Sunday Roast: The Meaning of a Meal

Roast Beef & Gravy

Mashed Potatoes

Yorkshire Puddings

Peas & Carrots

Cauliflower & Broccoli with Cheese Sauce

The roast goes in a couple hours early, say two-ish in the afternoon. Sear it at a high heat, 400 degrees for 20 minutes, then drop it down to 225. Just salt and pepper.

Peel the potatoes and cut them up, leave them on the stove in the water till you’re ready to cook them. Remember they take about an hour to boil.

Peel and chop the carrots. We will steam them and mix them with peas.

Cut up the cauliflower and broccoli into small florets.

Take out the china, set the table, find the gravy boat. Butter onto a dish. Steam the tablecloth.

By now it’s probably time to get cooking. My mom was teaching me how to make a proper Sunday Dinner. It was the one meal she was really good at.

The vegetables get boiling while the roast is finishing; the house smells delicious and steamy. Line the muffin tin with oil and crank up the heat on the oven to 400 again. We turn it up when the roast comes out. Prepping for the Yorkshires.

Alright, gravy. The meat comes out of the dish to rest. Cover it with tinfoil. Mix flour with water and pour it into the drippings. Add more water. No not too much. It's ok it will cook out and thicken up. Salt it. Now while that’s cooking make the roux for the cheese sauce. Melt butter in a pan, add an equal amount of flour. Then milk, then grated cheese.

Stir everything! Leave the oven, if you open it the Yorkies won’t rise. Don’t overcook the broccoli. Mash the potatoes with butter and milk and salt.

It’s all falling into chaos. Keep going. Put things in bowls, find serving spoons, leave the dirty pots and drops for later. Slice the roast. Mix the juices into the gravy. We need to get it on the table while its hot.

My face is hot. My hair is sweaty, I wish I had a hair elastic to put it up. Its going to smell like roast beef when it hits my pillow later.

We get everything on the table and yell for dinner time. This is why we have a dining room, so we can leave the mess in the kitchen behind another wall.

Don’t you dare touch anything till everyone is seated. We have to go around the table and say what we’re grateful for, its our family’s way of saying grace.

Finally we can eat. Things have cooled but it’s still delicious. There isn’t much conversation at the table but it’s always peaceful. Comments on the food and the upcoming week.

I’ve made this meal for friends, family, and sometimes just myself when I’m lonely in the deep winter. It fills me up just the right way. The smells in the house hug me as they’re cooking. I don’t even mind the dishes but sometimes I don’t do them until the next day.

My kids are learning to help make it now. It’s one of the few meals all four will eat without complaint. We don’t do a table cloth and I don’t have a dining room. But when the whole table is full and they’re happy I get that same full feeling of satisfaction and comfort. I wanted a big family so I could have a full table, to nourish them with love and cozy dinners.

Do they know they love I’ve put into their food? Maybe that’s what I felt as a kid helping my mom in the kitchen, the effort and care she put in without saying it, to feed us her best meal.