bringing dinner back

“People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas.” — author unknown

As the beginning of a new year seems the time for such musings, here’s what I’ve learned in 61 days of bringing dinner back:

1. Hot chocolate and cookies can be a family meal. So can tacos in a vinyl booth at Jack in the Box, leftovers at 9:30 pm, and chili in front of a UT game.

2. Food connects people — whether it’s a warm soup delivered to a sick friend that’s dropped off but never shared together, a dining room full of people from different cultures who have no common ground to start with other than the food they’re enjoying, Santa and his reindeer enjoying a snack left by a child in warm holiday PJs, or the four of us sitting in the same old kitchen, day after day.

3. Boys and forks are not friends.

4. One still gains weight over the holidays even if one is eating with good intentions.

5. I am incredibly blessed to have a husband, children, family and friends who just roll with things when I come up with crazy ideas like we’re going to eat together every day for 53 weeks. Especially my husband, who has cooked more than his fair share of breakfasts these past two months.

6. Family breakfasts — which were a once-a-week event pre-blog — are fun. Even on weekdays. Even if we have to get up 15 minutes early.

7. Boys are physically incapable of eating at the dinner table with all four legs of a chair on the ground.

8. Making a complete menu every Sunday for every day of the week — taking into consideration schedules, weather, workload, and budget — makes eating together daily so much easier. I also enjoy watching Sawyer read said list (which is on our refrigerator at the beginning of each week) and almost salivate when he sees pork chops or steak on the menu.

9. Taking pictures at your meals amuses your children and makes you think a bit more about presentation.

10. Meat makes three-fourths of my family incredibly happy.

11. Memorable vegetarian dishes take an inordinate amount of time if you’re trying to recreate a “meat” feel (vegetarian shepherd’s pie) or take no time at all if you just go with simple, seasonal, flavorful ingredients (Spanish tortilla or fresh pasta, summer tomatoes and basil, fresh mozzarella and your favorite olive oil).

12. You can tell how close your friends are by how casual the dinner can be. Can you bring half a bottle of wine? Leftover mashed potatoes? Can you eat on the living room floor, put out a roll of paper towels as linens, or double dip if you have no obvious signs of illness? Everyone with whom you take the time to share a meal is special. But these are the people whom you should cherish most.

Half a cherry pie and 12 1/2 candles for the 12 1/2-year-old

13. Half birthdays are one of my favorite celebrations. We have them twice a year for the boys. Half a cake (or pie or whatever we can at least try to divide in half), no gifts, nobody else invited (unless they just happen to be here), the half-birthday song (the birthday song with “half” thrown in), and the traditional number of candles depending on the years plus one cut in half. It’s a no-fuss, yummy tradition in our family.  A simple pleasure. How many of those do we have in our lives anymore?

14. Handing food to someone who’s hungry fills a visceral need in them of which they are acutely aware — and one in me I often forget.

15. One of us being gone (which Noah has been this past week) seems more odd at dinnertime than it used to. Somewhere in that feeling is the point, I think.