.

It’s hard to say goodbye to the year-long family meal photo project, so I’m cheating in this last entry. Instead of putting up pictures of the last 6 family meals, I’m putting up pictures from the last 2 weeks of family meals. After the jump there are some super-special family meal photos, including two surprise guest chefs, Jesus’s final family meal and a family meal that has never been shown on this website before.

.

.

Tuesday: fried rice with spicy, fried yuba skin on top.

.

More excitement after the jump!

.

Read the rest of this entry »

.

.

Tuesday: a very blurry picture of family meal today, which is too bad because it’s our Indian extravaganza celebrating something we were all very, VERY happy about but that would be impolite to discuss in public. Service was really busy and we were a little behind getting ready and Danielle managed to throw Jesus’s family meal plate on the floor. I don’t think it was an act of aggression, but still -  no Indian food for Jesus! A repeat Indian family meal to make up for his loss has been requested.

.

.

Wednesday: still celebrating. We really were all so happy. So today, pizza party!

.

.

Thursday: lots of onions with tofu and red carrots, then rice and salad. The celebrations are over and it’s back on the family meal treadmill.

.

.

Friday: to remind us all that family meals are not about having fun, here’s mushroom hearts and rice noodles. Again. *sigh*

.

.

Saturday: today’s family meal looks like an early bird special at a retirement community buffet. Grits with mushroom hearts, onions and broccoli and next to it is chickpea, red onion and yogurt salad.

.

.

.

Wednesday: fried tofu in the background, a salad in the middle distance and a medley of roasted vegetables in the foreground.

.

.

Thursday: mushroom hearts with corn, cream and a tiny bit of grits thrown in. A salad and banana smoothies rounds out our oh-so-nutritious family meal.

.

.

Friday: rice, mushroom hearts and eggs and, of course, a salad. Which has become our new eggs. Or our new mushroom hearts. Not in terms of taste but just in terms of always being present at family meal.

.

.

Saturday: a giant bowl of mashed potatoes, red and green pepper tofu. We don’t use red and green peppers for anything right now so I was surprised to see them in family but apparently Jesus was bored of all our vegetables so he went next door and got some from I Coppi. See what I’ve reduced my staff to? Begging for family meal relief from other restaurants.

.

.

.

Wednesday: Jesus brought in corn tortillas, then there’s rice & corn, and a smoked tofu stir fry with eggs on the side (the return of the eggs!).

.

.

Thursday: overcooked falafel balls, a garlicky yogurt dressing and salad. This family meal is sad.

.

.

Friday: the salad dressing was such a hit yesterday that we had it today, too! There’s a radish salad, french fries, extra lettuce (just in case) and grilled tofu and mushrooms in an extremely mushroomy sauce that we all really liked.

.

.

Saturday: sometimes I look at a family meal and think: why? What is the reasoning behind this meal. But that is a mistake because family meal is the meal that defies logic and common sense. Today’s is a case in point. A curry dal with white rice, roasted vegetables and, again, the yogurt dressing that we’ve already had twice this week. And some gluten-free cookies. See? No sense.

.

.

.

Tuesday: french fries and ketchup, deep fried tofu with red peppers and mushrooms.

.

.

Wednesday: fried tofu skins with a zucchini, tofu and mushroom curry.

.

.

Thursday: made by our intern. Gluten-free corn bread, maple butter on a plate, roasted tofu in a bowl, rainbow carrots and a tray of roasted and curried cauliflower that was actually really good.

.

.

Friday: coconut pea soup with salad on the side. There are probably some rice noodles and, let’s face it, mushroom hearts in there.

.

.

Saturday: almost the exact same as the day before except the salad has corn and there’s no coconut milk in the soup.

.

.

Last week’s family meals were a little “meh” but this week we have a family meal photo shoot, everyone is forced to act like they enjoy family meal, and someone reaches the end of their rope with mushroom hearts and a crisis ensues.

.

.

Tuesday: sea bean, tofu and mushroom hearts in a tomato sauce. For some reason we had more tomato paste and so it got used. I wish it wasn’t so.

.

.

Wednesday: gluten-free pasta with deep fried mushroom hearts, smoked tofu and vegetables.

.

.

Thursday: mushroom cream sauce with mushroom hearts and rice. Today was the last straw for mushroom hearts. William (our dishwasher) really doesn’t like them and I was starting to feel guilty about forcing them down his throat every day. On top of that, just look at that dish. It’s pretty gross looking It’s the kind of dish that just makes you want to give up. On everything. If despair was a family meal, it would be this one. So I turned to Jesus and said, “Look, we have to start making something besides mushroom hearts. It just…it just has to change.” Jesus said, “But that’s all I have to work with. If we don’t have any other vegetables then how can I make other vegetables?” At which point Danielle jumped in with, “Jesus, this is a vegetable restaurant. Vegetables are all we serve. There are other vegetables here.” Jesus agreed that her observation was correct, and so things are changing.

.

.

Friday: this was a punishment family meal for Danielle. Because she talked back to Jesus the day before about the mushroom hearts, today he made her cook family meal. It’s fried tofu and fried tofu skin on the side, and a miso, white rice, yellow squash and watercress soup. It looks like she felt. Resentful and punished.

.

.

Saturday: I’d been getting phone calls for a while from a woman who’s writing a book about restaurant family meals. She wanted to take a picture of ours, and after pointing out that our family meals are really informal and not exactly super-photogenic, I agreed. So she showed up today to photograph our family meal. Jesus made, after much debate (we all wanted to put our best foot forward with a family meal photo), a tray of all different kinds of roasted vegetables, raspberry banana smoothie (Jesus and I think that smoothies look good on camera), ketchup, french fries and grits (not scrambled eggs). Then I had to make everyone sit on the banquette and eat family meal together – like a family! – so that we looked good for the camera. It was a bit like taking my Duggar-sized mega-family out to Sears to get a photo portrait taken. “Smile, dammit! We’re having fun. You’re having FUN! Stop crying! Laugh! Laugh! You’re enjoying this!”

.

“Smile! Act like you’re having fun! I

don’t care if you’re not having fun! Pretend!”

.

And, of course, after giving Jesus a lot of

grief that we wouldn’t have enough family meal

for everyone today, we wound up with a ton of leftovers.

Because I have no idea what I’m talking about.

.

.

.

Tuesday: mushroom heart and white kidney bean stir fry with arugula. We had way too much arugula in our order this week and it wasn’t going to be good for too much longer so…family meal!

.

.

Wednesday: roasted vegetables, fried tofu and cucumber. And a piece of lemon on the side of the roasted vegetables to add class.

.

.

Thursday: it was a lot more fun to eat this family meal than to look at it now when it looks like a pan full of yuck. But it was cauliflower, yellow zucchini and mushroom hearts in a cream sauce.

.

.

Friday: mushroom hearts and gluten-free pasta in tomato sauce. And bread on the side. To make it exciting. It didn’t work.

.

.

Saturday: carrot and tofu skin soup and a fritata on the side.

.

Only two family meals on the first week of this year, Thursday, Dec. 30 and Saturday, Jan. 1.

.

.

Thursday: mushroom heart ragout and cellophane noodles.

.

.

Saturday: William (our dishwasher) brought in some tamales that his mother brought back from her Christmas visit to Ecuador. They were really, really good. There’s also a salad (not from Ecuador), fried tofu (also not from Ecuador), and a tomato sauce (not from Ecuador, either). So Ecuador basically wins family meal today.

.

.

Tuesday: yellow curry mushrooms and a salad. That squash lurking in the background was not part of family meal.

.

.

Wednesday: a chickpea and mushroom stir fry.

.

Look how easy it is to make food porn!

This is just Wednesday’s family meal in close-up.

.

.

Thursday: the last family meal before the holidays. Pizza party! Motorino pizza party, to be exact. And there’s Hobbles, Dirt Candy’s 2-dimensional 3-legged cat, in the background. Happy holidays, Hobbles!

.

.

.

Tuesday: fried tofu, mushroom hearts, yellow carrots and peas with cashew curry. With some cauliflower.

.

.

Wednesday: bowl of salad with a spicy rice noodle and egg soup. Very good but hard to eat because Jesus likes to punish us for making family meal by leaving the extra long rice noodles extra long and refusing to cut them. We all had to change our shirts afterwards. Not a date soup.

.

.

Thursday: salad with cucumber and almonds and carrots. Next to it is broccoli with mushroom hearts (those again) and chickpeas.

.

.

Friday: a salad with carrots. It’s Danielle’s Asian-inspired salad with lime juice, sesame oil, red pepper flakes and parmesan cheese. Tomato paste with fried tofu and mushroom hearts. We are all heartily sick of mushroom hearts but the celery salad is not leaving anytime soon so we will continue to have a near-limitless supply of them and eating them is cheaper than throwing them away.

.

.

Saturday: greatest hits day! Fried eggs are back. Mushroom hearts! Broccoli stems!

.