Sunday Dinner - Count On It

Years ago I read a study about Sunday dinner. It stated its importance in a busy family when members don't have time to all eat together during the weekdays. Meeting around the dining room table once a week becomes a sacred tradition the family can count on. It's a piece of information I filed away -- with very young kids, we hardly ate together. Or even the same things.

Nowadays, with Leah in first grade and picking up early-evening activities (soccer practice and ballet class), weekday dinners have been less about what we're eating but how fast it gets to the table. Gone are my prepared menus and prep-time. In are the dinners of scrambled eggs and toast! Frozen chicken and corn! Spaghetti ... again!

So, I'm pulling out this idea of Sunday dinner. Other than the family time and creating a weekly tradition, I want more time to experiment with recipes that take longer than 15 minutes to prepare. It's about putting different food in front of the kids and practicing table manners, setting the table, etc.  Very European-sounding, no?

Dining Room - Open for Business
For the first few weeks I'll be testing the waters. Sunday football provides an excuse to stay close to home, hit the grocery store and spend the afternoon cooking something savory.

I foresee some bumps in the road, but hopefully I can turn this into a weekly tradition we all count on.


Related posts:
More about my quest to cook

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Behold! Everard Blue!

Image
Here's the After picture of our master bedroom now that the walls are a dark and moody blue. Maybe the best part is I was at work while the painters were here, so I walked in and found -- as if by magic -- the room no longer minty green but a bold blue. That's pretty awesome. They also painted the trim an eye-popping white, which I just love against this blue. And the angle is a dark beige-y, tan color that I hope goes with the headboard. I spent the evening cleaning and re-hanging the drapes, and moving the furniture back into position. It will be a while before I dare hang anything in here. I'm too in love with the walls to put too many holes in them right now. So, just in case I'm looking for this information later: The walls are "Everard Blue" by Benjamin Moore . And the tray is "Curly Willow" by Behr . Now, does that furniture look too dark against the walls or is it just me? And wouldn't a lighter wood or white look fabulous agains
Keep reading »

Family Calendar Improvement

Image
 Made a quick improvement at the start of the school year that I'm pretty excited about.  And yes, I'm probably the only one excited about it, but here goes ...  Here's our "command central" in our kitchen. This is a good landing spot, and a central place to all look at the family calendar ... it's that huge wipe board in the middle of the photo. All our activities are supposed to be written on here and our electronic family calendar on Google.  (Brief aside: my family is the WORST at writing their plans down in either calendar and Dave still doesn't share his events on our Google Shared Family Calendar consistently, which makes me nuts. And they all ask me "what are we doing today?" instead of looking at the calendar, usually directly behind me. But, that's another post.) I went to so much trouble putting this little area together and that huge calendar with wobbly writing was really killing the sophisticated look of that space. PLUS, we don
Keep reading »

Basement Shiplap Project

Image
The guys left me all the unused shiplap from the bathroom and I've been trying to think about where to use it. I had so many ideas but not a lot of shiplap, so I eventually settled on this corner of our basement. It's where the exercise mats and treadmill live, right behind the sofa. And also where the Marvel-themed bathroom with shiplap is located. So it made sense. It took much of a rainy Sunday to cut and nail up the new boards ...    I even had enough to do on the "backsplash" of our little kitchenette in the basement I've been slowly building out.  Next up will be to patch all the nail holes and calk around the edges for a clean look. And then the best part ... picking out paint color. Since this is a "free" project, I'm hoping I can find a color in my paint cabinet.  I'll keep you posted. 
Keep reading »