A family can remember the meal and forget who missed the conversation while preparing it.

Everyone remembers the meal and nobody quite registers that one person was in the kitchen for the whole of the conversation they are all reminiscing about. The event that binds the family together was, for somebody, a shift spent within earshot of it.

Rotate who cooks, or bring people into the kitchen, or eat something simpler so everyone is at the table. The point of the gathering was the being together, and it is worth checking that the arrangement producing it is not excluding someone from the very thing it was for.