Any cookbook can teach you
how to make dinner, but only one will tell you how to get your whole family
around the table! In “The Family Dinner,” Laurie David—an environmental activist and the producer of
the Academy Award-winning film “An Inconvenient Truth”— shares ideas for meaningful dinner
hours with kids, complete with conversation starters, table games and 75
kid-approved recipes. “With sitting down comes conversation,” David says, “and
if you’re doing that, you’re ahead of the game.” Even for busy parents who
might fall back on takeout or pizza, David suggests, “don’t serve it in plastic
containers—serve it in bowls or have a picnic on the floor. Do things that don’t
take a lot of time, but that will make your meal memorable.” The book features
delicious, quick and easy dinner recipes (such as chicken piccata with crispy
smashed potatoes and maple-glazed salmon with edamame succotash) as well as
ideas to get kids involved in cooking and nutrition. What’s more, celeb foodies
like Mario Batali and
Jamie Oliver offer their expert advice for fun meals and
memories of their own family dinners. Divided into chapters like “Meatless
Mondays,” “Kids In The Kitchen” and “Take It Slow,” the book is sure to have an
inspired solution to every family’s dinner table dilemma. ($29.99, Amazon.com.)
What was your own experience for nightly dinners like
growing up? Did you try and create a similar or different environment for your
daughters?
Well when I became a parent I really wanted to not repeat
history, because my family dinners overall were not that great. I give my mom
credit for making dinner every night – but there was always a lot of tension at
the table…somebody would ultimately end up crying and racing from the table, or
there was a lot of pressure to eat foods that we didn’t like. I think as a
parent I really wanted to do things a little differently for my family.
It’s often hard to get kids of greatly differing ages
interested in the same topics of conversation, or even the same foods. How do
you get your whole family to interact?
I’ve had 2 year-olds to teenagers to every age in between,
and if you throw out something to the table, you’re going to
get all kinds of different responses, and they’re going to involve everybody. If
you go around the table, and everybody says if they like their name or not, and
where their name comes from, and what would they name themselves if they could
– that is a question that any age kid can answer.
In terms of food, my philosophy has always been make food
for the family and not for the kids. And because that’s how my kids have always
eaten, they’ve become fantastic eaters.
For some busy moms the time is just too tight for home
cooked dinners, and take-out or pizza is what ends up on the table. Is what we
eat just as important as being together?
I think the most important thing, number one, is sitting
down… that doesn’t require any home cooking. With sitting down comes
conversation, and if you’re doing that, you’re ahead of the game. Get the
healthiest take out you can get, serve it in bowls, or have a picnic on the
floor – do things that don’t take a lot of time, but that will make the meal
memorable. Show your family this is an important time.
Use your weekends well: You can spend Sunday afternoon
having fun cooking in the kitchen, and have meals for half your week done. Or split
nights with your friends and family – I do taco Tuesday at my house with my friend
and her kids every week, and then she does Friday Shabbat dinner. That’s two
great meals that we’re having, great home-cooked food.
The biggest battle in today’s technological age may not
be getting everyone to the table – but getting them to put away their ipods,
cell phones and other gadgets. How can you compete?
Do not compete with it. Parents need to put their foot down
– no screens of any kind at the table. If you even see someone touching their
cell phone in their pocket at the table, they have to give you that phone…and
your kids do not want you to have their phone. You enforce that rule once or
twice, you’ll never have a problem with it again.
There’s so much more that goes into dinner than eating –
how can you get your kids involved in preparing and even picking out what foods
they eat?
Get your kids helping in some way, because if they
participate in the meal in some way they‘re going to take ownership of it. I
really encourage parents to include them in the process – there’s a whole
chapter on really simple recipes that they can make and feel great about
themselves. Even if you have them cutting herbs or whatever they do, get them
involved and they’ll take ownership of it and they’ll eat better.
The idea of a daily family dinner can be daunting for
families used to fast-paced city life, who are constantly on the go. How can
you ease gently into a routine of eating and talking together?
Star doing it once or twice a week and then go from there.
If you can’t do it during the week, do it on the weekends, make Sunday brunch
your family ritual, or Sunday dinner. If you can’t do dinner, do breakfasts –
as a time to connect, and talk about your day. You can do a ritual before-bedtime
tea with your kids. If you start to do these rituals, it’s going to make your
life easier, not harder. You’re going to know what your kids are eating,
they’re going to be eating healthier, they’re going to be feeling better, and
you’re all going to know how each other feel. Everybody has to eat anyway, it’s
something we’re already doing, so we might as well be getting the benefits from
it, which are enormous. Everything a parent worries about can be improved by
sitting down to a regular meal, from drugs to alcohol to academic achievement.
What other cookbooks can you recommend for busy moms –
and dads?
I love everything that Jamie Oliver does, and Alice Waters
too, so they are both on regular rotation in my kitchen. Also I interviewed
tons of well known chefs for this book, and they’re all people that I admire,
Mario Batali, Tal Ronnen, Cat Cora, all the other people that I love out
there.
The environment has been one of your champion causes –
how does it play a role in family dinners?
Every single thing that I care about crosses the dinner
plate. Everything, including the issue of global warming – agriculture is one
of the top contributors to global warming, which is one of the reasons that I
have a chapter on meatless Mondays. The kitchen is the greenest room in the
house, to teach those values and practice them yourself. All those food issues
– the fact that we don’t eat food in season any more, the fact that our food
travels thousands of miles to get to our kitchen, the fact that we throw away
so much food, the fact that we’re using so much plastic – all these issues,
these are all green issues, they all cross the dinner plate. It’s the perfect
place for me to be paying attention to.
As you know, divorce can make it difficult to keep family
dinners going – how can you move past it and still make each evening
meaningful?
Half of all marriages end up in divorce – I really want to
encourage people who are going through this miserable experience to not drop
their rituals. That’s the first thing that goes. The ritual family dinner got
me reconnected to my ex – my best advice is to keep having family dinner; you’re
still a family, but the shape of your family is changing. Dinner will provide
the safety and security your kids need at that time. Plus, lean on your family
and friends and invite them to dinner with your family. You will get a little
happy cheer around the table again, and get back on your feet and continuing in
life.
