The Romney Family Table – Recipes and Traditions

The Romney Family Table by Ann Romney

I love seeing into peoples homes and how they live in those homes.  I think being a mother is great, but stressful, so I love hearing little secrets to survival that other moms pass on, or the understanding that they have been there too.  Reading the stories from Ann Romney, wife of former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate Mitt Romney,  is like sitting with her in her kitchen over cookies and diet coke.  For the Romney family, the heart of the home is the kitchen.  Where the family gathers is where the memories are made.  Each recipe a family has usually has a story behind it.  The Romney Family Table is just that – recipes and the stories that are behind them.

Some moments Ann (we are on a first name basis, you know) shares include insight into the life of a busy mom raising 5 boys, and a husband who was frequently out of town.  She would dress them in their Sunday church clothes on Saturday night to make getting ready for church the next morning easier. She would also use the same philosophy on getting Sunday dinner ready so that it was a time to talk after church.  “There can be so much joy that can come from family. There can be so much joy that comes from good eating and bringing people to the table,” Romney said. “That is where memories are made and that’s where the joy in life is centered in the heart of the home.”  Also included in the book are family pictures, including wedding pictures, the boys when they were young, and more current extended family photos.

“The morning after Mitt conceded defeat in his 2012 presidential campaign, I came home and made Grandmother Pottinger’s pancakes for both of us… There was so much batter left over that we decided to make pancakes for the Secret Service guys who were packing up to leave.”

Proceeds from the “Romney Family Table” will go to benefit the Center for Neurological Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where she has been receiving treatments since she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998.