In many of my posts, I’ve asked a question or questions for you to consider as takeaways, and to pose said question(s) to your family and/or friends at the dinner table. After all, the dinner table is a wonderful place for conversation.

I’ll come back to this in a moment, but first –

From the time I was a small child I would hang out in our kitchen and watch as my Dad cooked dinner, just as he had watched my Grandmother do when he was growing up. In fact, cooking, family dinners and family gatherings were and remain to this day important parts of the fabric of our family, across time and generations, and on both sides of the ocean.

Now, when I was 13 or 14, I had the opportunity to start taking cooking classes in school and this continued through into high school. In those years watching quickly turned into helping my Dad in the kitchen, and then cooking some of those recipes for my folks and me. The first two dishes I learned to make were lasagna and a chicken vegetable stir fry, which remain staples of our dinner rotation more than 20 years later. Somewhere in there I also learned how to bake, which is important to note, because otherwise the McVicar household would not have experienced the joy of freshly baked goods!

Fast forwarding a bit, I spent much of my 30s cooking and baking different dishes, trying out more complex recipes, and am now at a point where I can look at a recipe and know whether I want to keep things as is, change ingredients and measurements, or do my own thing. The last two years have also given me the time to expand my recipe repertoire. I also find the act of cooking to be an incredibly relaxing and creative outlet.

So why do I love cooking and baking?

There are a few reasons. Early in life I learned how food brings people together, that it’s a way to show others love and care, and a way to feel connected to family members when they’re with us and after they’ve passed, through their recipes, cookbooks, and cooking stories. The act of coming together over food, traditions and conversation is also an incredible way to build community.

This brings us back to those dinner conversations.

While I was growing up, my parents often worked opposite shifts to one another, but the one time of the day we were all in the same place was at dinner. Almost every night, we’d sit down together for dinner, talk about our day and what was going on in the world. Early in life this taught me the value of family time, dialogue and listening, and most importantly spending time with the people who mean the most to me. When I left for grad school in 2006 and then moved to Calgary in 2008, this was something I missed immensely. In 2013 when my parents moved here, this was a tradition we picked up without missing a beat.

The only differences today are that I am a much better cook than I was in my early days and my West Highland Terrier sits and watches every bite we take and reminds us frequently that he is there to help should we require any assistance eating our meals.

So, this brings us to today’s takeaways –

• Is there a recipe you make that reminds you of family times or special memories? Do your kids, family members and/or friends know this story? Do something nice for yourself and make this recipe/share its story.
• Whether with friends, coworkers, or family, do you have the opportunity to start or restart a tradition of sitting together at the table and creating space for dialogue and/or a question of the day? If you’ve found yourself thinking about wanting to create more of a space like this, it’s never too late to start.