Reinventing the Meal Celebrity chef Tyler Florence

[Food Network Fan]

Reinventing the Meal

Celebrity chef Tyler Florence gets to the heart of why family dinner is a rewarding experience

By Samantha Brody


Tyler Florence wants you to try something revolutionary tonight. Sit down, with your family, at the dinner table. Yes, we know—your brood is already overbooked with work, errands, school, and activities. But according to Tyler, a father of three and host of the popular Food Network shows Tyler’s Ultimate, Food 911, and How to Boil Water, enjoying a family dinner is not as impossible as you might think. And the rewards are well worth the effort.
On his cooking shows, Florence helps families find simple solutions to everyday kitchen challenges, like getting a good meal on the table under stress. But dinner is about far more than food to Florence—it’s an opportunity for parents and children to spend quality time together as the day’s madness begins to ease. “Mealtime is a communication tool, plain and simple,” he says.
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[Pluff Mudder]

When I was a kid, you always had meals together.

[Food Network Fan]

We do, every night at the dining room table in the cold months. On the screen porch at the table out there when it's warm.

Only a couple days out of the year it isn't possible because of a schedule conflict. But we usually manage it. If my husband is gone with the military I still eat with the kids.

[BerryBaby]

We always ate together, this wasn't an option. Even if we all had something going on, you knew that dinnertime was family time. Plus, you could NOT leave the table until everyone had finished eating. And, you had to ASK to be excused from the table, not just dart off.

Honestly, don't people do this anymore? Parents are to blame if that truly isn't happening.

[ibcheft]

As a child, raised on a farm we always eat at the table together. I use to do that all the time, but my wife well, different story. We seldom eat at the table, she eats on the couch watching TV. She raised her boys also that way, but they watched in their bedroom in fornt of their TV's. I tried for a long time to get them to set at the table but it never worked. I need to clear off the table, and set it again, I always kept both tables fully set, the dinning room and the breakfast area. At least we used it once in awhile that way. Her side of the family really is well different, on the holidays men eat at the dinning table and women in the kitchen or breakfast area.

[BerryBaby]

I never encountered a situation like yours. That's really too bad.

Family time at the dinner table was a time for all of us to talk about our day and what we had planned. With six children in our family, it was the only time, other than going to church, that we were all together in one place and we could talk.

Even today, it is just me and husband, but we eat at the table every night. I make sure to have fresh flowers and at least one candle lit, even if we are just eating soup or sandwiches.

Makes for a much more pleasant experience.

[Pluff Mudder]

For holiday family get-togethers, we had two tables. But one was the adult's table (dinning room) and the other was the kid's table (kitchen) mainly because everyone couldn't fit around the dinning room table.

[Food Network Fan]

My dining room has a large opening into the entry room. I can add another table and extend it into that room.

[Pluff Mudder]

That's the nice thing about today's open floor plans. It allows for things like that. Unlike the house I grew up in where it was a bunch of boxy rooms. Our little marsh house has that wide-open floor plan with the only things separate are the bedrooms and baths.