Headline News: Woman Revitalized after Family Dinner Slump

I’ve been in a dinner slump. No joy in thinking about, preparing and putting dinner on the table. For the past few months dinner has been a job and an ordeal for me. I would have been happy to open a carton of yogurt for myself or have some cheese and crackers.

I’d been trying to figure out what was going on. I had lost my knack, my confidence and my desire. Was I slipping into a mild depression?

Time dragged on, meals were served (at home or in restaurants), and then a convergence of ideas emerged. It was like the clouds that have been coming together lately for our magnificent thunderstorms.

Here’s what happened:

1) Evan read Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food and became a convert.

2) My girl started Farm Camp for the third year.

3) I read Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Depression, by Mildred Armstrong Kalish.

4) I went on a quest for a coffee cup, which entailed driving for 5 hours, and we ended up listening to some of the podcasts on my ipod, including a TimesTalk with Alice Waters.

These four events happened within about a week and it suddenly dawned on me that the Family Dinner I was dedicated to putting forth needed to be re-worked. Family dinner had been a big effort on my part to put dinner on the table (set generally by My Girl) and then cleaned up by Evan. It had seemed like a fair distribution of effort, but not any more.

Evan’s interest in eating in a more responsible and healthy way made me realize that he had a bigger stake in the meal than before. He had always been appreciative of the meals I prepared and served. But one night I realized that he makes rice better than I do and that the work is easier when we share it—both preparation and clean up.

My Girl was excited about Farm Camp this year because it involves more cooking. She harvested zucchini yesterday. She prides herself on her ability to clean garlic.

I was drawn to Kalish’s book by the cover and the hope that her voice would be like that of my grandmother, telling stories about how to “make do” with less. She helped me get my shower door clean with baking soda (truly, make a paste and scrub lightly—all of the sick scum comes right off without the fumes or cost of the scrubbing bubbles) and reminded me about the green husk on walnuts and how you have to let them age.

And then My Girl and I listened to Alice Waters (who I both admire and find grating) talk about teaching children to appreciate good food by growing it and preparing it. My girl is already 9, ready and able to learn more about making meal plans and preparing food.

My vision of Family Dinner has shifted. It’s no longer just the three of us sitting down to dinner I prepared. A real family dinner has to involve all of us – in decisions, in preparation, in sharing and cleaning up. So last night we had lamb chops, mashed potatoes and cauliflower (My Girl’s choice of vegetable). We all worked together to get the meal on the table. My Girl picked and washed the rosemary for the rub, prepared the garlic and mashed everything up with the mortar and pestle (then made her lunch for camp when she was done). Evan put water on to boil, cleaned and chopped the cauliflower and made the mashed potatoes. I grilled the chops and prepared the cauliflower. We sat outside in the summer evening enjoying all of it, and I knew that I was on to something and that my delight in dinner was recaptured.

Times on My Side

holds a heralded position in our household. Starting around 7:00 am (later on weekends) The Husband and I take turns peeking out to see if the blue plastic bag is lying in our driveway yet. The Times is the closest thing The Husband has to a bible in that he reads it religiously, pretty much cover to cover (omitting the Business section unless there’s some news about Apple). I’m a skimmer, breezing through the pages looking over headlines and then lingering on the obituaries.

Yesterday, right there below the fold of the front page, there was a whole story on people trying to get dinner on the table. It was exciting to find a topic so close to my heart right there, and I admit that there was a bit of pride of ownership. I was onto the Crisco Challenge way before The Times. [They must have done the same Google search that I did.] The long article had a lot of the familiar discussion with lots of statistics about how healthier kids are when there’s a regular family dinner. It reported that "children who eat dinner with their families regularly are less likely to get involved with drugs and alcohol than those who do not. They also tend to get better grades, exhibit less stress and eat better." They didn't mention that having dinner at home can be cheaper, that cooking dinner together can be a way to connect, or that the food can be much better when you make it yourself. But then they didn't consult me. This one Upper East Side woman kind of got to me:

"We try to have dinner together every night, and sometimes that means not eating until 9 o'clock," said Ms. Tatge, who lives on the Upper East Side. "But I think it's really important. We always have candlelight. It sets the mood and calms everyone down."

I don’t know, the candlelight kind of puts me off; it has that nuance of competition, that throwing down of the gauntlet (oven mitt?) that makes me cringe.

The article also mentioned the impulse to over-schedule ourselves (something I’m prone to do) and our children. For me, having a full calendar gives me the sense that I’m important, I’m popular and busy. But when I over-schedule myself I see the effect it has on everything else in my life, and I take myself away from what is meaningful, sometimes hard, occasionally thankless, often tiring, and extremely satisfying: making dinner for my family.

Only Connect

I might have made a big mistake the other night. I answered the phone during dinner. At the moment it didn’t seem like such a big deal. The phone rang as we were having the leek and potato soup, and I automatically leapt out of my chair like a teenager. We have an interesting division of labor around the phone in our house. It’s basically this: I answer the phone. It’s not that the phone calls are always for me. It’s not because I am always rushing for it; sometimes it will ring and ring and ring until I get it. I usually answer it. Evan usually doesn’t.

So this was just one of the many times that the phone rang, and I looked (yes, we have caller ID) to see who it was and made the snap judgment that I needed to talk to that person more than I needed to have my leek and potato soup.

The truth is that it was a kind of “important” call in that the person was a neighbor that I don’t know too well, that there is an issue of a shared fence that the wind blew down, that she, too, works and has children and has a busy schedule. We talked and made a plan for the poor, lopsided fence. We talked about our kids, our work, and both (I think) felt that it would be great if we were to talk in person sometime soon. I hung up feeling glad to be a neighbor, even if we have to deal with problem fences.

When I returned to the table The Husband and The Girl were eating the chicken and the spinach in silence. The chicken (which I bought already roasted) was pretty dry, and something was clearly lost from the mood while I was up and talking on the phone.

I’m not trying to scold myself; given the same situation I might take the call again. But what the experience did remind me of is how precious and tenuous those moments at the dinner table can be, how much they connect me to the people I care about, and how hearing about what The Husband did for lunch and who The Girl played with at recess really matters to me. Maybe I don’t have to be so hard on myself to produce a terrific meal, maybe showing up is more than half of the work.