Do you want to have dinner with me?

Every little thing about the little thing you need the most

A Note for You, If You’re Having A Bad Day

Dear Friend,

I wish we could have dinner together.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, as I’ve gone through my phone looking at old photos. So many of my favorites are of people I love sitting around sturdy tables in front of wooden bowls. Kale is usually involved. (BTW, kale enjoyed such a moment of vegetable stardom in the early aughts, but now everyone is about cauliflower or, like, ghee or whatever. Sure, ghee is not a vegetable, but I do think ghee is a celebrity among the set that used to publicize kale.) The bottom line is, dinner would help.

PS - if you haven’t watched this Re: vegetable celebrity, here you go and you’re welcome:

So, let’s talk about dinner this week. If you and I can’t have dinner together (it’s probably proximity-related), then at least you can have dinner with someone you love. Let it be a group of someones. Let it be the kind of dinner where you eat at least one dish out of an enormous communal bowl. Over the course of this newsletter, you will learn that I still love kale; but a love of kale is not required for the dinner to be helpful. The dinner will help. Let’s dive in.

On the history of family dinners:

You might associate the concept of a “family dinner” with the antiquated ideals of the nuclear families that proliferated the 1940s and 1950s. And that makes sense, because like the nuclear family itself, “family dinner” came to prominence after the Industrial Revolution, when people began spending their days working outside their homes. During WWII, the Wholesome Family Dinner became an instrument of propaganda, showing up in advertisements and stories as a symbol of Strong American Values (and security and stability). This iteration of “family dinner” was a beacon of women’s work: the housewife stays at home and puts dinner on the table, and then the family eats the dinner, and then the housewife washes the uneaten dinner off the nice white plates. People who have been socialized female continue to be largely in charge of household chores like cooking and dishes-washing — and let’s note that more than 70 percent of millennial women also have part- or full-time jobs (compared with 40 percent of women in our grandparents’ generation). It’s difficult to disentangle oneself from generations of sexist ideas about who does what in a household. (Thanks, Kat, for this language.)

So you would be forgiven for bristling at the concept of a family dinner. “Isn’t this supposed to be a newsletter for people who beat themselves up?” You might be thinking. “I don’t have time to think seriously about dinner.” To this, I have two things to say: 

1. If you identify as feeling responsible for a disproportionate amount of household labor, I know this for a fact: you are doing a good enough job. It is impossible to do any better than you are doing. There are too many things to do, and it behooves capitalistic systems of oppression for you to believe that you’re incompetent and everyone else is easy-breezy about housework. No one is easy-breezy about housework. Or, if they are, they are probably on drugs.

2. I don’t want you to think seriously about dinner. I want you to think LESS seriously about dinner. 

On the word “family”:

The number one problem I have with the image that’s conjured when you hear the words “family dinner” is the family part. Let me go ahead and do a Google image search for “family dinner” for you:

Here’s what you get:

• People who look almost aggressively biologically related.

• Primarily two adults and anywhere from one to six children.

• Occasionally a person who is obviously a grandparent.

• Two suggestions of what a family dinner should look like from above: an array of neatly plated, complementary dishes, to go on matching stoneware near matching napkins.

• A horror movie that seems to be about an excorcism of a rabbit.

A family does not have to look like this. A family is whatever you decide it is, and when I talk about “having family dinner,” I mean, “gathering with people you love to eat together.” If you want pictures of people who do not appear to be biological family members having dinner together, you’ll have to do a Google image search of “dinner party.” This is exactly the problem: you should not have to have a whole party — something that implies invitations, linens, a menu, and wine glasses — to have an intentional meal with your friends. You do not have to share DNA to consider the people you love your family. The simple act of deciding to define the people you love, whomever they are, as “family” is one of the most transformative things you can do for yourself.

If you’ve never done this before, stop here. Get out something to write with and on. Create a list of the people you love most in the world. Choose anyone you would trust with a secret, or ask to watch your kids, or fly across the country for if they called you and needed you. Honestly, I don’t have to give you rules for this. You already know in your bones what I mean when I say “the people you love most in the world.” Look at this list and say the word “family” out loud. There is no reason to define this group of people any differently.

On Quaker grace, and Rose Bud Thorn:

In New Orleans, I had the great fortune of having family dinner almost every night of the week (and one night a week where it was a sacredly held time). We did two things at these dinners that I loved. They were:

• Quaker grace. Before you eat dinner, hold hands. Close your eyes. Think about whatever you want to think about. Maybe you’re a person who prays. Maybe you’re a person who is freaked out by religion, and is going to spend this time thinking, “Oh my god, this is so awkward, I can’t believe I am doing this.” If you’re in the latter camp, try it a few times in a row. Eventually, your thoughts will change. “I can’t believe I’m STILL doing this. Sophie told me my thoughts would change, but they haven’t. Huh. I guess THAT’S a new thought. And I guess, if I’m honest, this is kind of nice. This is kind of nice. This is nice. This is nice.” When someone at the table feels like the grace period has ended, they squeeze their hands. Everyone squeezes hands, and the grace ends. 

• Rose, Bud, Thorn. Everyone goes around and shares one thing they’re joyful about (the rose), one thing they’re sad about (the thorn), and one thing they’re looking forward to (the bud). You may also change this metaphor to better suit your personal style. (Rabbit, housefly, pizza dough.)

On “Tell me five things from your day”:

My sister and her family does a game called, “What’s one thing from your day?” Her three-year-old goes, “One thing from my day was there were crumbs all over the carpet.” Then he gets to pick who goes next. This is very charming, and it is not as charming when you’re not playing with a three-year-old.

To make it more challenging, I changed it to FIVE things from the day, and I play it with my partner every night at dinner. It’s fun to think of five things from your day, because you’re not considering the hierarchy of what’s-the-one-thing-I’m-going-to-pick. You’re just combing through your day, searching for something shiny. If you don’t believe me that this is fun, do it right now, by yourself! What are five things from your day? (Wasn’t that fun?)

On other kinds of questions:

I ask a lot of questions during check-ins with my students every week, and have found the following to be the most conversationally lucrative:

• What is your phone wallpaper and why?

• If you could live in a fictional world, which one would you choose?

  • A variation on this: if you could have one fictional character be your friend, and there was going to be a TV show about how you guys were friends, who would you choose, and what would the show be called?

• What would you want to be reincarnated as?

• What would be the perfect vacation? Or the perfect day? Or the perfect way to spend a year?

• Who are your current celebrity crushes?

On touch:

Touch is a basic human need. Have conversations with the people you’re closest to about consent and touch. These conversations should be normed: they needn’t be awkward! Here, you can just copy + paste this in an email to a friend, so that when you have family dinner, you’ll be ready to touch. 

Dear [FRIEND NAME],

My friend Sophie has reminded me that platonic touch is a basic human need. I know, that’s a weird thing to be bringing up with you out of the blue, but she’s right, and it’s true! She linked to scientific articles with ample evidence about it being true. I love you, and I wanted to talk to you about your comfort zones around platonic touch! How do you feel about the following behaviors between the two of us:

• Hugging fast

• Hugging for 20+ seconds

• Holding hands

• Me having my arm around you or on your back

• Snuggling on a couch

• Me rubbing your arm

• You rubbing my arm 

• Washing or rubbing each other’s feet (this is a weird one, but Resmaa Menakem recommends it, and we like him)

• Anything else you’re thinking of that I haven’t listed here

  Here are my own comfort levels around touch: [FILL IN WITH YOUR OWN COMFORT LEVELS AROUND TOUCH].

I’m hoping that by having this conversation, we can feel joyful about platonically touching  while keeping in mind each others’ stated boundaries. Whatever boundaries you have make sense to me, and I’ll honor them without judgment. 

Also, Sophie wrote this email for me. She is a great friend. And so on top of the latest trends! And pretty. Ugh, there I go again, talking about Sophie. I love Sophie, but the point is, I love you more. 

Love,

[YOUR NAME]

On wooden bowls:

We eat family dinner out of these expensive wooden bowls from the New Hampshire Bowl and Board. They are expensive, but we use them every day, and they’re the most important things in my kitchen. You can’t put them in the dishwasher, but that’s kind of a gift, because you get to have a meditative time washing them. They’re really quite a pleasure to wash.

What’s this? A kale-and-lettuce salad from the garden with flowers in it? Magnificent.

On ginger:

If you don’t like to cook yet, choose a dish that includes ginger. Get a big hunk of ginger and smell it while you cut it or grate it over a clean surface. Prepare the ginger slowly. Taste a little bit of the ginger. Being present with ginger can make a chef out of even the most take-out-foodies among us.

On dessert:

You don’t NEED dessert, but also, dessert is so much easier than the magazines will have you think. Here are more-than-acceptable and special desserts:

• Fresh, seasonal fruit. Cut it at the table, in front of everyone. You can make honey and sea salt available for people who want it. But this is no extra work at all, and it allows you to remember how nature is the most amazing effing chef there is.

• Ice cream! Just, have ice cream in the freezer. “Does anyone want ice cream?” And then, get it out. Everyone can serve themselves. The end.

• A chocolate bar. Open it, break it into pieces, and serve it on a plate with some dried fruit. 

• Most complex, but still easy: preheat your oven to 350F. Cut up some fruit (or use frozen): most non-citrus works, really — apples, peaches, pears, berries, mangoes, whatever. Put it in a baking dish. Toss with some sugar, salt, lemon juice, and cornstarch. (How much? Who cares! Not too much. Definitely not too much salt. The other ones really don’t matter. You don’t even ACTUALLY NEED THEM. They just make it better.) Mix dry oatmeal, melted butter, brown sugar, salt, and flour (just a little of each, it REALLY DOESN’T MATTER!), and put that on top. Pop it in the oven, bake for 40 minutes, eat with whipped cream. When I say the proportions don’t matter, I mean it! Baked fruit is good, the end. You can’t really get it wrong. It will taste great. Don’t overthink it.

On taking family dinner less seriously:

The thing that matters about family dinner is that there are people, and that there is food. I love home cooked meals, and they can be stressful, but they can also be amazing. Personally, I love the idea that anything I could possibly want to eat, I could make myself (and it will probably be BETTER than takeout).

Just a few fabulous family dinners that were better than restaurant food.

Some advice: switch off who is in charge of the food. Being in charge of the food doesn’t have to mean you make it all, it just means you’re in charge. You can assign someone to bake some bread, or someone to bring some drinks. You can make it all yourself. You can bring in a celebrity chef. Order it in. Whatever. All that matters is that every time you have dinner, a different person is responsible for the moving parts, and will make sure that everything is in place for every person to get fed.

Do not worry about matching plates or napkins (but do be the kind of person who has ENOUGH plates and silverware, and stock up on extras from the thrift store). Do not worry about cleaning your living room. Do not worry about having more than one thing on the table — a pot of chili is plenty. Do not worry about drinks. (We have cases of sparkle waters delivered to the house, so it’s always there — but you don’t have to do that.) Do not worry about anything! Just get your people there. They don’t have to be their best selves — in fact, it’s maybe best if they’re not. They just have to be. The point is to learn that imperfect is enough, and that everyone is welcome. The point is to practice being family.

What to make:

I’ve got some go-to recipes that never disappoint. Here they are:

• Brooklyn Pad Thai

• Cauliflower, pine nuts, mint, and tahini

• Crispy barbecue tofu bowls

• Lentil bolognaise and pasta

• Vegan taco bar (gather shells, pico de gallo, guacamole, vegan coconut yogurt, and heat up cumin-spiked black beans and brown rice with a little tomato paste, plus some roasted cubed vegetabeles)

• This kale salad

• Or that kale salad

• Or this kale salad

• I told you I’d make it clear that I love kale

Tell me about your dinners. I can’t wait to hear all about them.

Love,

Sophie

This Week In Sophie

A wonderful reader named Sky (they/them) was interviewed on this podcast, and talked at length about my work. It was very nice, and so is the podcast.

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