Latest Review: Dinner a Love Story

Goodreads Summary:
Jenny Rosenstrach, and her husband, Andy, regularly, some might say pathologically, cook dinner for their family every night. Even when they work long days. Even when their kids' schedules pull them in eighteen different directions. They are not superhuman. They are not from another planet.

With simple strategies and common sense, Jenny figured out how to break down dinner—the food, the timing, the anxiety, from prep to cleanup—so that her family could enjoy good food, time to unwind, and simply be together.

Using the same straight-up, inspiring voice that readers of her award-winning blog, Dinner: A Love Story, have come to count on, Jenny never judges and never preaches. Every meal she dishes up is a real meal, one that has been cooked and eaten and enjoyed at least a half dozen times by someone in Jenny's house. With inspiration and game plans for any home cook at any level, Dinner: A Love Story is as much for the novice who doesn't know where to start as it is for the gourmand who doesn't know how to start over when she finds herself feeding an intractable toddler or for the person who never thought about home-cooked meals until he or she became a parent. This book is, in fact, for anyone interested in learning how to make a meal to be shared with someone they love, and about how so many good, happy things happen when we do.

My thoughts:
You guys, I LOVED this book!  It is unique in that it is part memoir, part cookbook.  I found this format amazing in that it really promotes each of the recipes by making you think things like "if she could do this as a cooking newbie, so can I!" or "if she could find the time to put this on the table with two young kids, surely I can make this with only a hubby to feed."  I really appreciated that she organized the book into three main sections: before kids, with young kids (AKA close to 0 cooking time), and eating as a family.

One thing that made me feel awesomely vindicated about my recent dinner organization craze (see my monthly dry-erase meal planner below) was that Rosenstrach does this exact same thing (excepting that hers is in journal form)!  Glad to know that I'm on the right track for making family dinners with ease.

I soooo want to do this once we own a house - behold, the painted cabinet recipe door of awesomeness:

After reading this I wanted to go out and buy several copies to give as gifts.  I can't think of one person who wouldn't benefit from all of the tips, stories, and recipes in this book.  Highly recommended!

5/5 stars

**UPDATE: I have made several recipes from this book now and holy cramoly...did I mention this book is awesome???  Because it is.  Seriously.  Go get it.  And then make the Pork Shoulder Ragu with Pappardelle!