Dinner Table: Family Headquarters

By The Epelbaum Sisters

When was the last time your family sat down for a meal together and shared their experiences of the day?
Merle, Liz, Genia, and Suzie, four sisters and the authors of this book, believe that the best way to create a home sweet home is with family and friends eating around a table together. These are pure love memories that will last a lifetime.
This unique cookbook will help you create gorgeous, easy, delicious, balanced meals. The stories from the authors themselves and their children will make you want to do the same for your children and guests. The dinner table can also turn into a game night where laughter, conversation, and fun come easily. Along with delicious recipes, Dinner Table shares insights, cooking tips, benefits of eating together, inspiring art, and entertaining quotes.
Enjoy preparing and eating the tried-and-true recipes in this book. They are the best of recipes that the authors families and guests have enjoyed for many years. They are the recipes that have elicited comments such as: WOW! This is amazing. Can I have the recipe? or You are the best cook. You should write a cookbook!
The passion that the authors have for their kitchen headquarters will inspire you to have fun making your home an even sweeter Home Sweet Home.
Embrace, Enjoy, Live, Love, Laugh, and EAT!
The kitchen is the heart of the home.
~ The Four Sisters

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: Nov 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781489704603

The Epelbaum Sisters

Merle, Liz, Genia, and Suzie, better known as the Epelbaum girls, were born in Montreal, Quebec, and raised by two European parents who immigrated to Canada after World War II. The Epelbaum girls grew up in a home where dinners were sacred, food was very important, and restaurants were non-existent. As adults, the four sisters went out on their own and took many inspiring and memorable family traditions with them that they now share with their families and friends. Each sister has a unique style, flare, and interest in different kinds of foods and cooking. Creating an ambiance of fun and togetherness with family and friends is their form of art. They each share their healthy and delicious secrets, out-of-the-box foods for healing, funny stories, and easy-to-learn games. This is the first book that all four sisters have written together.

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Copyright © 2015 The Epelbaum Sisters.

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LifeRich Publishing is a registered trademark of The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.

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ISBN: 978-1-4897-0462-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-0461-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-0460-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015911593

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 11/2/2015

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We dedicate this book to our parents, Esther and Norman Epelbaum. You inspired us to eat together as a family and that kept us all so close. You encouraged us to make balanced meals and see the importance in eating as a family. You dedicated your time to cook the most delicious meals. You showed us what it means to be hospitable.

Our dinner table will always be remembered. Thank you for sharing your warmth and teaching us what it means to have a dinner table that is fun, exciting, humorous, and all encompassing. We will always cherish the memories!

Thank you, Mom and Dad!

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Excerpt from Family Dinners—Now Comes the Hard Part

by Dr. Marshall Duke

Research at the Emory Center for the Study of Myth and Ritual in American Life (MARIAL) in Atlanta, and at the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University demonstrates clearly that the more kids eat dinner with their families the stronger they are, the better their relationships with their parents, the better their grades in school, the less likely they are to get into drugs or other problems with the law.

What the studies of family dinners do NOT say is that these good effects are a specific result of holiday dinners or Thanksgiving Dinner. As far as these studies are concerned, dinner is dinner. The hard part that I am writing about is dinner on January 5, February 11, March 24, and all the other plain old days that lie ahead of us.

What to do? We need to respect the research. The family dinners on plain old days are important. But they need not be held every night—three family dinners a week have significant impact the research tells us; five have even greater positive effects. Try to establish family dinner nights a month in advance, or even a week. Stick to them. Make them the highest priority for those nights. The menus? The structures, the rituals? As on the holidays, these make dinners easier to implement. No need to think of a menu; everyone knows his or her part.

Promise this to yourself; promise this to your kids; promise this to your grandchildren; promise it to your great grandchildren. Why the great-grandchildren? Because they will also be the recipients of the good that family dinners do. Every time you sit down with your family it’s like throwing a stone into a quiet pond; you’ll see the strongest and most immediate ripples in your children, but the ripples will continue as they move out across time. And sometimes they’ll even bounce back.

Dr. Marshall Duke is an award winning professor of psychology and core faculty member of the Emory Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life.

Isaac Rudansky / Artist

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Dinner Table by Isaac Rudansky

For me, family dinners have always been an exciting time. There are many energetic elements at the dinner table, and they all interact with each other to create a truly unique dynamic. The father has come home from a long day at work. How did his day go? How has his interactions shaped the mood he is in now? He must be excited to be home with his family, and he must be hungry…The mother’s day was action-packed: Hurrying, bustling, chaperoning, coaching, cooking, teaching…loving. The children, perhaps the most volatile and fragile in their youth, have so much they want to say. Who can possibly give these children the attention they seek? The family has gathered as one; a coalition of distinct components, so much to say, so much to be heard. The children vie fervently for their parents’ ear. There is tension, too. The tension of the words left inside for fear that when they are spoken, they will be misunderstood. Fear for the inability to capture the essence of a feeling with mere words; words that seek to quantify an immeasurable emotion. But then there is the food. The hot meal the mother has prepared lovingly for her family. The maelstrom of emotion and excitement mitigated by the comforting awareness that mother has our back. Somehow, in her impossibly busy schedule, she found time to cook dinner; she found time to think of us. And oh, the food is so good.

Isaac Rudansky is a very popular New York artist among collectors. He has been called a modern master of calm beneath the chaos of life.

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Table of Contents

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Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I – At the Table

Chapter 1: From Chaos to Calm

Chapter 2: Mind Your Manners

Chapter 3: The Importance of Table Conversation

Chapter 4: Top Ten Dinner Table Rules for Success

Chapter 5: How Do I Set a Table?

Chapter 6: Dinner Table Games

Part II – Around the House

Chapter 7: A Clean Home Is a Healthy Family

Chapter 8: Gratitude and Happiness

Chapter 9: The Art of Dining

Part III – In the Kitchen

Chapter 10: The Family Headquarters

Chapter 11: Kitchen Essentials

Chapter 12: Kitchen Mathematics

Part IV – Meals and Recipes

Chapter 13: Family Sunday Dinner

Chapter 14: In Honor of Barbara

Chapter 15: Home Sweet Jewish Home

Chapter 16: Moses Family Favorite

Chapter 17: Let’s Go Vegetarian Tonight

Chapter 18: Rick’s Chicks Dinner

Chapter 19: Quick Tuesday Night Dinner

Chapter 20: Suzie-Q’s Old Fashioned Family Dinner

Chapter 21: Express Yourself with Garlic

Chapter 22: Sunday Night Tofu

Chapter 23: Who Needs Take Out?

Chapter 24: Bat Out of Heaven

Chapter 25: Gourmet Pizza Pie Casso Night

Chapter 26: Family Home Party for Adults and Kids

Chapter 27: Mediterranean Greek Feast

Chapter 28: Fancy Family Celebration

Chapter 29: Let’s Go Italian

Chapter 30: Vegan Voodoo

About the Authors

Preface

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We grew up in a household that enjoyed wholesome, fresh, natural, unprocessed, and non-commercialized food. Our mother prepared all the meals, as was traditional in the 60s and 70s, with daily full course dinners made from scratch for our family of six. The gold standard for meals was plain and fresh. Our family did not consume carbonated drinks or sweet desserts at our dinner table. We drank water or juice, and had fruit that was in season for dessert. Our household also defied the myth that children dislike vegetables; we ate our fruits and vegetables without needing to be forced or bribed.

The above description of our culinary upbringing could be considered a bit boring for four pre-teens, especially since our family never went out to eat, never ordered pizza, and never brought home Chinese takeout on Saturday or Sunday family nights.

Consequently, we may have been craving inspiration. As much as we benefitted from the healthy simplicity of the cooking at our house, we were curious about food diversity. Our Moroccan, Greek, Japanese, Italian, and Caribbean friends had lunches and dinners that were different, delicious, and interesting.

When home from school, we would often watch daytime TV. The Galloping Gourmet was one of the first classic cooking shows to inspire us. We admired Graham Kerr’s British accent and classiness, learned about new foods and recipes, and enjoyed the finale of each show when he invited a guest from the audience to dine with him to enjoy his culinary creation.

Our family devoted a lot of energy to the kitchen and to quality time around the dinner table. It was when we invited significant boyfriends for dinner that my father would generously pass up the tradition of fathers being served first, and would pass on his plate to our guest at the table. This gesture honored the guest and was a complement to the cook. Not only were meals delicious, dinner table time also stimulated meaningful memories.

All of us agree that cooking is the single most important thing we can do to improve the health and general