Another cookbook I'm using to fulfill my New Year's resolution of cooking more & eating out less. Plenty of great ideas on how to turn what often feels like a dreaded chore into a fun & enjoyable activity w/ the kids. Lots of tasty recipes including quick & easy ones for weeknights. ( )

I have skimmed through this book a few times since I got it for Christmas almost a year ago. There are probably some good recipes here, and I liked a few of the ideas, but it's poorly organized (shrimp cakes in the slow cooking section?) and visually hard to read with its many-colored multiple fonts and scattered tip boxes.

What really put me off, though, was the serious rich-people bias. Laurie David, when pressed for time just hired someone to do the cooking for her. Great. So not my reality. She could have drawn some examples of family dinners from the less affluent as well as (or even instead of?) herself and the Kennedys. I do think it's good that she had a section on divorce, though, which is one way of addressing the diversity of families' situations.

I'm not throwing the book away yet, but I am moving it out of the kitchen. ( )

Really nice and homey book with good ideas on food traditions and the importance of family meals. Very pretty book to flip through. I will check this one out again when I can read deeper into it. ( )