The very way we define the fabric of our society has been ripped apart. It seems to me that we are so busy chasing our dreams and trying to manufacture dreams for our children that we have forgotten to make time for some of the simple pleasures that are the building blocks of a life well spent. Calm down, I’m not a cranky old talk radio junkie. I don’t thirst for a 1950’s ideal that probably never even existed. Hell, I’m a product of the disco era and trust me I don’t want to go back to that! It’s just that with all the mobility, convenience, and opportunity that has come into our society we seem to have lost sight of the family dinner. If seven is the new five o’clock, then who has time to eat dinner with the kids let alone spy on the neighbors.

And herein lies the principle behind GreatGrub. The food can be perfect, it can be downright amazing but as far as I am concerned if you are not sharing it with your friends and family then it is pointless. You see it’s not about the ingredients nor is it about the final product. It’s about the experience. So even if you invite your neighbors over for pizza on a Friday night, you are most definitely on the right track in my book. Who knows you may even discover that they’re pretty cool people and a friendship will develop. And of course we have just the pizza recipe to make your whole family happy.

And think of the possibilities if the whole family gets in on the act of preparing the meal on a Tuesday or a Wednesday night. My three year old eats the fish, because she gets to help make it. Mostly this involves her making pictures in the breadcrumbs, but that’s why the dust-buster was invented. Sometimes she even tells us about her day – apparently there’s more to pre-school than I remember.

A while back I read in the paper about a family that prattled on about how they all eat different dinners at different times. They marveled at the agility the microwave provided. That made me want to cry. What kind of family celebrates the fact that they are too damn busy to sit down together for a few minutes at the end of the day and tell a few stories about how their day went? Where’s the connection? Do they even know the neighbors or have a group of friends that they can share the human experience with?

So call up the neighbors, crank up the iTunes, turn on the cooktop, pop a few corks, break some bread, share some stories and odds are some GreatGrub magic may just happen in your neck of the woods. In addition to enjoying some delicious food you may just be doing your part to refurbish the cultural fabric of our time, and that is the best meal of all.