Chef's Table

It is a wonderful gift to have dinner with my husband and sons each night! We are very fortunate that all of our schedules allow us to eat together on a daily basis. Some nights, the conversation even continues over a game of gin rummy or chess. Experts in teenage development say that the more often families eat together, the less likely kids are to smoke, drink, do drugs, get depressed, consider suicide and, the more likely they are have exceptional vocabularies, get good grades, delay having sex, learn table manners and maybe even eat their vegetables!

Most night's we have our family dinners at the dining room table, but every so often we have “Chef’s Table.” We eat at the kitchen counter and eat during the live action (like in a commercial restaurant). These evenings are much more laid back and festive with music in the background and banter while we cook and work in the kitchen. Fried foods lend themselves to chef’s table fare as well as anti-pasti. Foods like roasted oysters, fried cod, fried bell pepper and mushrooms, or fresh tomato salad and bruschetta are among our regular noshes.

After a quick clean up, the conversation usually continues in the living room where we contemplate the mysteries of the Universe, like how Paul, the psychic cephalopod at the Oberhausen Sea Life Center, can predict the outcome of Germany’s World Cup Soccer games!