All my childhood I have been eating dinner in the family. Most of the time, the family was extended with friends, aunts, cousins and uncles. Lunch was spend with grandma and grandpa because my parents worked a lot.
I always loved this lunch and dinner time. Great time to enjoy with my family. Now, lunch is spend eating with in-laws and dinner with my mother. I am lucky to be in the same city with my mom and my in-laws. I always loved to have dinner with friends or family. When I was living in London, I used to have dinner almost every evening with my friends. The best cook in the house was a boy. Great times with great people.
Eat together with your family every time you can. Have breakfast, lunch, dinner or snacks. Sit together at the table, enjoy the meal and have kids around you. Teach them to eat around the table, having fun all together.
Food is made to be savored and it’s also made to be eaten at the table. Have a glass of wine with your meal. It is time well spend with the family. If you can’t do it every day try once a week. Sunday lunch with friends or family is great time to talk about your week, about happy times or bad times.
Have small meal courses instead of one big course and have all family participate in preparing the food or putting the table. Children learn about real food from your gatherings. Discuss at the table about the taste, the ingredients and how was made and interact with the kids. Teach kids that eating well is a pleasure not a sin.
When we take time to eat with friends and family, we focus on our food, we enjoy it more, and we’ll be less tempted after to binge on sugary and fatty snacks to compensate.
So, get pleasure in eating, learn from the French, and make a dinner or a lunch an amazing experience where food is the main guest.
Cooking Without Limits 
I hope to spend more time like this at the table with my family.
Have fun!
I could not agree more. However, when I’m eating together with family or friend there is always so much food on the table that it would be physically impossible to be tempted by a snack for at least 3 days. 🙂
You food for one week.
It’s easy to lose that with all the stress and rush.
So true.
Lovely post!
Thank you
I so agree with you! Life is easier when we have the connection that dining regularly together brings. Those little shared moments put love in the happiness bank.
Nice post! I also like the new look of your blog!
Well said! When I spent some time in Italy I was amazed how meals were an event to savor!
Thank you
Great reflection! I especially love the sentence “food is made to be savored and it’s also made to be eaten at the table.”
Thank you
I love your photography. If you have time for a post about your lighting techniques and post production, I would be so happy! All of your images look fantastic, such great work!
Thank you. I wrote a post about lighting:
https://cookingwithoutlimits.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/food-lighting-ii/
https://cookingwithoutlimits.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/food-lighting-i/
I am preparing one about post production.
Thank you for the lighting posts. Looking forward to seeing your post on post production! I still think of your orange shot w. the peel and the black background all the time – it’s gorgeous!
Thank you
Love this! So simple but so true, the best times are those around a table full of food with a whole bunch of loved ones 🙂
Thank you
This is such a good reminder! It’s so easy to forget others when we get wrapped up in our own lives, sometimes we just need to slow down and enjoy each other’s company.
So true
We have always done this in our family, particularly at dinner time. It brings everyone closer and gets people off their devices to actually interact with eachother. Well said! 😊
Thank you
So well said! We try to eat all together as well, and 98% of the time we do. Now we’re trying to get everyone to eat the same thing. 😀 (Picky eaters!) We eat in courses as well, mostly in order to get our toddler to eat veggies first, then meat.
Love the dreamy photos!
Thank you
Other than during the holidays, my family stopped eating meals together years ago … differing work/school schedules mostly. And now there’s only me so all my meals are solitary. I miss at least having the option.
Sorry to hear that
Do you think that a meal is good time to talk about bad things? It is the way to get an ulser 😉 Also, doctors advice not to mix meal and conversation. But I agree that a meal together and talk about something pleasant are important. About misfortunes friends/family can talk after dinner 🙂
Family and friends are there for you in good times and bad times. After dinner is good too.
All throughout history family bonds as well as interactions with friends were traditionally cultivated at the table by eating together. So was food education that is why in my country Italy the cohesion of the family was so strong and food education is at its best. Because of the habit of eating together there were many less people with mental disorders. Nowadays is totally the reverse, many people eat alone often in front of a screen. The result is that there is a lot of alienation and a lot of food ignorance. Eating together is a great social therapy probably the best and most effective all therapies, as well as, in my view, the most enjoyable.
😘
I agree about eating dinner together. I wish my husband would get home earlier from work midweek but we certainly try to eat together on weekends.
Good for you
I absolutely love this. Eating together has been a major part of my family and my life. My extended family (and friends) all look forward to our weekly dinners and feel lost if we miss one! Thank you for sharing!
You are welcome
Something I definitely try to be more mindful of and make an effort to do. Spent many nights missing family dinners for unimportant stuff. Precious time lost with family that I cannot get back…
Your post reminded me of the wonderful quote
“Prepare an attractive table; welcome Spirit.
Choosing to dine rather than just eat is a small but significant step toward self-nurturance, and one to savour. Approach it as another form of artistic expression in your daily life.” (Sarah Ban Breathnach)
That is a beautiful quote!
Some of my fondest moments growing up were of going to my Aunt’s for Thanksgiving for her world famous Turnips, and for Christmas Dinner, where I overindulged in her Vanilla Fudge to the chagrin of my parents.
Thanks for sharing
I love the traditions around food and meals, friends and family. Lovely post. 🙂
Thank you
I so agree! Beautiful post!
Thank you
Totally agree. Looking back, what I remember most from my childhood or early adulthood is the dinners and lunches taken together, with good warm food. Many take it for granted. Eating together around the family table is underestimated! Have written about this
Love your posts, Gabi. You always give us a lot to think about. That’s why I’ve nominated you for the Real Neat Blog Award. I especially loved your post about Oranges at Christmas, and I’m sure other people would too. You’re not obligated to accept – no worries there. I just wanted to let you know that I really enjoy what you do. Cheers!
Lauren
Thank you for your nomination.
Lovely post and I couldn’t agree more – we have dinner at the table every night in our house and it’s a ritual that Takes top priority!
Thank you
Yes, the French do this so well.
Agreed! Food allows for great bonding between family and friends. Dinner is really the only time my family is able to get together so definitely a time to cherish! Lovely photography as well.
Thank you
I agree on this – as a kid we always ate around the table. I rebelled when I first moved out and was keen to eat in front of telly. But now that I’m in my 30s I very much miss the act of dining at the table and catching up with family/friends. It’s a good tradition I will be upholding with my own children.
Thank you for this encouragement to families, even if it is a family of two. Food explore comes deeply and naturally to me. This is my most fluid gift I offer my son. Beautiful photos. 😊
Thank you
I could not agree with you more! I have always made meals a family event. We sit at the table, or even around the tv watching a movie, but we are all together. We talk about our day. We inquire about each other’s day and upcoming events. These are precious moments we will never get back with one another. Cooking for my family and sharing meals with friends, to me, is the ultimate act of love.
I am looking forward to following your blog! 🙂
Thank you
Get your vile life and vile supporters away from my life
Ok. No problem.
very well said!
Thank you
I love this post. I eat with my family once a week – on sunday- and I eat at a ”table” almost every day with my partner. We talk, but often listen to a program and then cuddle while finishing to watch it. It’s really fun to cook food with him and then taste the result. Good idea for kids too!
Thank you
Nice post….
Thank you
Really enjoyed this post, I agree with eating with your family more often!
Thank you
Amen to all of this! – Kat
Such a simple but great reminder! T and I used to eat almost every meal at the table but we’ve migrated to the tv these days. Not sure how or why it happened but I’m reminded to keep meal time about the meal, at least a bit more often!
I love food, just the right blogger.😘
Thank you
Loved your post! That’s right!
In todays world we barely have time to see our families, and the gathering around the table is necessary, because is the moment when parents, grandparents and kids connect to deeper levels….
This happened in my family last Saturday, after a few months of tense, because there are two weddings on the door, we gather to dinner in my house, and it was perfect! Your post make me remember to be thankful for those moments.
Great post!
Thank you
Love your post x
Thank you
Loved your comment that “eating well is not a sin” – I agree, and agree that its important to share eating-well with others! Great post!
Thank you
Having dinner around the table reminds so much of the movie ‘Under The Tuscan Sun’. That friendship and social atmosphere is fantastic. Every opportunity we get, we together. It’s usually about 25 of us in family. We have smaller ones also. Buon appetit.
Thank you. You have a big family. That is wonderful.
It’s special. I appreciated it even more after I saw ‘Under The Tuscan Sun’. I took it for granted before then. Mxox
What better memories could anyone have than family around the table? This is precisely why families must share at least one meal a day sitting together at the table and not in front of a TV.