sister family tables

i dreamt up this sister family post concept before the new year. it's still evolving in my head as i write more thoughts into my #52tries diary today.

i'm dreaming of connection.

katie and i want to connect our family tables across the country (denver and chicago) and in turn connect ourselves, our kids and our husbands around food and family.

we cooked up the pollan family cookbook's halibut en papillote, aka "pooches of fun" (katie and i both used cod). mom and dad were out visiting her on the zucchini chip night and her in laws + bro and sis in law were visiting on "pooch" night. so it was double family fun! god i wish i cooked like that when my kids were little. they.eat.everything. i wish i could teleport and squeeze the dickens out of them. or switch kids (just for a week) ...that would be fun. maybe you can kick the picky out of them. ha! i'm actually serious.

this meal was not on my chalkboard of meal planning for the week. i'm saving these "sister family table" adventures just for the mullies. just me and katie, the dreamers of this coo-coo place.

chris laughed at me when i put the pooches of fun on the table. he made me so mad. how could he laugh at me? in front of the kids!? what will the kids think? if dad is laughing, does that mean that this food for sure sucks?

i opened up the pooches with great fanfare, chris is still laughing at me. the kids' faces screw up. i am ready to flip the table. but i'm trying to be sweet and positive and encouraging with this new recipe. please like it you ingrates! i slaved over this! a restaurant would charge, like, $20 bucks each!!!

i took off the paper from everyone's plates and they all just sit there poking the fish and veggies like its some kind of alien substance of poo. little shi*ts. all of them. sweetness gone.

i start eating and it's truly divine. mac looks at me and starts eating to please mom, but then ends up truly liking it. chris has to sit next to tommy to feed him. abbie starts crying at several points to our, "EAT. JUST TRY IT ABBIE! EAT" yelling. chris says it's actually really good but is super annoyed with me for putting so much food on everyone's plate. "it's so wasteful you know".

at some point, i realized our family table was in emotional shambles. i decided to start making jokes. we all started laughing. abbie went from wanting to die at the table to being being silly in 2 seconds flat. i stopped yelling at her to eat.

you can see in the final few pictures how the night ended. how it got there, i didn't know at the time, but i sure do now after writing this week's 52tries post.

i'm letting shit go so we can actually see each other through the food (and my ego) at our family table.

 xoL