Food always tastes better together. Whether you find yourself huddled around a small wooden table at your favourite ‘hole in the wall’ restaurant, holding a glass of wine in your hand whilst perusing a grazing table at a friend’s birthday party or taking part in your favourite chefs degustation menu… eating together always enhances any meal.

As a family, we eat together as often as we can - this has always been priority since our kids were little. It’s something that stems from both Philip’s family and mine, we always ate together. As a parent I’ve not only learned but I have seen the value of this in and through our family. There is something about coming together, turning off all of the distractions (meaning NO phones at the table) and talking. Looking each other in the eye as you pass a dish from person to person. Getting the family involved in cooking the meal, deciding on what to eat is a simple way to connect.

Something else I’ve learned about connecting and food. As your kids grow and become teenagers and they begin to retreat into their bedrooms or further from the family with friends and whatever else grabs their attention, there is nothing like a good home-cooked meal to bring them out of their corner and back to the table. Fill the house with familiar smells and I promise, they will come to the table.

Eating together has been something we have done since the beginning of time. Community comes from the word commune. It is from this place of gathering that we build, we live and we learn.