Long Live the Dinner Table

A teacher friend of mine told me recently that almost universally, her most well-adjusted students have two things in common: they talk about current events at home, and they eat regular meals around the dinner table.

I can see the logic of both of those, but especially the dinner table. Growing up, we ate dinner at the table just about every night, with conversation and no TV. It was non-negotiable, and I was under the impression that all families ate that way.

This is not to say that those who ate on TV trays in the family room are any less well-adjusted, or that simply shoveling food while in the same proximity as your family members makes you a better human being.

What it does do is open up an opportunity to talk to your loved ones, and in this time of snatched moments between sleep and shower, or quick recaps just before bed, I think we could all use a little more time to converse. If you think about it, when we want to catch up with our friends, what do we generally do? We eat. Sometimes at restaurants, sometimes in our homes, but whatever the setting, we circle up, grab a plate of food, and talk.

The same theory applies at home. Certainly we can still talk while sitting together on the couch, but there is something comfortable about looking across the table at someone, asking about their day between forkfuls. Right now, of course, there is nothing of the idyllic dining room scene that I envision. At our current table, dinner is a forty-five-minute affair with a toddler who likes to watch food swim in his milk and a preschooler who does not actually eat, but rather, chews her cud.

But someday, when Chef Matt is home for dinner more often, and the kids are a little bigger, I hope that we will gather around our worn dining room table and catch up over a hot dish. Even when they are teenagers and do not want to look at me, much less talk to me, at least I can look around that table and see all my favorite people, assuring them that this will make them well-adjusted and someday they will thank me for it.

And since it is likely long overdue ... thanks, Mom and Dad.

Six O'Clock is the New Midnight

A few hours ago, our house was ringing with the sounds of a dozen yelling, running children celebrating at our inaugural New Year's Eve Kids' Ball. They decorated cookies, thundered up and down our hallways, and jumped on bubble wrap under a balloon drop at "midnight."

It was a new threshold for New Year's. This has always been one of my favorite holidays, full of nostalgia and promise and champagne. For many years, I spent the night drinking with my girlfriends at New Year's parties, and in 2003, I walked into a party and saw a man standing in the kitchen who would later make a Kitchen Widow out of me.

But tonight, New Year's shifted focus and was about my kids. It was a turning point, just like the first night you bring your newborn home and realize that good sleep is gone, or when you realize that Christmas is absolutely not about you anymore. Part of the shift was just out of necessity; I am too old to crash on someone's floor after drinking keg beer out of a plastic cup until three in the morning. I am almost too old for going out, period.

Our New Year's traditions changed as soon as we had kids. We stayed in and went to bed early. But something always felt empty. I did not necessarily miss throngs of people or a New Year's Day hangover, but I missed the air of celebration.

I am reluctant to let go of New Year's forever, though. So instead, I will channel my love of New Year's into my children. We will forgo the champagne for sparkling juice, we will do the big countdown at six instead of midnight, we will play with balloons and toys, we will be noisy in that joyful way that children have. We will end the year as happily as we spent it.

As I sit awaiting the ball drop, alone with my champagne and pondering the resolutions I will quickly break, I am content in our new manner of celebration. It was a great thrill for my kids ... and you cannot get a headache from sparkling apple cider.

'Twas the Treats Before Christmas

'Twas three days before Christmas,
And all through our home,
Our diets were dying,
No one's worse than my own.

The children were sleeping,
All cozy and sweet,
As their tummies digested,
Yet more holiday treats.

I in my slippers,
And Chef Matt in his shorts,
Were attempting to fend off
Another sugary course.

And then arose from the kitchen
Quite a deafening chorus.
The stashes of treats shouted:
"Please don't ignore us!"

"You know that you want us,
The cookies and fudge,
We'll be here 'til New Year's,
We're not going to budge.

"Don't stick to your diet,
Now that's just not living,
Haven't you baked six whole pies
Since the week of Thanksgiving?

"The potlucks and gatherings
Over the last long five weeks,
Have certainly filled out
Your waists and your cheeks.

"But what wondrous treats!
What chocolates, what cakes!
It is the sweet delicacies
That a good holiday makes.

"Cake pops and mints,
And peanut butter kisses,
Frosted sugar cookies,
Full of butter, and delicious.

"The New Year is your chance
To keep the calories at bay,
To go back to vegetables
And hide the Crisco away.

"But it's almost Christmas,
A time for family and peace,
And gratuitous indulgence
In all manner of sweets.

"So eat up, my friends,
Give up your noble fight,
And a merry Christmas to you,
And to all a sweet night!"

Finding Fellowship in Coffee Addiction

Lately, life has been reminding me, in all kinds of creative ways, that coffee is crucial to my survival on this Earth. Without it, I just might shrink down into a barely functional, unsociable grouch.

Normally, I am a very moderate person. I can summon the willpower to say "no" to another drink, to a dessert I do not need, to a pair of shoes on sale. And when I am pregnant, I can turn away from a morning cup of coffee with little distress.

But once that baby is born, all bets are off. Coffee calls to me, a siren song of warm, aromatic comfort that brings to mind nothing less wonderful than a quiet, sunny Saturday breakfast in fuzzy slippers. Some mornings at work, I have to distract myself with mindless inbox cleaning simply so I will not get up, head downstairs, and fill my cup for a third time within an hour.

Recently, coffee has been coming at me from all angles, taunting me into drinking far more caffeine than a human should consume in a day. First, the Christmas season brings with it irresistible, frothy, chocolate-y confections from coffee chains, waving down from billboards in their whipped-cream splendor. They are more dessert than coffee, true, but it is that bitter taste of espresso amidst the chocolate that forces me to fork over five dollars without hesitation.

Second, a recent bit of historical education on the Civil War built a kinship between me and those soldiers, who were apparently addicted to coffee. So intent were they on getting their fix that they ground their beans using filthy socks and the butt of their rifles, and they were known to hastily chew coffee beans if they were heading into battle and did not have time to brew. I suppose when your choice is between coffee and water from some suspect source, dirty-sock coffee is the way to go.

And finally, tomorrow would have been my grandma's 82nd birthday, a luminous, gracious woman who always had a pot of coffee on, and sometimes two. It was a rare moment at her house when she did not have a cup nearby, and for me, coffee-drinking and the contentment it brings is synonymous with the feeling that all is well and that Grandma is just around the corner, finding extra blankets or frosting up some cinnamon rolls. 

Coffee seems to catch memories in its steam. It transcends time and geography and situation, settling comfortably in bustling cafes and Civil War camps and grandmas' kitchens, and sometimes when I clutch my warm mug, I can sense the kindred spirits holding their own cups, mulling over their lives and pasts alongside me. It is the addiction I cannot shake, but I think I am in good company.

All That Comforts Us

I think if my kids had to choose between me and macaroni and cheese, they would choose macaroni and cheese.

When I pull the box out of the cupboard, suddenly there is my daughter beside me, as if she heard the slight rattle of the dry noodles from the other side of the house. And my son, when presented with a bowl, shoves macaroni in his mouth two handfuls at a time and spends several minutes digging every single dropped noodle out of the crevices of his high chair.

I love macaroni and cheese as much as the next person, and I know that it is a staple of the Kid Diet, but it is amazing to me that they would eat it every single day when I take such great pains to expose them to all the wonderment of foods like risotto and shepherd's pie. I think what it comes down to is that, more than any other food, macaroni and cheese is their comfort food.

Everyone has a food or three that acts as a bit of a band-aid for the soul. Mine are all tethered to childhood, to the memory of a warm house and my family around the table. I remember coming home from school and spotting the crock pot on the counter and knowing the best night ever was ahead: stroganoff over egg noodles. And having "What's for dinner?" answered with "meatloaf," and suddenly the day did not seem so bad. And eyeing a huge Thanksgiving bowl of my favorite comfort food: buttery, lumpy mashed potatoes drowning in gravy.

The very reason it is called "comfort food" is that it is comforting, not only to our bellies but to our minds. Food has a fantastic power to recall, for good and for bad, and our comfort foods bring on a pleasant feeling that is a little "I just had a massage/large drink/chat with my best friend" and a little "sleepy food coma," and perhaps a little "eating this makes me remember the best of my past."

Maybe my kids just really like eating macaroni and cheese. Or maybe it makes them just a little bit happier than usual, and in 30 years, when they pull out the blue box for their own kids, they will remember when their mommy used to make their favorite meal for them, in a warm house with family around the table.

La Belle Vie, Indeed

Five years ago this week, Chef Matt and I said our vows in a grand cathedral, opened some presents, and flew to Italy, where we ate like gluttons and drank like kings. Every year around our anniversary, we honor the memory of Bella Italia and find an Italian restaurant where we can pretend, for a few hours, that when we walk out the door we will be back in Rome.

This year, we diverted a bit and visited a restaurant that has been on our "to-eat" list since before our wedding: La Belle Vie, a restaurant that graces the top of most local dining lists and has the price tag to prove it. A fortunate twist of events granted us the privilege of a special tasting menu, offered by a chef who is something of an inspiration to my husband. The restaurant gods had granted us a blessing.

It was a menu that, in many ways, inched close to the French Laundry. We ate dishes I could never have imagined, such as foie gras cheesecake and lamb stuffed with blood sausage, and reveled in the transformation of the everyday chicken and trout into something quite magical.

As it always is when we are at fancy restaurants, the pleasure is not only in the food, but in watching Matt adore his craft. We spent much of the night talking about food -- how much we love it, our top five meals of all time, how it personifies our relationship in a lot of ways -- and although by the end of the night my wine flight had caught up with me and I cannot quite recall everything we discussed, I do remember feeling very happy.

Marriage, on a daily basis, is hard. I can see why the commitment can be daunting, and there are moments that certainly test us. But we have made it a priority to take pleasure in each other's company at every opportunity, and to find joy in what the other person loves. It may sound flighty in the face of financial hardship, difficult parenting, and the other trials of marriage, but joy is what we always come back to, and it sustains us.

On our actual anniversary, we spent most of the day apart, shared a frozen pizza after the kids went to bed, and watched "Iron Chef" on TV. Our two vastly different dining experiences revealed a universal truth about marriage: you have brilliant moments within days of ordinary, but if you can find joy in both, then I think you have found "happy."

Is That a Vegetable Under All Those Condiments?

I am slowly coming to the conclusion that children are genetically disposed to hate vegetables.

I never thought I would be the mother who said that. I was certain that our great love of food would pass cleanly into our offspring's DNA, and if we presented our children with a variety of vegetables from birth, surely they would grow up preaching to their little preschool friends about the wonders of kale and broccoli.

This is, at least thus far, not the truth at all. I remember watching our daughter and older son slurp up their squash, much as our little guy does now, and proudly determine that we were raising uncomplaining vegetable-eaters. A few years later, I think it will come down to complete deprivation of any other food except vegetables to make them eat anything but peas.

And oh, how we have tried to make vegetables exciting. We cook every kind imaginable, especially considering our community-sponsored agriculture share this summer, as well as the friendly staples of corn and carrots. We (and when I say we, I mean me and Chef Matt) eat a lot of asparagus, green beans and peppers, and we have a newfound love of turnips, beets and kohlrabi, and in many cases, we make every attempt to hide the "vegetable-ness" of these delicious foods so they will actually get past our kids' mouths and into their stomachs.

My first tries were amateur. Butter and garlic, butter and garlic, butter and garlic. But when that failed to entice them, I tried cheese, heavy cream, lemon juice, and bread crumbs. When that did not work, I pureed carrots and layered them in lasagna, and I hid finely chopped Brussels sprouts in pasta. Finally, I pulled out the big guns and cooked gratins and fritters and even disguised various root vegetables as French fries.

It was during the kohlrabi-as-French-fries episode that I found victory in its most unsophisticated form: ketchup. If I allow the kids to douse their vegetables in ketchup, they will almost always try whatever is on their plate. They might try one, kind of swallow, and not eat any more, but maybe the veggies' close proximity to their faces emits enough nutrients to actually get in their resistant little selves. Last night, I hit a new low when I gave in and allowed our son to use ketchup on his salad.

Someday, the lightbulb might go off and they will suddenly decide that they just cannot get enough spinach. I take heart in the fact that they are fruit-lovers, so vegetables cannot be far behind. If all our efforts fail, and they grow up to be adults who eat ketchup on their salads, I guess I can take solace in the fact that in their formative years, the fumes of all kinds of vegetables (if not the veggies themselves) were ever-present in the house and they caught at least passing whiffs of nutritious leafy greens.