Family Meal | Feed Your Fire Podcast Episode

What does a family meal mean to you? In today's episode, we share how shared meals can become magical moments in our life, filling us beyond what we eat, as we take inspiration from the final season of The Bear and our favorite culinary family. 

Listen on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, and Amazon.

Feed Your Fire Podcast Episode Transcript:

Hello and welcome to Feed Your Fire. I'm your host, Kim Baker.

Everyone, gather around the table. Today we're having a family meal. You hear those voices in the background. That's the sound of community of people enjoying themselves with a plate in front of them and a fork in hand.

Contrary to what it sounds like, a family meal doesn't actually require family. In restaurants, they're enjoyed by the staff before a shift, often a creative expression with whatever ingredients are on hand, and this is something we could bring home into our own kitchens, and that's what we're going to do here today with inspiration from the Berzattos, our favorite culinary family.

What does a family meal mean to you? Oftentimes, it's not just the blood relationship we have with the people that we sit down at a table with. It's created with interactivity, the handing and passing of plates, the nostalgia, the belonging, the promise. Because a family meal isn't about food; it's about a feeling.

Last week, I was up in New York visiting Corinne and Josh. It's been a difficult road for them recently, and so I went up just to help out. And one night, my sister Danielle came into the city and joined us for dinner. I had cooked us a very simple meal. We weren't even actually at a table. We were standing around a kitchen island, and I had this very hard to describe feeling as we stood there.

Growing up together, we had always had these really big meals. We sat around a set table. There were always people and all of this energy around, but this was very different. It was quieter and more impromptu. And even though this was something that we hadn't really done before, it was really comforting. We didn't just share a meal; it was a connection point. And in those few hours together, we all got a little something from each other that we needed.

The day after I came back, I had planned a dinner with my boyfriend and his kids and my son and his girlfriend, and there were people meeting each other for the first time. And I had planned this interactive, make-your-own pizza night party, which was a lot more calm and structured in my head than it actually was in real life. It was a bit like an episode in The Bear, a bit chaotic, lots of moving parts. Some things got burned, other things dropped. It was anything but smooth, but it was, by all accounts, a success. Proof that perfect isn't what makes a gathering of people meaningful.

Even though that evening had a really different energy than the dinner I had had with my sisters just a couple nights before, both evoked a feeling and filled you with something that had nothing to do with what you ate, and that's what today's episode is all about. Some might call it fellowship, but to us, it's a family meal.

What better way to draw inspiration for that idea than with the Berzatto family? Not just because of Sunday's pizza night, but because the bear represents so many things that could happen to us in life, and how much we can grow from them in community. And if you've watched the final season, then you know that there's this particularly poignant moment where the team comes together on this crazy day and shares a family meal. Then later on in the episode, Tina prepares that same recipe, the Brussel sprouts, for guests in the restaurant when they need it most, and she calls the dish “Family Meal”.

Now this is not a replica of that recipe. I took it upon myself to create a new one based on that inspiration. So today we're going to prepare miso brown sugar Brussels sprouts with bacon.

 The first thing we're going to do is pop about a half a pound of baby gold potatoes into a pot filled with cool water. You'll want the water to come up just a couple inches above those potatoes. Season it generously with salt. Turn the heat up high and let it come to a boil. Then reduce it down and cook the potatoes until they're fork tender. That takes maybe 15 minutes.

While the potatoes are cooking, grab a skillet and put it over a medium flame. Add about seven slices of bacon, chopped up. Let them render and get crispy. And once they're brown and crispy, add about a third of a cup of diced onion. We're gonna let them cook low and slow until they're nice and caramelized, making sure nothing's burning. When the potatoes are done, we're gonna scoop them out of the water and put them in a bowl. Set them aside for a second.

Then, in that same pot of water, we're gonna add about a pound of Brussels sprouts with the ends trimmed and cut in half. We're gonna just let them par cook. Once they're just getting tender, we're gonna add them to that skillet with the bacon and onions. Add a little bit of olive oil if you need it. You'll want them to sauté nicely in that mixture. Turn them so that they're face down and can get some color.

Then, in a small bowl, we're gonna combine two tablespoons of white miso paste, three tablespoons of brown sugar, two teaspoons of rice wine vinegar, and one teaspoon of apple cider vinegar. Pour in about a quarter cup of water, and whisk it all together. Then set it aside.

Grab your cooked potatoes, slice them in half and add them to the skillet with the Brussels sprouts. Now we're going to take that miso mixture that we just made, and we're going to pour it on top. Toss everything around-the bacon, the Brussels sprouts, the potatoes-and let it all get mixed up. Then just let it sit and give it a minute to reduce. It takes just a few seconds, and you'll be left with this mixture that's sweet and salty and umami, a perfectly simple dish that's made for sharing.

I worked in restaurants most of my young life, whether it was back of the house or front of the house, coming together with a plate of food was part of what made those experiences fun and memorable.

I remember once at the steakhouse getting these like oddly deformed hot dogs, and at another restaurant having this flounder and broccoli rabe. You never knew what you were gonna get, and that's part of its magic.

My boyfriend once asked me what my favorite meal was out of all the experiences in life, if there was one that just stood out. And there have been meals that have been outstanding, but for me, it's never been about the food, as ironic as that might sound. And I remember telling him that what was coming to mind was this dinner I had with my family, on the rooftop of a restaurant.

I was young, like in my 20s, but my whole family was there: my brother, my parents, my sisters, with boyfriends and girlfriends that have come and gone. But it forged this really rich, distinctive memory. I can remember the temperature of the evening, the sun setting, and the gentle wind as it blew. I remember us eating tuna tartare along with a slew of other dishes. It was before life got complicated, but the memory was made before I even knew that. It had a feeling of completeness and yet possibility. There was a real aliveness to it. It was a family meal, and the feelings of that evening are the reason that it stayed with me for so long.

Certainly, the quality of the food that we eat matters. I went to culinary school for a reason. But I would bet that if you were to think of your favorite meal, your answer would be based not only on the menu, but on the meaningful exchange that you had with the people that you shared the meal with, and the impression it left upon you. That is at the heart of what is a family meal.

Meals, for one, have their own place in life, and they too can be a beautiful experience. But today we're celebrating the shared table, the meals that open us, let our guards down, where dialog flows, where heartbreaks are softened, they're where we lift each other up. We try new things, and memories are made, even if the meal itself isn't perfect or mishaps happen. They can be intimate moments at the kitchen counter, or a pizza palooza. You may realize its significance in that very moment, or not realize it until 20 years later.

These Brussels sprouts serve as a reminder of those magical moments when we create a masterpiece from wherever we are in life. No matter how humble the ingredients, we can't control our circumstances, but we can control how we meet the moment. And through our eyes, it's best to meet it with an open table.

Until our next episode, we say so long. Feed Your fire, where food nourishes growth.

Feed Your Fire is sponsored by Kasari Consulting, where insight meets innovation. www.kasariconsulting.com.