The New Family Table is a newsletter that helps busy families eat deliciously.
Launched in September 2024 by food editor and cookbook author Hillary Dixler Canavan, this weekly newsletter connects readers with the recipes, strategies, and hacks that will become favorites of adults and kids alike.
The New Family Table’s recipes have some things in common: They have no more than an hour of active cooking time (most are closer to 20-30 minutes), they are flexible enough to handle substitutions to suit your family’s palate, and they are craveable. I want these recipes to be on repeat in your home.
Original recipes from chefs, food writers, and other experts — thoroughly tested by a busy home cook and mom.
As a mom to a preschooler, I know how hard it is to get a dinner on the table night after night.
Over these past four years of feeding my daughter, I've scoured cookbooks, food magazines, and websites for dishes I can add to our regular rotation. I launched The New Family Table because I noticed a gap in the family-oriented recipe landscape: Too many recipes were too weighted towards the kids at the table to be something I genuinely wanted to eat, too — things like hidden veggies, limited flavor profiles, or cutesy gimmickry. On the other hand, plenty of others just aren’t realistically achievable in the 30-or-so minutes I have to get dinner on the table while my daughter watches an episode of Daniel Tiger.
This isn't to knock the existing recipes: I make plenty of kid-oriented food for my kid! I've also found plenty of recipes that thread the needle nicely (and in this newsletter I will share more with you as I find them). But I also wanted to pay the chefs and recipe developers I admire most to create more of those gems for your family and mine. I personally test all the recipes published here at The New Family Table. And for the recipes I develop myself, I have at least one cook test them.
There’s another critical gap in family-oriented food media. Wanting to cook more effectively, more deliciously, and more joyfully isn't just the provenance of those with children. Feeding others — be they friends, roommates, partners, neighbors, community members — is important, soul-nourishing work, and I want to help you find ways to make it even better. So, if you are looking to transform and improve the way you cook for the ones you love, The New Family Table is for you, too.
If there are particular types of recipes you want from this newsletter, let me know by replying to the emails you receive, dropping a comment, or joining the subscribers-only chat.
Why subscribe?
As a working parent who left a staff role in national food media after over a decade (you might remember me from my many years as Eater’s restaurant editor), The New Family Table is a dream coming true for me. I chose a newsletter model because my mission is to create a sustainable publication that pays its contributors fairly and promptly. It is wild how radical that remains in the field of food writing and recipe development. Your subscription dollars are going directly to the chefs, food writers, and recipe developers who make food media possible.
Paid subscribers get:
Two new recipes per month, plus access to the full archive
The opportunity to submit recipe requests via Table Chat (a subscribers-only chat room)
Unpaid subscribers get:
Occasional recipes
All subscribers get:
A mix of articles, product recommendations, interviews, link roundups, and more
To connect with other home cooks in the comments section
Have a Look Around The New Family Table
Pantry & Provisions: The ingredients and equipment our recipes will and will not call for.
MVP Recipes: A highly-curated, regularly updated list of recipes from cookbooks, magazines, newsletters, and the internet that are guaranteed winners.
Tackle Kitchen Clutter Like a Chef: One of the most popular newsletter installments to date, unlocked from the archives for you.
Trader Joe’s Recipe Files: This reader-favorite recipe series focusing on transforming Trader Joe’s products into full family meals, like these garlic-soy chicken tenders with rice cakes and broccoli (pictured above).
The New Family Table uses affiliate links. Shopping from The New Family Table is another great way to support the publication. Check out all previous recommendations here.
Who’s writing?
Hillary Dixler Canavan made her name in food media as the longtime restaurant editor of Eater, where she led the annual Best New Restaurants list, launched the publication’s expansion into home-cooking content with Eater at Home, and authored Eater’s first cookbook, Eater: 100 Essential Restaurant Recipes from the Authority on Where to Eat and Why It Matters (Abrams, 2023). She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and 4-year-old daughter.
