Of the many things I miss about life in Rome the most elusive is easily the culture that surrounds dinner. Night after night, whether out at a restaurant or sitting around our defective kitchen table eating “family dinner”, my friends and I sat, ate, drank….and nothing else. No TV blaring in front of us. No cell phones out for texting. Just good food, good wine, and good conversation.

It was so easy to get lost in the conversation. We’d sit for what seemed like hours talking about serious topics and telling funny stories and generally enjoying each other’s company. My outlook on life grew brighter every night. I started realizing that every dinner is an opportunity to learn about the person sitting across from you. The food you are eating and the wine you are drinking are only the means through which you can make those discoveries. As Samuel Johnson once said, “wine gives a man nothing…it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.”

Those nights can be found here in the United States. I am blessed to have the best chef in the world for a mother. She makes incredible meals and is always quick to refill her guests’s glasses with more wine. I love those nights. Because of my mother, they happen quite often when I’m home. Without her, we have to work hard to make them happen. In Italy they happen on a nightly basis, as if they were equally as important as taking a shower or brushing your teeth.

It’s unfortunate that American society has turned into one in which we require constant stimulation by outside sources. I’m definitely no exception. I am guilty of incessantly checking my phone for updates and eating my food in front of my laptop. In college, it’s too easy to do so. Most of my meals are last minute concoctions consisting of instant noodles and episodes of The Office. Dinners have turned into lifeless rituals that almost feel like a chore. I’d like to change that and suspect I’m not alone in this thinking. As I get older and refine my social life, those nights will happen. But then there’s late hours at work and the mountain of other obligations adult life brings. If I don’t watch out, the nights I long for will become “special occasions”. Food and friends are both very important to me. I’m committed to living a life with a healthy amount of both.