Laurie David: 'This Was The Single Best Thing I Did As A Parent'

Laurie David joined HuffPost Live on Wednesday to discuss her new cookbook, The Family Cooks, and extoll the virtues of a family dinner ritual.

"It was the single best thing I did as a parent," she told host Caroline Modarressy Tehrani. "Four nights a week, they knew they had to be there. And what happens is, if your kids know they have to be there and they show up, no one can fall through that little black hole that can happen when your kids become teenagers and problems get bigger."

"I mean, everyone has to look each other in the eye and, by the way, if I get depressed or things are going on for me, they can see that because we're at the table," she continued. "And by the way, we're not at the table for 16 minutes -- we're at the table for 45 minutes to an hour."

"And that's when I realized I did something right," she concluded. "When I looked up one day when dinner was over and dessert was over and my kids were still at the table and they were talking to me."

"That was my, like, yay [moment]."

Watch Laurie David's full HuffPost Live segment here.