About the Proprietress

In my naiveté, I had underestimated how difficult it would be to blend different traditions, different memories and different histories into one solid unit. Blended families are not a novelty. They are everywhere, but when it is yours, it is different. For everyone involved it can seem somewhat unnatural – stepchildren, stepparents, stepsiblings – the spirit of family life grows slowly as a family grows and develops. How does a family achieve something so subtly comfortable that it is only evident when it does not exist?

So it was for my new blended family. I had gone from “single-working-girl-of-a-certain-advanced-age” to wife, stepmother of a teenager and expectant mother. I was suddenly charged with blending a family that was tentatively held together with spare amounts of not-so-sticky tape. I sat thinking and searching, with my arms crossed across my expanding middle, and thought about how I could bring some comfort into our home and family life. I tried a number of things, but none felt just right, and I kept pondering what made me feel loved and comforted when I was growing up. How does a mother, much less a stepmother, show love and offer comfort to a teenager? They are tough nuts to crack. Growing up, my parents were both very good cooks. We ate dinner together regularly – dinners I still remember. Even during my teenage years, when I’m sure I rolled my eyes through dinner and hissed at my parents, underneath it all I felt comforted and loved and welcome. I felt “at home”.

So off to the kitchen I went, chasing family comfort and hoping I would find it there. I browsed cookbooks. I bought cookbooks. I bought All Clad. I bought lovely cloth napkins. I watched the Food Channel. I called my mother for a refresher on her classic gravy, wishing I had not rolled my eyes in my youth when she spoke passionately about the necessity of a flat whisk. I made a list of the meals I still remember from childhood that were regulars around our table, and then it hit me. Maybe that was a major building block of family comfort – dinners at home that are regulars, that you look forward to, that you miss when you are an adult eating Goldfish washed down with Chardonnay and calling it dinner. To be a successful family, we required more deliberate staging and orchestration. Like an archaeologist that had just stumbled upon some lost treasure, I dusted off my treasured family comfort building block and made it a project. I sautéed. I fried. I poached. I whipped. I whisked (with a flat whisk, I should add). I deglazed. I reduced. I breaded. I steamed. I baked. I rolled. My mission was to create a family repertoire of dinners that would whisper comfort to my family. Years from now, I wanted my stepson and my daughter to smell a roasted chicken and think with a smile, “Ahhh, it smells like Lauren’s/Mom’s house.” With every meal I put on the table, my gauge was my stepson’s reaction. A half-smile and a slight nod was all I needed to be up until 2:00 AM with a new cookbook. I think I caught him with my mom’s gravy (enter flat whisk). It elicited a full smile and numerous requests for repeat performances. As my daughter grew out of Gerber, she began eating our dinners too. Could it be that I had succeeded in planting the seeds of family comfort? Hurrah!

So that is how I ended up here. I am a great worshiper now of the family dinner. It heals, it bonds, it comforts, it nourishes. It helped blend my family. Starting where we did, it made me appreciate and value some of these old-fashioned, “inconvenient” practices that have fallen victim to the drive-through window. Getting dinner on the table every night, or even a few nights a week, is difficult, however. When I was getting started I found myself putting off the planning more and more, which led to a week of prepared foods or pizza or the Chick-Fil-A drive-through. Several nights without a family dinner around the table and I felt like I was just inches from those sad days of Goldfish and Chardonnay. Back to the planning table I went, spending hours over cookbooks, fine-tuning and altering recipes, pairing dishes and preparing grocery lists. I now have a sizeable repertoire of family meals that have all been tested at the Hudson Family Table. I would like to share these with you so you can enjoy family dinners around your own table with ease. It is a gift that keeps giving.

As I said earlier, the comfort of family, whether blended or natural, is only fully evident when it does not exist. We’re not particularly conscious of the comfort we feel at home, just the discomfort, if it exists. Dinner together at home around the table makes a family closer and spreads maternal love to those who need it. It’s comforting, although it is not so overt that your family will notice. It won’t be something they notice or appreciate until they are seeking out comfort for the family they build on their own as adults. I am still thrilled when I place a dish on the dinner table and see the anticipation and excitement on the faces of my teenager and elementary schooler. Then there is the appreciation I see in my husband’s eyes and his gentle smile - - there is nothing better.