Gathering together around the table provides us with the opportunity to celebrate the most important things in life - love, family, good health, and good friends. Christy Rost is passionate about family meals. Besides flexibility, the key to successfully preserving the family meal is an arsenal of family-friendly recipes that emphasize the beauty of simple foods, fresh, wholesome ingredients, and reasonably priced wine selections. In this first cookbook by best-selling chef for Sur La Table, Christy Rost offers 250 mouth-watering recipes, well-balanced and do-able in a reasonable amount of time, and invites readers to gather everyone around the family table on a regular basis. Recipe selections range from all-American favorites to Caribbean, Chinese, French, Italian, Japanese, and Mexican cuisine. "The Family Table" is divided into four sections: Everyday Meals, Weekends, Entertaining at Home, and Holidays. Within each section, recipes are grouped by type (salads, entrees, side dishes, etc.) Also included are wine suggestions with many of the entrée recipes. "Eric's Wine Notes," written by a wine expert, contain three wine suggestions in order of least to most expensive. Sample Recipes: Homestyle Meatloaf, Buttermilk Cornbread Muffins, Sunday Best Mashed Potatoes, Tomato Galette, Thick and Creamy Tortilla Soup, Grilled Marinated Pork Chops, Cape Cod Rice Pilaf, Apple Cranberry Muffins, German Apple Pancake, Mango Spinach Salad with Blackberry Vinaigrette, Portabella Mushroom Turnovers, Pink Rum Desire, Berries with Champagne Sabayon, Grilled Lemon Basil Chicken, Rack of Lamb Dijon, Roasted Herbed Pork Loin, Onion Souffle