In the Spotlight

Want to make mealtime something everyone looks forward to? Make it fun by involving everyone — little ones AND grown-ups — in the process. After a while you’ll find that certain family members gravitate to different parts of the meal preparation, but everyone (as safety dictates) should be able to take a shot at all stages of making a meal. Before you know it you’re connecting with your family, eating delicious food, laughing, crying and looking forward to doing it all again tomorrow!

Together, one meal at a time, you can make family dinner the regular ritual it was always meant to be. Sacred time. Time to purposely be a family. Time that belongs to you and your family; time that is so important no one will dare mess with it.

 
 
So… what’s for dinner tonight?

Thai Chicken Wraps

While you’re all dishing up your delicious Thai chicken wraps, here’s a fun little ancient superstition you can share with the family that should start some interesting conversation. In China if you find an uneven pair of chopsticks at your table setting, it means that you are going to miss a boat, a plane or a train.

Here’s another fun game for the dinner table. It’s called “A Truth and a Lie.” Each person tells two stories that happened to them that day, one is true and one that is made up. Everyone guesses which story was true, and which was not.

Laurie David is an environmentalist, author, and producer of the Academy Award–winning film An Inconvenient Truth and the HBO documentary Too Hot Not to Handle. Laurie, a regular blogger on the Huffington Post, has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Martha Stewart Show, Good Morning America, The Today Show, CNN, and MSNBC and was named a 2006 Glamour Woman of the Year. The purpose of her new book “The Family Dinner” is to help America’s overwhelmed families sit down to a Family Dinner, and she provides all the reasons, recipes, and fun tools to do so.

Photos courtesy of Maryellen Baker and Grand Central Publishing
Thanks to our partner Foodily.com