says when we do this, we have an intimacy and connectedness that we don't have otherwise. We have a different and important application of love.
This conversation was about 10 years ago and in reference to a dinner club I started. She was urging me to promote participation from everyone, male and female – for their sakes. I thought the concept was odd. Years later, after the small group of 14 weathered 3 divorces, multiple deaths, a bankruptcy and common estrangements, I think I see.
I also see after having numerous dinners with my friend Jan who has been hosting me in her home and "feeding me" for years. I really can’t explain it but Judith is right. It’s almost mystical. Good food spurred long conversations about life and God and politics and family. This sharing and connectedness would not be possible without Jan’s homemade spare ribs, enchiladas, Matzo Ball soup (when I was sick) and mushroom ravioli (when my mother died).
Think about the time when someone cooked something special for you. How did you feel?
Because I grew up in a cook’s home, I had a clue about what Judith was trying to tell me. Cooking was my mother’s creative outlet and she was good at it. Every day was like Christmas dinner. Gorgeous hand-made, heart-driven full-course meals fit for kings and queens. I knew she was making this effort because she loved us. Because she loved me. And she used food to help me feel special. For example, when I returned home from college abroad, I remember the sun streaming in on the beautifully set breakfast room table and the sweet smell of the hot, crisp, golden brown homemade Belgian Waffles with REAL mildly sweetened whipped cream and strawberries prepared in my honor. This isn’t gluttony - even though it may sound like it. This is love. And I felt loved and connected.
I wonder if we could change the world at dinner time? I wonder if more people truly shared dinner if we would be a more connected society with richer relationships. Dr. Guy Wench says in Psychology Today, "Whether you are lonely is not determined by the quantity of your relationships but by their subjective quality -- by the extent to which you perceive yourself to be socially or emotionally isolated. You might live with a spouse or spend your days surrounded by colleagues and yet feel extremely disconnected, empty and unwanted.”
I wonder if he would agree with my version, "Whether you are lonely or not is determined by the quality of your dinner time..."
By Kyrie Robinson
I have a small nuclear family – it’s just me and my twin boys at the dinner table every night. But we have a large extended family and friends network. Parents, step-parents, a brother, a sister, a step-sister, all their spouse/boyfriend/girlfriends, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews and cousins, not to mention my close friends and all their kids. So when Christmas comes around, my shopping list is looooooooong. The last few years instead of a simple list, I had to have a spreadsheet, and a budget, to manage it. There are something like 30 people in my spreadsheet, and it has separate tabs dating from 2006-2012. It’s a massive undertaking to find the right gift for all those people – and yet I love them all, and whom would I skip over?
For Christmas 2012, I did things a little differently. In 2012, I had the idea, waaaaayy back in September, of creating a cookbook. My idea was use one of the various photobook websites like iPhoto or Shutterfly to make a book of our family recipes, with pictures. I can’t claim credit for this idea. I had worked at Shutterfly from 2004-2007, and we had created templates especially for family cookbooks. And my good friend Jeannine (who also worked there) had made one, and I had looked through it one night at her house. Her book was all the passed-around-family-classics – their famous pumpkin pie, their handed-down recipe for sourdough waffles, and so on. She said her family had a habit of all calling each other up when they lost the recipe – “Hey, do you have the recipe for lemon meringue pie?” She had decided to make a book so everyone would have every recipe, safely archived for at least the next 30 years or so.
So I had seen these photo cookbooks before, but somehow in 2012 I had the idea at the right time of year, which is fall, when there is still time to make it. (Don’t kid yourself – these are not quick nor easy to make. There’s a lot of planning, and typing, and gathering the right photos. And the ordering process alone took me several evenings.) But I didn’t realize at the time how much time it would take – it seemed pretty easy to me. So one September night at dinner when I had the idea, I mentioned it to my boys, Andy and Jack.
“Hey, what if we made a cookbook this year and gave it away at Christmas? We could put all our favorite recipes in it. And we could make each recipe and take a picture to put in the book. What do you think?” Nothing gets my boys more excited than the topic of food. Especially while we are already eating food. They dove right in and started suggesting some of their favorites to include.
“Vegetable Soup! Brownies! Big Pop’s Bean Salad!”
Yes, my kids actually like vegetable soup.
No, our brownie recipe is nothing special. It’s the Ghiradelli recipe.
Yes, my father likes to be called Big Pop rather than Grandpa (which he said would make him feel old). And as a side note – my son Jack will eat 3 bowls of that bean salad – he loves it. It makes me proud to have a kid that will eat bean salad.
So anyway, we started this recipe book project. My jobs were to
* Make the list of recipes
* Write the recipes
* Shop for the food
* Cook the food (most of it)
* Take photos of the food
* Put the recipes and the photos into iPhoto and make the book
* Make a schedule so that all of this could happen in time to order the books.
* Type all the addresses into iPhoto (for the out of town folks)
* Order the books
* Wrap the books (for the in-town folks)
Andy and Jack’s jobs were to:
* Eat the food
* Pose in the photos eating the food.
Hmmm.
Well, who cares how much work it was? We got to eat some of our favorite dishes, and I got to learn about close-up food photography (not as easy as it looks). We took photos at the farmer’s market, photos of us making the food (Andy was proud of his brownies!), photos of boys eating food with giant smiles and taking huge bites, photos of us looking at poisonous mushrooms in the forest (for the mushroom tarts). And as we sat at dinner eating each one of our creations, we’d talk about how our family and friends would just love this cookbook. Or we’d reminisce about where a recipe came from, or who invented it.
One night I told the story of my warm black bean dip. “One night Aunty Beth was visiting me….” This was way back in ’98, before my boys were born. (Why do children love stories about before they were born?) Aunty Beth and I somehow got the idea to make a bean dip. Why? Where did this idea come from? I have no idea. But I do remember standing with her in my teeny tiny 6’ x 10’ pre-remodel-kitchen, opening cabinets and finding beans, vinegar, spices, onions, and completely making up this recipe. It’s the kind of thing I might not have done by myself. I’m more of a follow-the-recipe, cookbook kind of person. It’s also a kind of random dish – warm beans, slightly mashed, with onions and spices – it’s not a smooth puree like a Trader Joe’s bean dip you might buy. And it’s not like mild refried beans that you might put in a burrito. It’s delicious with chips dipped in, and it’s good with guacamole, so it’s kind of like a snack. But it’s warm, like a homecooked meal. You’d never find it in a restaurant. “Warm black bean dip.” What is that? But I love it, and it has a story, so into the cookbook it goes.
Plenty of the recipes in our cookbook are really more like stories. One page is “Andy’s homemade lemonade.” If you actually need help from a recipe making lemonade, you really need help.
So why put this recipe in? Because the photos tell the story of my twins when they were 5, doing their favorite activity of making a lemonade stand, and then counting the money at our old dining room table – they made $14. They then turned proudly to me and pushed the money towards me, declaring they wanted me to have it for “our new house” that we were about to build.
So there we are in 2012, actually sitting in our new house – which cost a bit more than $14 – and sitting around our larger dining room table, eating dinner and reminiscing about lemonade stands as we plan our recipe book.
~~~~
When my friends and family all received their recipe books that year, the results were immensely gratifying. Aside from the fact that I didn’t have to shop for 30 unique gifts, there was the fact that everyone loved them. People love personal gifts, handmade gifts. I could not possibly ever manage 30 different handmade gifts, but one gift, printed 30 times, I can do. And most of my family and friends also love gifts about food. I felt like I’d finally managed to find a gift that people really, truly loved.
I am thinking of doing it again this year. Family Recipes, volume 2. It will give us something to talk about around the dinner table.
By Ashley McCormack
As a child, I sometimes remember getting frustrated by how tediously my dad worked to make a meal look perfect. He could never just put food down on your plate. Instead, he arranged it beautifully, often wiping the edges of the plate, all while you stood there salivating, eagerly awaiting him to hand it back for you to take it to the table to devour. One day, I impatiently asked him why it mattered, pointing out it was just me eating the food and I was not a fancy guest nor would I judge his presentation. He replied, "Because first, you taste with your eyes."
It took me a minute but I instantly understood and appreciated him for this explanation. I loved that he took pride in each meal he served, even for his young children. It communicated to me that every meal I eat should be fully appreciated, from how delicious it tastes to how delicious it looks. And he is completely right: a beautiful meal just tastes better. As a chef, he was trained to do this and he passed this insight to me. And as part of making such an effort around preparing meals, my dad, along my mom who is a great cook in her own right and cooked often, instilled in me the value of good healthy food. They showed what a gift mealtime is: an important way to nourish both your body and your soul.
Eating in my childhood house was, and still is, always an experience. It is waking up in the morning, sitting at the island in our kitchen with my mom, both of us still yawning as we acclimate to the morning, watching, mystified, as my dad (who has undoubtedly been up for at least three hours) scavenges through the fridge, pulls out random food and somehow creates a masterpiece of deliciousness, pairing flavors and leftovers that the normal you and me could never make look appetizing. And we were always served a plate with SO much food piled on that it could feed an army. My dad is extremely generous and does not understand small - or even edible - portions. (It is an important aside that my dad is a very small, fit man - about 5'6'' and weighing probably 160 pounds. But he can eat more than anyone I know.)
And eating at my house always means sitting at the table, everyone served with beautiful warm food, smelling and looking mouth-watering, while my dad runs around, putting that final touch on each plate and pouring one more person a glass of water, or most classically, trying to find a match to light the candles on the table. In fact, no meal is complete in the McCormack household until my dad has lit candles, even in the middle of the summer when light remains outside. And after our meal is done, we sit at the table for an inordinate amount of time because there is always more to say and laugh about long after we have finished eating.
Growing up, busy was the only way you could describe our house. I am the oldest of three siblings. All of us were actively engaged in sports and our home was the constant host to any and all friends and extended family. But no matter how much was going on, we almost always sat down and ate dinner as a family. Sometimes that didn't include my dad if he was working. Sometimes that didn't include one child who was still at soccer practice or horseback riding. But everyone who was home sat and ate dinner together. If you came home late, a plate was saved for you and my mom would sit with you while you ate your dinner, asking about your day, because she doesn't think that people should eat dinner alone. Because of this, I still hate eating alone. When alone, I miss the amazing opportunity to connect with people, debrief and decompress from the day.
There are numerous studies that stress the importance of family dinners and suggest family dinners are highly correlated with raising happy, healthy, successful, well-adjusted children. This may sound like a stretch, but when you think about it, it makes sense. When I reflect on my childhood family dinners, the only feelings I recall are love and happiness. I cannot remember us ever arguing or fighting at the dinner table. But I do remember telling both good and bad stories of things that happened during our days, learning things about my siblings or relatives I wouldn’t have otherwise known, talking about the news, and most importantly lots of laughter.
When I first moved to California, I lived with my aunt and uncle's family who also values the importance of family dinners. At the start of dinner, they often go around and share the best part of their day, a tradition I love. I love saying what you are thankful for before you eat. I love pausing in front of a nourishing, delicious (hopefully) meal and reflecting on how fortunate you are to be sitting with people you (hopefully) love. On many occasions, I’ve adopted this practice with friends and it always sparks interesting and heartwarming conversation.
As I’ve grown up, my thoughts about food have evolved. I’ve learned about organics and GMOs. I’ve decided that the microwave might be my enemy. And I refuse to store my food in plastic containers or cook in Teflon pans. But my love of homemade food (particularly with all the butter and salt needed) and my love of eating with friends and family has stayed rooted in me since my meals on Drill Field Court. The best part of most of my days is having dinner with loved ones. My favorite part of visiting home is enjoying long dinners with my family. And of course, I cannot bring myself to serve a meal that is not aesthetically pleasing, never forgetting that you first eat with your eyes.
By Kyrie Robinson
Eating Warm Black Bean Dip and guacamole and chips for dinner is also a wonderful, two-single-girls-hanging-out kind of dinner. A kind of “what the heck – I can eat this if I want” kind of dinner. Like when you just come home late, immediately turn on the TV to watch “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and eat cheese and crackers.
Does this kind of a meal have a place for a family? Or does this fly in the face of the aspired-to dinnertime culture that brings families together and gathers us around the dinner table?
I have twin boys – they are 10. As the mom, it’s my job to set the rules. Set the standards we will aspire to. Set the values that matter. Food is an inevitable part of this, from the very first food decision of breastfeeding and it just keeps going from there. No one else is going to feed your kid. That’s pretty much at the top of the list of “Parent Jobs.”
1. Feed the kid.
2. …
Whether you feed them restaurant food, fast food, packaged food, homemade food, or hire a chef, you are making choices. If you are lucky, you have choices and can make them to reflect your values. Do we eat meat? Do we eat kosher? Do we eat organic? Do we eat in or eat out? Will we shop at the local farmer’s market? How often? Should I avoid milk with growth hormones, gluten, sugar? Will we eat together, at the table? Is eating pizza together on the couch and watching a movie OK? Is it okay if the pizza is homemade? What if the pizza is homemade, but I bought the crust?
Too many choices! Sometimes I need to cut corners, if only to have time for other parenting like homework, or the school play. In the never-ending cultural quest for personal health and social responsibility, I can get caught up on the dinner menu: “Where’s the protein? We need a vegetable! We need a starch.” But if you try to do that every night, you go nuts. Or at least, I do.
Yet to turn from “homemade, sit down dinner” to fast food, frozen food, microwave food – well it feels like defeat to me to do that more than once a month. It’s not the values I want to pass on. So I try to find meals that are still real food, still somehow created in my kitchen, but dead simple for the nights when you are sick, or tired, or you only have an hour between play rehearsal and cub scouts to make dinner, eat, and clean up.
One night we had bread and milk and blackberries for dinner. (Hint: Beatrix Potter). My son Andy is often happy with cutting up an apple and eating a bowl of Trader Joe’s High Fiber Low Fat Whole Grain Organic O’s. I can live with that. A dinner of leftover Warm Black Bean Dip with chips and salsa is also fine with me.
