Recipes & Meals

Back to School Tips for Family Meals

August 2010

Congratulations! This is an excellent time of year. Along with resolutions and hopes, new notebooks and clothes, we also have calendars with bright empty spaces. This is the time to schedule in family meals.

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Family Meals Get Easier With Practice

July 2010

Much of the power of family meals comes from the simple fact that they happen more or less every day. It's the continuity, not the complexity, that counts.

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Outdoor Mealtime Ideas

June 2010

Maybe some ancestral memory still speaks to us. Just the fact of eating in the fresh air gives us a sense of satisfaction, of connection to the place where we are. Here are some ways to get the most out of your fresh air fun.

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Getting Comfortable in the Kitchen

May 2010

All this encouragement to provide family meals is terrific. But what if the kitchen is foreign territory to you? How about if you don't own the right equipment, or stock essential foods and flavorings? Or if your stocks of knowledge and confidence are as empty as your shelves?

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Mealtime Excitement

April 2010

Family meals are about consistency and change. They work their magic because we know what to expect. We have our places at the table, we have our favorite foods. Those things bring comfort in an uncertain world.

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Trying New Foods

March 2010

Long long ago, it made a lot of sense to be reluctant to try new foods. When our ancestors were cautious about the roots and berries they came across, they saved themselves from discomfort, sickness, and worse.

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How To Make Meals Easier

February 2010

In a word, planning and help. (Okay. That's two words; just the kind of sneaky double duty you want to get from the work you put into your daily meals.) There is also a third concept that surrounds the other two – know thyself.

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Incorporating Healthy Foods into Your Family's Diet

January 2010

Here is a situation where doublethink helps. While of course you are aware of which foods are more or less "healthy," it's best to try not to think of them as being good or bad, cure-alls or disasters.

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The Holidays Are Family Time

December 2009

Holidays bring together an assortment of family members, and sometimes they can seem very assorted indeed. Still, it’s just this kind of mixing and matching that strengthens family bonds, and lets us truly connect.

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Giving Thanks for Family Meals

November 2009

Many people count Thanksgiving as their favorite holiday, maybe because the concept is simple: gather together with family and friends to share good food and good times.

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Making Time for Meals

October 2009

If you want to see your values written out in black and white, just have a look at your calendar. What gets written in first? What appears again and again? What happens with such regularity that you never even think to write it down?

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Family Day — in your family

September 2009

Americans have been celebrating Family Day — A Day to Eat Dinner with Your Children (this year Monday, Sept. 28) for more than a decade.

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Back to School, Back to Basics

August 2009

Take advantage of your calendar’s empty spaces to help prepare for the coming year.

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Getting the Neighborhood Together

July 2009

A neighborhood picnic takes advantage of summer. And the benefits last throughout the year.

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What Is More Fun Than A Picnic?

June 2009

Moving your meal outdoors puts everything in a new light.

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Celebrating Mom with a Family Meal

May 2009

No matter how our lives change, when we think of Mom we are most likely to think of nurturing and caring. So when we want to thank her, it's natural to turn the tables and feed her for a change. And nothing nourishes like a home cooked meal that everyone can share.

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A Little Planning Can Put You Way Ahead

April 2009

How to eliminate that uneasy moment when, driving home, or standing in the middle of the kitchen floor, you ask yourself, what in the world can I make tonight? If you organize your meals by the week or the month, you will just check your calendar and answer yourself with smug assurance. Even if you aren’t the kind of person who thrives on a if this is Tuesday it must be meatloaf routine, some advance planning will give you better results from less effort.

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Eating Richly in Lean Times

March 2009

A generation ago, Julia Child taught Americans to cook, and eat, all manner of elegant French dishes. Every once in awhile, an interviewer would gather up the courage to ask her how, in her world of exotic ingredients and complex preparations, it might be possible to stay on a budget.

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Cooking With Your Kids

February 2009

Whether you find meal preparation a chore or a joy can depend on if you have help. And yes, if that help comes in the form of a very young child, it may be theoretical at best. But sharing this daily activity can make both of you feel better. In time, your offspring's contribution will actually mean less work for you.

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Balancing Busy Schedules and Family Meals

January 2009

If you want to see a family's values spelled out in black and white, take a look at their schedule. Whether it's electronically organized, or scrawled on notes on the refrigerator door, the way we plan our time lets us know who we are.

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Giving Thanks for Family Meals

November 2008

A recent news story announced that the Wednesday before Thanksgiving may no longer be the busiest travel day of the year. But what has replaced it? The preceding day – Tuesday – because people are looking to extend their Thanksgiving holiday.

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Family Meals Are a Gift We Give Ourselves

October 2008

When you are rushing through the supermarket tossing groceries in your cart, you might be forgiven if you are not thinking of mealtimes as a great pleasure. But it's the running around that allows us to sit still. It's the prep work lets us relax into the luxury of not doing anything (for a few minutes anyway) beyond eating and enjoying one another's company.

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Back To School

September 2008

This is the time of year when parents, as well as children, are full of enthusiasm and hope. We adults cram things into the family calendar, trying to get the most for everyone.

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Recipe

Mealtimes Matter Video
from Miriam Weinstein

Video Podcast

About Miriam

Miriam Weinstein is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. As a journalist, she has won several awards from the New England Press Association. Her work has appeared in Boston Magazine, the Boston Globe magazine, Hope, and ParentSource. A former staff member for North Shore Weeklies and freelancer for Essex County Newspapers, she writes restaurant reviews and food columns as well as features on a wide variety of subjects. She lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts, with her husband and has two grown children.


The Surprising Power of Family Meals

The Surprising Power of Family Meals

In her book, The Surprising Power of Family Meals, Miriam Weinstein shows how this basic human institution helps nourish and strengthen our families today.