Dinner

There is a moment in one of my favorite movies where the actors are using a metaphor about the meals of the day. At the end of the movie the female actress tell the male actress “That was dinner!!” That line always makes me smile because it reminds me how important “Dinner” really is. I know that they say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and body health wise that’s true, but to me, and in our house, dinner is most definitely the most important meal of the day for mental and emotional health not to mention family stability and happiness. When my family takes the time out of a busy day to sit down together and enjoy good food and have conversations together it makes us a stronger family. We might argue, or laugh, or just talk about our days but we all know that the most important emotion around the table is love.

To me food has ALWAYS equated love. There is just something about sharing food with the people you love. The smiles and laughter surrounding the dinner table are some of the best memories that I have of my husband and daughter. The oo’s and ah’s that let me know that what I made was tasty and enjoyable are just icing to the cake! That’s not saying that I always hear those, because sometimes I invent a new recipe that just doesn’t make the cut, but most times I get the appreciative looks and sounds that remind me that I am now on the right path to following my heart.

These are the thoughts that swam around my head last night as I made an amazing beef soup. With the snow, wind, and cold outside I had thought that a beef stew would be just the thing. In cooking as in writing, (or any other art for that matter) your initial ideas tend to merge, flow, and evolve. As I was thinking of my family, and our happy times around the dinner table, my idea of a stew evolved into making it into pot pies with a buttery and flaky crust, then evolved again to leaving it simple, just a tasty beef and veggie soup with rice. This soup turned out to be perfect. A couple of slices of home-made white bread to dip into a bowl of warm broth on a cold winters night and talking and laughing with my family around the table. Now THAT was “Dinner”!!