Dinner: A Love Story - by Jenny Rosenstrach (Hardcover)

About the Book

Inspired by her beloved blog, dinneralovestory.com, Rosenstrach's story is many wonderful things: a memoir, a love story, a practical how-to guide for strengthening family bonds by making the most of dinnertime, and a compendium of palate-pleasing recipes.

Book Synopsis

"As long as people keep having kids, jobs, marriages, and appetites, this cookbook is destined to remain a classic." -Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

The first book from the author of The Weekday Vegetarians and Dinner: The Playbook.

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.

Fans of "Pioneer Woman" Ree Drummond, Jessica Seinfeld, Amanda Hesser, Real Simple, and former readers of Cookie magazine will revel in these delectable dishes, and in the unforgettable story of Jenny's transformation from enthusiastic kitchen novice to family dinnertime doyenne.

From the Back Cover

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.

Review Quotes

"A humorous and encouraging book for readers who believe in the importance of family dinnertime." - Kirkus Reviews
"Jenny Rosenstrach writes about food and family with such a marvelous spirit of warmth, friendship and-most importantly-pragmatism that you simply can't help but fall in love with her. As long as people keep having kids, jobs, marriages and appetites, this cookbook is destined to remain a classic." - Elizabeth Gilbert, Bestselling author of EAT, PRAY, LOVE
"Rosenstrach's book and blog are something very rare in the genre of family dinner: they inspire neither homicidal nor suicidal impulses." - Nicholas Day, Food 52
"Cookbook as pageturner? Yes. Dinner: A Love Story is not just great recipes. It's the story of becoming a family." - Elisabeth Egan, Self
"At first glance, it's a cookbook, based on a blog, by Jenny Rosenstrach, a magazine columnist and editor who lives outside New York City. But really, it's a memoir, and also a how-to manual: a smart, pragmatic, warm and thoughtful guide..." - Wired.com
"Rosenstrach emphasizes her strong belief that the family who eats together stays together and combines stories and recipes in this essential collection." - Publishers Weekly
"Dinner: A Love Story gives me hope that one day my family will also assemble around an actual table and eat an actual meal that was actually cooked by me; a meal not solely comprised of animal shaped cheese crackers dipped in hummus. Although those are good too." - Samantha Bee, Most Senior Correspondent, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and bestselling author of I Know I Am But What Are You?
"Dinner gives me hope that one day my family will also assemble around an actual table and eat an actual meal that was actually cooked by me; a meal not solely comprised of animal shaped cheese crackers dipped in hummus. Although those are good too." - Samantha Bee, Most Senior Correspondent, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and bestselling author of I Know I Am But What Are You?
"The family dinner, that forum for manners, taste-making, storytelling, and memorable arguments, is no small subject. Jenny Rosenstrach tackles it with gusto as she shares her fascinating story of learning to feed her family....[N]ot only a wonderful read, but a book studded with excellent recipes and tips." - Amanda Hesser, co-founder of FOOD52.com
"Warm, funny, packed with recipes and photos, and reassuringly nonjudgmental, it will help inspire the most faint-hearted of cooks to pre-heat the oven." - Gretchen Rubin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project
"[Rosenstrach] entertains with her wonderful writing skills, persuades by sharing her successful strategies, and educates via research and relayed experience... this book shines." - Library Journal
"Part cookbook, part survival guide, Dinner: A Love Story has all of Jenny's favorite meal ideas, suppertime tips, and cook's secrets (read: cocktails) that help make dinner fun again" - Everyday Food
"...compelling...more than just another cookbook. We love Rosenstrach because her writing is natural, honest, and smart" - Bon Appétit
Praise for Dinner: A Love Story, the blog: "Jenny Rosenstrach's gorgeous blog, Dinner: a Love Story (recently featured in the Times), comes dangerously close to porn for me. Rosenstrach worked at Real Simple and Cookie, and she writes about cooking for kids without any of the preciousness of kid blogs or the righteousness of food evangelists. She just really, really loves food, loves her family, and understands the complex ratio of panic to desperation with which most of us approach weeknight dinners. Her directions are easy, the photos unpretentious, and her comprehension of the baffling kid palate is extraordinary. I could say I only log on once a day for inspiration, when it's time to start making dinner. But I'd be lying." - Dahlia Lithwick, Slate
"When Cookie magazine, where Ms. Rosenstrach worked as features director, folded, she found the ultimate use for a diary she kept for reasons sometimes inscrutable even to herself. Its contents [a log of every dinner she's cooked for 12 years] are often inspiration for the blog she started last March - Dinner: A Love Story. It's an effort to inspire other parents - with recipes, insights, rituals - to do that same hard, but rewarding work of feeding their families with care." - New York Times
"A non-preachy food blog full of ideas you'll want to steal." - Real Simple
"Dinner: A Love Story is a website that makes family dinner doable for the rest of us." - Martha Stewart's Whole Living