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We were always four around the dinner table — until we were not. So often I’d heard friends celebrate the day that “the kids finally left home!” It was different for me. I cried the first time I set a table for only three, and then, for two, as our children set out for college. I was excited, of course, to see them pursue their own careers and their independent paths of life, but I missed the nightly ritual we shared for years.
It’s been 15 years since my kids left home to create their own lives, but I can still remember how deeply I felt this change. Gone were our evening gatherings around home-cooked meals, to eat, to share our daily lives, to discuss our worries, our hopes, and our dreams. It was not exactly a tragedy, but for us, it wasn’t a time to celebrate either.
Then again, before we were four, we had started as two.
How I Transitioned My Dinner Routine After the Kids Moved Out
I remembered how as a new bride, I’d looked forward to surprising my husband with different meals that made him feel cherished. You see, since I am a food writer and cookbook author, cooking is my love language and recipes are my poems. I knew that planning new menus and making smaller meals wouldn’t be hard, but the emotional aspect of missing our children’s physical presence, the soundlessness that enveloped our home during the evenings, the empty chairs — all of that was another matter.
Surely our eating habits changed. First because practicality called for it, as food shopping hauls became smaller. Even though cutting down the number of the servings of my inventory of recipes wasn’t an arduous task for me, shopping for two — when most food packages come portioned for more — proved the bigger task. All of a sudden, I had to resolve what to do with that extra chicken breast in the package of three (add it to fried rice or use it to stretch a bowl of curry) or with the additional half-pound of ground beef whenever we craved burgers (turn the rest into two giant meatballs that can simmer directly in sauce, to serve over creamy polenta).
How Cooking for 2 Reconnected My Husband and Me
Even though our midday meals remained simple — a salad, a bowl of soup, a sandwich or an omelet — the idea of revamping evening meals made me enthusiastic to reconnect with my husband in a new way. Through years of parenting and dealing with life’s hectic issues, we had forgotten how to be present for one another; we knew how to be parents but had to relearn how to be a couple.
The love was there, but there was also distance that needed to be bridged. My answer was to cook with new abandon, without having to cater to many palates, and instead focus on pleasing just our tastes. Now that I was only cooking for two, some ingredients became more affordable: Lobster tails, giant artichokes, beef tenderloin, and fancy lamb chops fit our budget once more.
I remembered how much fun cooking can be; in the process, we rediscovered one another. We even began to grow our own food and built a potager garden together.
How I Have Fun with Cooking Again
Suddenly, there was more time to make what we ate look pretty. Large batches of arroz con pollo, eaten family style, were replaced by individual plates of perfectly roasted chicken thighs on beds of sofrito, topped with composed chimichurri butter and surrounded by round rice croquetas (the same dish, but reconstructed). Instead of simple baked fish, I wrapped fillets in parchment paper and served them en papillote, bathed in wine sauces.
I rediscovered the difference that a pretty garnish can make on a simple dish, and began to dress grilled meats with sprigs of flowering dill, seafood with dainty lemon slices, and desserts with nasturtium petals.
Fortunately for us, the kids still love to come back home. But now, instead of four places, I often set the table for six or seven, as our little family expands. I still make the large meals: big pots of posole, mounding piles of milanesas, and platters of chiles rellenos, but after all this time, it’s the little rendezvous for two that I look forward to the most.
