The Secret to Finding Time for Family Meals

You have to want it. Bad. In order to make time for regular family meals, you have to make them a priority.

We live in trying times.

You’re busy, worried and preoccupied.

Maybe you’re in such a state of high anxiety—over the economy, your job, your non-existent 401(k)—the last thing you think about is cooking dinner.

You’re juggling kids’ schedules, work, looking for work, worrying about work—and keeping a lid on panic. Maybe you can’t calm down long enough to cook a meal.

And there’s no way you can set aside 30 minutes a day and sit down with your family.

But you must.

Because the comfort, relaxation and rejuvenation of a family meal is exactly what you need right now.

If you’re too busy to eat with your family, you’re too busy.

You can’t prop up capitalism, blow fresh air into a burst real estate bubble or control the decision of an indifferent HR manager.

But you can cook a simple, delicious meal with your own hands. You can enjoy it at table with your family. You can lower your blood pressure, eat healthier, lift your spirits, and take a long hard look—around your table—at what really matters in life.

And aside from the price of a few cheap ingredients—see my Two-Bit recipes—it doesn’t cost you a penny.

Here are some ideas that can help you and our family start enjoying meals together.

8 pointers that pave the way for family meals

1. Be prepared. Cooking from scratch is way easier when you plan ahead, stock ingredients you need and set aside time—like 15-30 minutes—for meal preparation. For nuts and bolts suggestions, check out Copywriters’ Kitchen posts:

   • 30 Frugal Foodie staples that prepare you for any mealtime emergency
   • Boy Scouts’ Guide to Scratch Cooking: Be Prepared
2. Keep it simple. “Just for today”—as the 12-step programs say—don’t use grueling recipes from uber-foodies like Julia Child or Rose Berenbaum. Rely on simple pastas, soups and grilled or stove-top dishes for weekday dinners. Need delicious, easy scratch recipes? Check out Copywriters’ Kitchen recipes and menus as well as some of our favorite foodie blogs:

   • Revel & Feast
   • Start Cooking
   • Blue Kitchen

3. Use cooking shortcuts. You can streamline prep and clean-up time by thinking smarter in the kitchen. Use as few bowls, pots and implements as possible. “Flow cook”—move through recipes efficiently and make best use of recipe down-time to tidy up and move ahead to next steps. For detailed kitchen short-cuts read:

   • 30 Kitchen Tips Make Scratch Cooking Child’s Play, Part 1
   • 30 Kitchen Tips Make Scratch Cooking Child’s Play, Part 2

4. Make family meals a habit. The key to making healthy change in your life, as Leo Babauta of Zen Habits reminds us, is to start small and make tiny changes habitual through repetition. If gathering your family together is tough, why not commit to just one family meal a week? After a few weeks—Leo would suggest a full 30 days—add one more family meal. To learn more about gently incorporating healthy lifestyle change, peruse Leo’s archives.
5. Have it your way: I enjoy the ritual of sitting down to a simply set table. Maybe you like to curl up on sofas and chairs with plates in hand—or eat sitting on the floor. What’s important is setting aside time to share a meal together—not adhering to rigid etiquette.
6. Unplug. Close the laptop, put away the Kindle, turn off the television and—ouch—silence your Blackberry or Iphone. Family meals are as much about sharing presence as food. The painful truth: You can’t “be there” for spouse, partner or kids when you’re scanning email, texting, or reading Tweets.
7. Don’t try to be a one-woman-show. Sorry for the chauvinism. But with rare exception—kudos to you exceptional male cooks—women usually get stuck with menu-planning, recipe hunting, list-making, cooking, clearing and cleaning up. No wonder we can’t commit to scratch-cooked family meals. So. Call a family sit-down and divvy up responsibilities between your spouse, partner and children. Even the smallest family members can set and clear the table. Older children can wash salad and chop vegetables. And a surprising number of teens (No names—okay, Lily and Raleigh!) can cook delicious meals. My teens really enjoy playing chef when they’re given full rein on menu-planning and relief from dishwashing duties. (In our home the cook never cleans up.)
8. Set extra places at table. Many parents manage to make time for family meals when children are young but find it harder when kids become teenagers. Varsity sports, AP-heavy homework and parent-teen conflicts take a toll on togetherness. We find our teenagers come more readily to the table when they can bring their friends along as well. Whenever humanly possible, say yes when your kids ask to bring classmates, pals, girlfriends, boyfriends and assorted others for dinner. So what if you have to stretch the pasta, the house is a mess and your hair is dirty. You think teenagers are looking at you—or care about culinary fine points? They remember the welcome. Note to self: Remember point about messy house and bad hair.

Photo courtesy of Indigo Prime