Dinner: A Love Story

May 7, 2012
This refreshing, nonpreachy memoir/family cookbook is based on the author’s Dinner: A Love Story blog and the meal diary she started keeping in 1998. All recipes, which are organized like a journal in chronological order, are for dishes she’s actually made in the various phases of her adult life (from just married through having school-age children). A former editor for Real Simple and Cookie magazines, Rosenstrach doesn’t claim to spend hours each day preparing meals for her family (she doesn’t have time for that), but she does cook for and eat with her family often, and says that “has done more to foster togetherness and impart meaning and joy into my family’s life on a daily basis than just about anything I can think of.” She’s realistic about it, though—she refers to new parenthood as “the years it felt like a bomb exploded any semblance of routine and normalcy in the kitchen”—and she approaches food with a sense of humor (a section entitled “Kale: Why the Hell Not?” is a winner). And there are plenty of quick and kid-approved recipes that don’t involve chicken nuggets or mac-and-cheese. Starter Curry: curried chicken with apples; spicy shrimp with yogurt; peanut butter noodles; and baked chicken in creamy tomato sauce are easy to prepare. There are also recipes for dinner parties, like pork shoulder ragu with pappardelle, and tips for “pulling off a dinner party with children underfoot.” And mostly there’s plenty of inspiration and entertainment, making this a worthwhile read for any home cook—and any parent. Agent: Elyse Cheney.

April 1, 2012
A guide to getting dinner on the table for couples, new parents and families. Rosenstrach (co-author: Time for Dinner: Strategies, Inspiration, and Recipes for Family Meals Every Night of the Week, 2010) reflects on a life of cooking, dispensing anecdotes and recipes in a formula similar to other recent memoir-cookbook hybrids, such as Kathleen Flinn's The Kitchen Counter Cooking School (2011). While both authors offer advice, encouragement and recipes for reluctant cooks, Rosenstrach's personal recollections cover a wider swath of her life, from newlywed to exhausted new parent to working mother. In 1998, the author began a diary of every dinner she had, at home or elsewhere, and she draws on this resource to show how she managed to balance work with family time. Rosenstrach presents the recipes in a mix of the traditional cookbook format and a more casual blogger-like style (with measurements like "3 to 4 good glugs of olive oil"), but they all rely on fresh, simple, easy-to-prepare food. The author pairs the recipes with advice, such as how to adapt to the picky palates of kids. Although it would be easy to envy someone with an ability to come home from a long day at work and manage to cook a dinner of scallops with lentil rice, Rosenstrach dispels any hard feelings with a charming, amiable writing style and funny asides. A humorous and encouraging book for readers who believe in the importance of family dinnertime.

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January 1, 2012

Like Rosenstrach, I cook dinner every night, but I wasn't smart enough to launch a blog about it that ranks number four on the top 100 food mom blogs on Babble, averages 107,000 monthly visits, won Rosenstrach coverage in the New York Times and Martha Stewart's Whole Living, and has even been optioned for film. With 150,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2012
As her family began to grow, New Yorker Rosenstrach made a small vow to herself that she would make dinner every night for her offspring as a way of indelibly cementing family ties. She kept records of her efforts, offering her meal plans online for others to emulate. Followers of Rosenstrach's blog will cheer this compilation of her essays and recipes aiming to show that just about anyone can prepare nightly dinners for family and friends without unduly compromising the cook's time or energy. She has managed to keep to her pledge, and her simple recipes testify to her determination and good sense. Rosenstrach could not so readily continue her dinners, let alone the blog, without a husband who cheerfully shares the burdens of cooking and of child rearing. The foods she offers her family spring from many American cooking traditions, including even such less-familiar ones as Yemeni.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)