There's a phrase that's been floating around for as long as folks have been gathering at dinner tables: "Food tastes better when you eat it with your family."

Meals must have tasted heavenly in the Montgomery home of Dr. Bill and Ginger McGuffin in the '80s. The doctor won the meat category in the 1983 Montgomery Advertiser and Alabama Journal Alabama Appetite Recipe Contest, and his wife took third place in desserts.

"I miss the way I was raised in Alabama," said Stephen Patrick McGuffin, one of their children, who today lives in Atlanta, Georgia, as The Palm Restaurant's executive chef. I reached out to him to learn about his flavorful family.

"Every Saturday, we basically had big cookouts that took the entire day," he said. "Growing up, we always had family dinner. It was ready by 6

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