On the Daily: March 3, 2026: Midweek, We Feast

By some miracle, the three of us were home last night. All together. No late rehearsals. No service spillovers. No staggered arrivals.

And once we realized it, we all went off in the kitchen like it was a Saturday night dinner party.

When J. realized that I would actually be home for dinner, she immediately asked for dumplings. I’d made an assortment of pork and shrimp potstickers for Chinese New Year and she wanted a repeat. Luckily, I had some reserve filling tucked away in the freezer, a small act of foresight that made a weeknight feast, on my end, possible.

Because M., who on his way home realized that he also had a free evening, spontaneously stopped at Costco and came back with king crab legs and a rack of lamb. He wanted to grill.

J. then decided she would make chocolate chip cookies for class.

At that point, there was no turning back.

It would be a feast.

We all took our positions and shifted into motion. Steam and smoke. Folding and seasoning. Grill grates glowing. Dumplings pleated and lined up like little sculptures. Lamb rubbed and seared over flame. Crab shells cracking open to sweet, creamy flesh.

The menu unfolded as if we’d planned it for weeks:

Edamame.
Pork dumplings.
Grilled king crab legs.
Grilled rack of lamb.
Green salad with carrot-ginger dressing.
Sake.
Sliced strawberries.
Chocolate.
Chocolate chip cookies cooling on racks.

Wildly excessive for a Tuesday. And exactly right. The seven-day-a-week rhythm of the restaurant often compromises our ability to gather at the family table as frequently as we’d like. This felt like a reasonable refusal to shrink within the confines of the middle of the week. Like an ordinary day lived intentionally, with abundance. Not for spectacle. Not for guests. Just because we were together. A celebration of ourselves and our little family.

The world can feel uncertain. Schedules misalign. Work pulls us in opposite directions. But last night, by accident or grace, we landed in the same room at the same time. So we cooked. Not carefully. Not minimally. But fully. A feast in the middle of the week.