The Family Dinner: A Celebration of Love, Laughter, and Leftovers

The family dinner is the one moment during the day when we sit down together to enjoy a good meal, engage in lively conversation, and, too often, experience mass hysteria.

The family table is also a place where we gather in times of celebration and sadness, to embrace food and each other. “The table is a place of communion for life’s large and small events,” writes master chef Art Smith.

And all of us have experienced the enlightenment of the holiday meal. “You think you have a handle on God, the Universe, and the Great White Light until you go home for Thanksgiving,” says Shirley MacLaine. “In an hour, you realize how far you’ve got to go and who is the real turkey.”

In The Family Dinner, authors Linda Sunshine and Mary Tiegreen celebrate this phenomenon of family life with photographs and written excerpts from a wide spectrum of families—rich and poor, immigrant and suburban, gourmet and kitchen-challenged. With love, grace, and a big dollop of humor, the authors remind us that family dinners, however defined or indigestible, exemplify who we are and where we came from.

“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one,” says Jane Howard.

So here is the perfect gift book for anyone who cooks for you or eats with you, and for all of us who gather together around a table.