Turkey, tacos, tuna, tortellini, and even take-out: it’s all okay when Princeton celebrates Family Dinner Week this year, as long as you’re breaking bread (or dining on any other comestible) with your family.
Sponsored by Corner House and Princeton Alcohol and Drug Alliance (PADA), Family Dinner Week, which will take place from April 15 to 22, is intended “to encourage families to have more meals together amidst their busy schedules.” The timing is particularly apt, with Corner House celebrating its 40th anniversary. The fact that April is Alcohol Awareness Month is also significant; family dinners, say Corner House staffers, are “a great deterrent to drugs, alcohol, smoking, inappropriate relationships, and eating disorders; and they are a great way to promote healthy eating habits, family relationships, communication, and self esteem.”
“Family dinner is the only time that many families connect as one unit,” observed Township Committee’s PADA and Corner House liaison, Lance Liverman. “Our lives are so busy we are always running and forgetting that unity and a sense of belonging are still important.”
In addition to Corner House and PADA, community sponsors of Princeton Family Dinner Week currently include the Princeton Regional Schools, Small World Coffee, JMGroup, Princeton Public Library, JaZams, PrincetonPatch, Naked Pizza, Dingin’it, Princeton Borough Police Department, Princeton Township Police, Princeton Recreation Department, and the Terra Momo Restaurant Group: Teresa Caffe, Eno Terra, Mediterra, and the Witherspoon Bread Company. The Corner House website as well as a Facebook page devoted to the initiative offer regular updates on sponsors, events, and pledge opportunities.
The Princeton Public Library is doing its part by hosting, along with PADA and Corner House, a community potluck dinner on Monday, April 16. The evening gets underway in the Community Room at 6:30 p.m. In addition to bringing their families, participants are asked to bring a baked good large enough to serve eight to ten people. “All other menu items will be provided,” promises the library. A link on the library’s website enables people to register in advance, or they can call (609) 924-9529.
Eno Terra Restaurant & Enoteca, and PrincetonEats.Org are participating in Family Dinner Week by sponsoring a recipe contest. They are particularly interested in recipes made with local ingredients and using produce that is appropriate to the season. Eno Terra’s chefs will be judging the competition, and winning recipes will be featured as specials at their weekend lunch. Recipe contributors and their families will be invited to lunch, and the top ten recipes will appear on PrinceonEats.org. Recipes must be emailed by Friday, April 13, to Nirit Yadin, nyadin@terramomo.com. The contest is open to all except for Terra Momo Restaurants Group employees and their families.
Other events planned in conjunction with the week include a community-wide scavenger hunt throughout town the week before Family Dinner Week with prizes provided by JaZams and Small World; a school-wide elementary art lesson talking about experiences at family meals and creating a “my place at the table” place mat; a family pledge to find more opportunities for family meals; restaurants and food purveyors offering family dinner menus; and family dinner events at the Community Park Pool, Palmer Square, and Princeton Shopping Center Concert nights. A reusable grocery bag showing the event’s name and sponsors is being created to mark the occasion.
“We want to embrace these ideas as a community and help families find ways to get to the family meal more,” said Janet Giles, one of the event’s organizers. “This means being creative and understanding it is not only dinner, not always at home, not always a soup to nuts meal. Take out, bring in, at a restaurant, prepared foods, lots of ways to get your family to the table in the midst of busy family schedules.”