The Case for Sunday Dinner

A menu and shopping list to help you focus on the good part, i.e. resting, recalibrating, reconnecting

Greetings eaters and readers! On this wintry Friday, snow not so much falling as it is whipping outside my window, I’d like to give you a complete menu and shopping list so that you may execute Operation Cozy Sunday Dinner with the least amount of stress possible. But before we get there, I wanted share an excerpt from the “Sunday Dinner” chapter of my 2016 book How to Cook Everything. (Edited for clarity.)

As far back as I can remember, it’s been a given that we end the weekend with family at our own table, whether that table has been in our Brooklyn apartment, in our first house in the suburbs, or in my parents’ or sister’s house two dozen miles north. Only under special circumstances—Super Bowls, Oscar Nights, invitations we can’t weasel our way out of—do we stray from this policy. I realize I’m not alone here. No matter what Sunday dinner looks like in your house, whether it involves a proper roast on a Wedgwood platter, some dogs on the backyard grill, or the ambient roar of an NFL crowd on TV pulsing in the background, I’m guessing the philosophy behind it is most likely the same: Rest, recalibrate, reconnect. We’ve got a long week ahead of us.

When people ask me for advice on how to make family dinner happen more regularly, I always tell them to start with Sunday dinner. For a lot of families, it’s the only guaranteed day when there’s a little more time—maybe even a whole glorious afternoon—to focus on making a meal, and not just consuming it. It’s the one day a week when people who hate to cook might understand the idea that putting together a big meal can actually be therapeutic. The one day when you might have the patience to build a lasagna with your toddler. Or the one day when spying something like chicory leaf in a recipe doesn’t read like an affront to your very existence. In fact, on Sunday, that kind of moment, instead of stoking your ire at the whole dinner-making enterprise in general, might even inspire you to make a pit stop at that market you always pass on the way to the kids’ soccer game.

My family manages to sit down together most weeknights, but that doesn’t make Sunday dinner any less sacred in our house. We cook differently on Sundays. In colder weather, we might start the main dish early in the day, braising a pork shoulder or short ribs for a few luxurious hours that we’d be hard-pressed to find during the week, letting the caramelizing vegetables and simmering meat perform their most important duty, i.e., infusing the house with a smell that telegraphs warmth, happiness, and home.

And with that, here’s is your menu (and shopping list) for a this Sunday’s family dinner including all you need to make my new (old) favorite homemade 15-minute dessert…