Around the Kitchen Table...

Our kitchen table is a sanctuary, where we end our day as a family, not everyday, but as often as we can.

Our farm table provides the perfect surface for enjoying morning coffee while catching up on the news, emails and writing my blog. Oh, it sees many uses from craft projects, to homework, jigsaw puzzles to board games. But for me, the table’s best use is as the setting for a casual family dinner of simple home cooked food. It is worth the effort to slow down, connect with my children and husband, and just be together for a short time. Once dinner is over, we sometimes(but not often enough) linger over tea and dessert, sharing in love, laughter and conversation until the sighs begin and off we go to resume our busy schedules.

Years ago, my sister-in-law gave me a beautiful book entitled Mrs. Sharp’s Traditions, by Sarah Ban Breathnach. I have referred often to this book when trying to make special holidays and events, especially the Christmas season, even more memorable for my children. Simple ideas, such as bringing back the ritual of a Sunday meal, I took to heart. I serve a special brunch for my family and an ever-changing guest list. I’ve tried any number of recipes for French toast, quiche and omelettes over the years, but the children love “The Big, Fluffy Pancake” best. Remarkably, they still get excited as it comes out of the oven, puffed up like a soufflé. Some have gotten absolutely enormous!

If you’d like to try this pancake, CLICK HERE for the remarkably simple recipe. Be sure to let me know how yours comes out and how it is received. Even better, send me a photo as it emerges from the oven!

This blog isn’t about simple nostalgia for a time past, but a forum for thinking about how to renew traditions that seem almost lost, but which updated to suit our contemporary lives, could enrich our families enormously. It’s about creating new traditions that help bind family and friends – and maybe even live on in the lives our children make for themselves.