I've touched upon this before, but my dad has always been a chef at this same chinese restaurant since before I was born. For my family, this means he's working six days a week for 11 or 12 hours a day. American holidays aren't always a given day off and big parties often mean he's working late. So, for the one day a week that he's off of work we sit down as a family and eat together. For the most part dad sticks it out and cooks for us but every once in a while we'll go out (chefs get tired of cooking too!). Notice that I don't mention my mom making dinner for us. She 's the person that burns the pot while she's boiling water. Let's just say I learned how to fan smoke off the smoke alarm before I learned how to hold a knife. Love you mom.
So this is a typical dinner for us. It honestly took me a long time before I realized that other families didn't have 5 course meals for dinner. Whoops? Setting the table at my house means putting down newspaper on the dining room table and running plates to my dad. Of course we eat this family style, so each of us scoop out bowls of rice, everyone grabs a pair of chopsticks, and we eat. Dishes always include one plate of fish for me and my dad (usually fried flounder which is my favorite fish), steak (the only thing my brother eats), a vegetable plate of some sort, and soup that mom and dad have been stewing away in the ancient slow cooker/crockpot all day. Often we'll have more plates with roasted duck and/or pork from the market, seafood like scallops or shrimp, a plate of noodles, or more veggies. Then when everyone is finished eating, my parents tag team the cleaning and dishes, leftovers go in the fridge for the rest of the week when dad is working, and we all hit food coma stage. Then the fruit comes out. My family isn't big on dessert so what ends up happening is we break out the apples, oranges, melon, pomegranate, pineapple, whatever is in season and that's what we munch on for the rest of the night as dessert. This is the way that family dinner has always been in my house, and I love it. Big family dinners with aunts and uncles and cousins at grandmas house are almost exactly the same. We all scrunch around the table and arms are tangled as we all reach for food. We have a layer of seats and then a second of family that stands while plates fill every surface of the table and people run from kitchen to dining room to bring drinks, spoons, sauces, and more dishes that haven't quite left the stove. This dinners are what made me fall in love with food. Nothing is better than a chaotic meal to bring people together.