I’m a chef and I run seven restaurants, all but one here in my native New Orleans. I spend most of my waking hours—morning to midnight—in the kitchen. You’d think I couldn’t wait till Sunday, my one day off.
You’d be right, but it’s not because I take a break from cooking.
Actually, Sunday is my favorite day in the kitchen. It’s the day I cook for my family—my wife, Jenifer, and our four boys, Brendan, Jack, Luke and Drew—and whoever else drops by.
First comes breakfast, something simple and sweet, like beignets or cinnamon buns, before we’re off to church. Afterward, we’ll stop at the grocery for whatever we forgot.
Then it’s home to start supper. Weeknights I’m at work and I rarely have the chance to be the typical dad spending the evening with his kids, so I relish Sunday suppers. I get to hang out with my boys, sharing what I love with them.
On Sundays I cook in a totally different way than in my restaurants. There’s no rush to plate meals. I can take my time and cook from the heart, inspired by the kind of food I grew up with, my grandmother Grace’s Southern classics.
Even now, I can close my eyes and go right back to Grace’s kitchen, to the scents and sounds of her making breakfast.
I can smell buttery biscuits in the oven, strong dark coffee with chicory in a French drip on the burner, a cast-iron skillet of rendered bacon fat. I can hear the snap and crackle of eggs cooking in the hot fat, the clank of metal against glass when she opened a jar of scuppernong preserves.
“Good morning, John, angel,” she’d say. “What can I get you for breakfast?”
I’ve never forgotten those happy times I spent at my grandmother’s table. I promised myself that when Jenifer and I had children, I’d cook for them just as Grace cooked for me. And that’s what I do on Sunday.
The centerpiece of our Sunday menu is always a roast of some kind (Jen uses the leftovers to make easy, healthy school-night suppers). The sides are family favorites like garlicky string beans, sweet corn pudding and Provençal stuffed tomatoes.
Dessert is simple and delicious, a cake or pie using whatever fruit’s in season.
I like to give each of the boys a task. Brendan’s a teenager, which means he specializes in eating. He’s also got a precise mentality so I can rely on him to dice onions, carrots and celery properly. Jack, 10, and Luke, nine, like to get their hands dirty kneading pie dough and pressing the bread-crumb-and-herb stuffing into those tomatoes. Drew, seven, is determined to keep up with his brothers.
When Jack claimed he was the first to bake a cake, Drew went and mastered a cobbler, which he insists on calling a cake. He’ll run into the kitchen, lips stained purple, with a bowl full of blueberries just picked from our bushes, asking, “Daddy, you gonna bake a cake with me and my berries?”
I’m usually at the stove stirring a sauce or cooking the vegetables. When I look over my shoulder at my boys, each intent on his task, I feel this indescribable joy of everything being right with the world.
It’s the same joy I feel sitting down to Sunday supper with my family and any friends who’ve dropped by. We might have 20 to 40 guests on any given Sunday, which works out fine since I always cook extra.
The tradition of the Sunday feast accomplishes so much more than feeding us. It nourishes our souls. Sunday is the day we slow down and get away from distractions like shopping, video games and TV and connect with one another.
Well, except if the New Orleans Saints are playing. On game days, we’ll still eat together—at halftime. It helps if dem Saints are winning. But even when they don’t, Sundays are still saintly.
Try John’s delicious and easy-to-prepare recipe for Provençal Stuffed Tomatoes.
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