Slowing down for meals

Slowing down for meals September 9, 2014

I would put good money on the fact that since many of our families are busy, busy, busy, many mealtimes are often hastily cooked and dolled out, especially dinner. As such, I found this post on slowing down mealtimes (from Haley over at Carrots for Michaelmas writing as a guest on Kitchen Stewardship) really refreshing.

When I was young, even with many activities, my mother still tried to have most of our meals sitting at the dining room table. I didn’t fully appreciate it as much as I do now, as my little family struggles to have normal meals in a normal amount of time — and we haven’t even started real child sports and activities yet!  Yet, Haley reminded me to try to make slowing down for meals a priority:

“And that’s why I love life around the table. Not because it needs to be some sort of fancy production. It doesn’t. People are physical and spiritual beings and the table is one place where those spheres intersect and our bodies and souls get fed.”

Our schedule is insane for the next two months…but I think we can still try to work towards being better about this, even in small ways. I think one way for us is keeping a set block of time for dinner (even if the start shifts slightly) and internalizing that even if there is a ‘break for bedtimes’, it’s still dinnertime. This seems to check a ton of boxes for us — meal as a family, connecting and having adult conversation, etc.

How about you? How do you slow down your meals?


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