Dinner with Dad
How I Found My Way Back to the Family Table
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
“Our kitchen is small, the appliances dated. We don’t have a fancy six-burner stove or double wall oven like some of our wealthier neighbors. But as I remove the second pizza from the oven, the kitchen feels perfect: neither too big nor too small, neither too old nor too new. The kind of kitchen where my brother can enter carrying both my son and my daughter in his arms.”
–from Dinner with Dad
A beautiful, intelligent wife, two bright children, a gorgeous home in a nice Connecticut suburb, an ample income as a successful lawyer: by all accounts, Cameron Stracher is living the American dream. Problem is, thanks to a crazybusy work schedule, he’s never home to enjoy it. Most nights Cameron grabs dinner on the run, eating on the late train home long after his wife and kids have finished their meal.
So one day Cameron commits himself to a revolutionary experiment: For the next year, he’ll be home by six o’clock at least five days a week to sit down to a real family dinner–and he’ll even help cook that dinner himself. “Instead of stuffing a taco into my mouth in the back of the train, I will sauté chicken and peppers for my own fajitas. Instead of dining alone, I will dine with my family. Instead of Absent Dad, I will be Nourishing Dad.”
But as this daring adventure gets under way, it becomes clear that the road to culinary togetherness is no cakewalk. Six-year-old Lulu eats only plain pasta with salt and nine-year-old Simon clings immovably to hot dogs. What’s more, Cameron begins to feel that his normally sympathetic wife, Christine, is growing tired of having him underfoot at unexpected hours. Only the author’s faith in another American dream–family closeness at the dinner table–keeps him moving, and as he shops, chops, and cooks, he ponders the high percentage of Americans who’d rather work than be with their families, who’d rather take conference calls than meet the school bus.
Fired with love and humor, wit and heart, and peppered with engaging social and cultural history, Dinner with Dad is a four-star, five-course celebration of family life. Millions of overextended parents will relate to and relish Cameron’s journey as he discovers what truly matters most.
Advance praise for Dinner with Dad:
“Dinner with Dad is for every spouse who’s ever crashed on the rocks of the suburban dream and for every parent who’s had his heart broken by a child’s turned-up nose. Stracher writes with humor and honesty about the pitfalls and triumphs of trying to have your family and eat with them, too.”
–Julie Powell, author of Julie & Julia
“Busy fathers everywhere will immediately identify with this book, and hopefully will heed its message. Well done, Cameron–someone needed to write this book. Now dads everywhere need to read it.”
–Mike Greenberg, author of Why My Wife Thinks I’m an Idiot
“A warm-hearted, loving, and funny look at the way we live now. Can a dad get home for dinner, cook it, and live to tell the tale? Stracher’s story gives hope to the hungry and cheer to the overemployed.”
–Harlan Coben, author of The Woods
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Having left behind the life of ambition-driven associates at a large law firm, which he described in his memoir Double Billing, Stracher lives comfortably with his family in Westport, Conn. However, the two-hour commute into New York City, an 80-hour work-week split between two professions, and out-of-state travel begin to take their toll. When a shared meal of black bean burritos suddenly draws together his disparate family, Stracher pledges that rather than grubbing food from subway vendors or eating takeout in his office, he will dine with his family five nights a week and prepare half of the meals himself. He simmers, saut s and skewers gourmet dinners, only to be rebuffed by his two kids, who would rather eat boxed macaroni and cheese. Only later does Stracher take such rejection in stride, realizing that feeding a family is more than "refueling"; it includes "nourishing" them, too physically and emotionally. In the meantime, he turns into "Mad Dad," an candid self-portrayal of a loving but frustrated father who yells and stomps and mopes, creating more tension than harmony. Stracher finally recognizes success when he notices that he is no longer just present for dinner with his family but an "essential ingredient." In the end, Stracher's is a sincere and witty account of his family and his struggle to get them to the table.