essay sunday dinner

A few weeks ago we sent out one of our bi-monthly E-Newsletters with a request for stories written by our readers on the theme of The Family Dinner. The contest was inspired by The Family Dinner cookbook by Laurie David, a book full of not just delicious recipes but also (and we think even more importantly) full of great reasons to sit down and enjoy a home cooked meal with loved ones. The winning story would receive a signed copy of the cookbook for their kitchen library! We we're thrilled to receive a number of entries full of great stories–from fiction to memoir, some made us laugh, others made us teary and some inspired us to call our moms. So thanks to all you readers who entered for your inspired tales of how much dinner traditions can really mean. Here is the winning story! Sunday Family Dinners by Courtney Gilbert With more than a decade between the eldest and the youngest children in my family, growing up there were few things we held in common. On a regular day, there was only so much my older brothers could take hearing about my most recent boy band crush or school girl drama. Nor did I have much interest in their discussions of computers or the political matters that were beyond the understanding of a tween girl.On Sundays though, an hour or two before sunset, a transformation occurred in our home. The long table in our kitchen, whose job day to day was to hold mail and unfinished homework, as well as be a quick pit stop for filling empty bellies, shifted into something much more. Dressed nicely with linen placemats and napkins, the long table became the setting for a family ritual that somehow, in an almost magical way, quieted the differences between us just enough so we could share a meal and get to know each other. My father at the head of the table was generally a serious man, but became the jovial story-teller for the evening on Sundays. With every.
My boy eats cantaloupe in the night glow of lamplight. Juice shimmers in his neck hollows and slides down his tawny belly. Teeth sink into soft ripe flesh, sweetness gurgles across lips, splashes onto the oak floor. My boy, like the melon, is luscious and golden, perfect and summery. I want to snort in the scent of his musky hair, drink him in, my own lush fruit, innocent and sweet.My husband strides in with news that breaks my idyll. A cantaloupe crisis. Listeria. Recall. Hospital admissions. Symptoms appear two to four weeks after eating. Flu-like aches and fever, maybe septicemia, meningitis, spontaneous abortion, even death.If I put my fingers in my ears and hum a happy tune, will the threat go away?I love to hear my children slurping and purring at the trough of untidy eating, the decadent joy of politeness abandoned in the privacy of home—sucking up strands of spaghetti, mopping sauce, licking melted ice cream from the bowl. Cooking, eating, and sharing food with my family is a primal act. Transubstantiation—the mother transfers the goodness of leaf and flank to make her children robust. All the joys of fresh food: herby and smelling of dirt and cut grass. Tender salad leaves and cherry tomatoes, plump and melty meat. I set the table for dinner with a cotton cloth and napkins and pink coneflowers from the garden. The candles flicker across the prairie blooms, illuminating our family of four as we eat and talk. These moments of communion are as fleeting and precious as quicksilver, snatched between soccer and school, work and play. If one of our highest goods is pleasure, let us share it at the table. La dolce vita. Dinner is our magical campfire in the suburbs.But I worry, I fret. What strange hurts hide in the lettuce, the strawberries, the chicken, the melon, the spinach? What dark poisons may turn the eating violent? Will I undo my children with my soups, my.
Laurie David loves sitting down to dinner with her family. Now, the environmentalist, Academy Award-winning producer, and mother of two is sharing what she's learned in her new cookbook, The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect with Your Kids, One Meal at a Time (Grand Central Life & Style). Part recipe collection, part parenting treatise, it's sure to become a kitchen essential. Here, in an essay exclusive to Grandparents.com, David explains why the intergenerational connection is important to a family's health and well-being. The tradition of family dinners is based on thousands of years of our ancestors sharing food while sitting together around a fire, a dining table, or a kitchen nook. This was a core American value beloved and practiced by everyone. Our grandparents knew instinctually that the healthiest way to raise children was to offer home-cooked simple food, meat in moderation, and ingredients such as lettuce, onions, and carrots, which were often grown in the backyard. Dinner was non-negotiable. You came to the table, you practiced manners, you told stories, you laughed, and everyone helped clean up. Of course, if you were my Grandma Minnie, you also almost always forgot a side dish in the oven or in the fridge! My grandmother's name is now part of a verb in my family — we call it doing a Minnie. So no book about family dinner would be complete, or even make sense for that matter, without a heartfelt homage to our parents and grandparents, who knew the importance of sharing a meal. Grandparents, aunts, and uncles are among our most important natural resources, and we shouldn't take any of them for granted. You have the time, love, patience, and experience that our children need and crave. And you are the keepers of a treasure that is so important to pass on — our family histories. This is no small thing. The power and importance of retelling family.
Mealtimes are when children learn family values and families develop their culture Eating together as a family is more important today than in the past because there are more competing distractions, more choices of activities outside the home, and a constant bombardment of information from modern technology. During the day most of us are out in the community mixing with all kinds of people. Our children are learning about the world from many sources, often without parental filters or input. Even when everyone is home, individuals do their own thing. Perhaps the only opportunity of the day to talk with each other is at the dinner table. Children in today’s busy world need a shared, safe space to discuss ideas within the understanding company of family, and parents need a routine time to connect with kids. The way it was I would like to share what family dinners mean to me. When I was growing up in rural northern California, I could always count on meeting my parents and two sisters at the maple dinner table around 6:30. We all helped getting dinner ready and would sit down together. For at least half an hour we would discuss how our day had gone, talked about matters which concerned us, and made future family plans. After a busy day our evening meal was a chance to gather our little tribe around the table and reconnect with each other. This pleasant time seemed like a reward for the day’s hard work. Dining was about “us”, rather than the “I” so many families have evolved to cater to. There wasn’t a separate menu for each person. Even the babies had whatever we adults ate, just pureed or minced. If someone didn’t like something they were given a dab, just in case this was the day it suddenly tasted good, which often happened. As kids, we were most enthusiastic about the dishes we had a part in producing. Conversation was spontaneous and unpredictable, although negative.
Family Dinners By Lucy Hester age: 17 For the first eight or ten years of my life, dinner began the same way. My mom would tell my brother and me to bow our heads, and together my family would recite the dinner prayer. “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food. Amen.” I do not remember being taught this prayer, but I do remember not knowing the right words. For a long time, I thought the dinner prayer was said in a foreign language. Nightly, I would bow my head and recite with confidence, “Goddace grace, Goddace goo, lettuce thanken forrar foon. Amen.” We ate dinner in a kitchen with blue and white linoleum floors. My dad picked out this pattern when my parents first bought our house. He liked it for the UK colors. Our table was an eight-sided phenomenon that was attached to the wall on two sides and supported by a single pole in the center. Each person had an assigned seat. My father sat next to the wall on which the telephone hung. If it rang during dinner, he answered with a resounding “Hesters’,”—never a hello—and asked whoever was on the other line to please call back later, because we were eating. I sat next to him and next to me sat my brother. My mother’s seat, by the other wall, was considered to be the worst because from it there was no clear view of the fourteen-inch television that sat on our table. My family has always eaten dinner with the television on. On the nights when my father was home and the whole family was eating together, we watched the news. We always turned to NBC and watched Tom Brokaw, because my dad liked him better than Dan Rather. I understood little about politics or world events, and I asked too many questions, but during the commercials my dad explained anything I was curious about. From him, I learned how the stock market works and the difference between Republicans and Democrats. I asked many of the same questions.