Three Things

Weeknight crowdpleasers, banana splits, more research on family dinner

Greetings eaters and readers! Hope everyone had an excellent weekend. I spent most of mine devouring good food and Jean Hanff Korelitz’s new book, The Latecomer. (Not a surprise, given how much I loved The Plot.) We’ve also been really enjoying The Bear, about a chef forced to return from his Michelin-star restaurant world to run the family’s Chicago sandwich shop. (“Enjoying” might be the wrong word: It is intense.) I think every person in food media is watching it right now. Lastly, thanks so much to DALS subscribers who came to my cooking class on Thursday — that was fun!

Herewith, your weekly Three Things…

1. Weeknight Crowdpleasers

One of the unforeseen benefits of having two kids in college is that their expanded social circles now encompass friends from the wider New York area, plus visitors to the New York area, plus friends just interning in the New York area for the summer. All of this translates to more guests at the dinner table, which means the weeknight kitchen has been generating a parade of summer crowdpleasers: two weeks ago was a Veggie Burger spread (with fixins) and corn on the cob for Ron; last night, for Nate, was a chilled noddle and cabbage salad (from Hannah Che’s upcoming The Vegan Chinese Kitchen, more deets in September!); tonight, for Jazzy, is Tagliatelle with Corn, Tomatoes, and “Onion Bacon” from page 87 of The Weekday Vegetarians. And a few weeks ago, for Grace, there was a platter of the ever versatile golden fried chicken cutlet. I love this one in particular when I'm feeding meat-eaters because it's make-ahead and there are endless ways to jeuje them up. Summer is the actual best.

2. As long as we’re on the subject of ‘just give the people what they want’

I think probably there are all sorts of ways to bougie up a banana split — you can flambé the bananas, or whip some kind of extract into fresh cream, or turn the nuts or strawberries or pineapples into a syrupy drizzle…maybe there are even organic maraschino cherries by now? I don’t really know or care, because when I was at the beach with my sister’s family over the holiday weekend, we busted out a few pints of Haagen Dazs vanilla and spray-can whipped cream, crushed some Planters peanuts, sliced a few bananas and drizzled the whole thing with hot fudge, and now I’m not entirely sure why I don’t do this every summer weekend.

OK, maybe there was the tiniest bit of cheffing involved — before I left for Lynn’s house, I made a jar of Smitten Kitchen’s best hot fudge sauce, which, as advertised, took about 10 minutes on the stovetop, and really next-leveled the whole production. Now that I think of it, a jar of the stuff along with all the ingredients for a banana split would be great idea if you’re in charge of bringing dessert to someone’s house for dinner. The fudge sauce alone would be a good host gift any time of year.

family dinner minus the photographer (me) in Maine

3. How Important is Family Dinner?

When I launched Dinner: A Love Story in 2010, my mission was to help parents get a meal on the table without losing their minds in the process. This was something I had only just figured out for myself, and most of my success was owed to the remarkable phenomenon known to most people as “kids growing up.” When they were younger — in pre-school and kindergarten — there were so many reasons not to organize a sit-down family dinner: We’d have to get home from work in time to cook; we’d have to figure out what exactly what was being cooked; sitting down together didn’t even guarantee everyone would necessarily be sitting or even liking what we cooked. Still, we were committed, and stuck with it long enough to create a ritual that really truly remains the most rewarding part of my day. All that research we’d regularly read in the news about the links between family dinner and healthier, smarter, better-adjusted kids? That was secondary to a more selfish motivation — I really just wanted to look forward to eating something good with my family at our 7:00pm magnetic north, to have a reliable source of joy built in to every day.

For those of you still in the figuring-it-out stage: there are two reasons I’m telling you all this. First: It’s ok if family dinner is just not in the cards right now. You don’t need me to tell you that quality time can happen anywhere — in the car, at breakfast, on a hike, reading a bedtime story — so if a shared meal is decidedly the opposite of a “reliable source of joy,” well then just put it in the drawer for a while, as we say in the writing business. Family dinner is not a professional sport where the later you start, the more catching up you have to do. You can start whenever you want and however you want. Get this, you don’t even have to start at all! (But I’m here for you when and if you do!) Second: All that guilt-inducing research on the benefits of family dinner? It’s not exactly what we’ve been lead to believe all these years, something discussed in the Family Dinner episode of Pressure Cooker, a new podcast that sets out to examine why feeding our kids has become so freaking complicated. The podcast is produced by José Andrés Media and hosted by seasoned food journalists (and mothers) Elizabeth Dunn and Jane Black and I think you’ll appreciate the non-judgmental way they discuss the topic. Now go order the fam a large pizza.

P.S. Locals!

This past weekend, we took a kayak tour of Bannerman Island up in Cornwall-on-Hudson, home to the abandoned ca.-1901 Bannerman Castle, and spent a few glorious hours paddling up and down and all around the Hudson. I’ve been meaning to go forever and it just so happened that the stars aligned with both the weather (look at that sky!) and the girls’ work schedules, so we all went together, something of a small miracle these days. I cannot recommend the activity enough. We booked through Storm King Adventures, which offers a really alluring array of options, not just Bannerman — I think I’m booking the sunset tour next. (Thanks for the idea Go Love NY!)

P.P.S. Do you run a woman-owned small food business?

If so, I want to hear from you. Send me an email with your personal story (and relevant product links) for a future post: Jenny@dinneralovestory.com, subject head “Small Business Story.”

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