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Dinner: The PlaybookGeneral

Dinner: The Playbook

By March 20, 2014November 21st, 2014102 Comments

Yes, thatโ€™s the cover of my new book, to be published soon, but before I go into more detail on it I want to know one thing:

Are you with me?

I need to know this because, while this book is going to be a lot of things โ€” an adventure, a game-changer, a how-to manual for the family meal โ€” it is first and foremost going to be a personal challenge, a commitment.

Loyal DALS readers have heard the story of The Great Dinner Rut of 2006 โ€” that period,ย back when our girls were 3 and 4, when Andy and I wereย drowningย in a sea of plain.ย Plain pasta, plain burger, plain chicken, plain pizza. Our once-solid dinner rotation had been reduced to what youโ€™d find in your average minimum security prison. On any given night, weโ€™d have a breakthrough โ€” Flounder! Abby ate flounder! โ€” until the next time weโ€™d present it to the Liโ€™l Lady of the Manor and sheโ€™d drum her fingers against the table and stare at us with cold, cold eyes, as if to say โ€œFor real? You think Iโ€™m gonna eat that?โ€ I donโ€™t want to go on too much here โ€” you guys know the deal โ€” but for two working parents who loved to cook and just wanted to end the day with a glass of wine and a meal that wasnโ€™t beige, the situation was far from ideal.

โ€œItโ€™ll get better,โ€ everyone told me. โ€œYou just have to wait out the toddler years. Youโ€™ll see!โ€ย But I didnโ€™t want to wait out any years โ€” years! โ€”I wanted to eat real food again, food that I was excited about cooking and introducing to my kids. So I took control of the situation. One night, I made an announcement: We were going to embark on an adventure. (โ€œAdventureโ€ seemed like a key positioning strategy.) We were going to cook thirty new dinners in the next thirty days, and the only thing I asked was that they had to try a bite of every single one of them. One bite. They didnโ€™t have to like every meal, but they did have to try every meal.

It always surprises me how game kids are in situations where you least expect it.

But not as game asย Andy and I were. We got into it โ€” scouring old cookbooks for recipes weโ€™d always wanted to make, texting ideas back and forth on our commute, asking anyone we saw what their go-to dinners were. Iโ€™m talking about dedication I hadnโ€™t seen since the days when we were planning our honeymoon. We came up with a ย line up and got cooking.

Was a little nuts for two working parents to take this on? Yes. Did we almost give up along the way? Absolutely. Was every meal a hit? Not exactly. Abby puked up the trout (day 19) onto the dinner table and Phoebe moved her chair to the living room when we placed a bowl of gnocchi in front of her (day 16). But did it transform the way the kids (and their parents) thought about dinner? ย Wellโ€ฆ I hate to sound all gimmicky here, but yes. What we discovered was that Family Dinner is a contract. You buy in, or you donโ€™t. This can mean lots of things to lots of different families, but for us, it meant cooking most nights and constantly looking for ways to keep it fresh. We didnโ€™t know it then, but this project set us on our way, expanded our horizons, established dinner as a priority in our lives, and killed the chicken nugget dead once and for all.

So if my first book,ย Dinner: A Love Story,ย was a romantic yarn about the evolution of the family meal through marriage, babies and family, then Dinner: The Playbook is its nuts-and-bolts, down-and-dirty, roll-up-your-sleeves, LETโ€™S-DO-THIS-THINGย companion. It tells the story of our grand experiment and everything I learned along the way, including:

  • Key shopping and organizing strategies
  • Guerrilla tactics for picky eaters and sauce-o-phobes
  • Tips for scouting new recipes that โ€œkeep the spark aliveโ€
  • 80+ easy, kid-vetted recipes
  • Weekly meal plans that show you how to put all those recipes together over the course of 30 days โ€” or even just seven days if thatโ€™s more your speed.

In short, itโ€™s got everything you need to help bust you out of your own dinner rut. Even when you are working full time. Even when you would rather crawl into a dark hole than think about dinner.

Over the years, I have received so many emails from readers asking me: I am so busy and overwhelmed, and I want to put dinner on the table. How do I do it? Where do I start?

This book, I hope, provides an answer to that question.

So what do you say? Are you in? Please say yes!

Dinner: The Playbook will be out in late August โ€” just in time for back-to-school bootcamp โ€” but is available for pre-order with all the usual suspects: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebooks, and Ballantine.

The masterful Kristina DiMatteo designed the cover and the interior of Playbook, and itโ€™s filled with the sweetest little details. The dedication page is one of my favorites. As is the Gina Triplett-illustrated spine on the cover. (Remember my recipe door? Thatโ€™s Gina. I like to keep things in the family.)

102 Comments

  • Avatar Margit Van Schaickmargit says:

    Jenny, congratulations! Well, I have to tell you, for all itโ€™s worth, my three daughters totally skipped the โ€œpicky eaterโ€ stage. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that as a divorced full-time working parent, with day-care expenses added to the burden, and no child support, we had so little money that there was no way any food could be wasted with real or imagined likes and dislikes. They had good appetites and they were a good-spirited bunchโ€“we have wonderful memories of the times we prepared meals together. And grocery-shopped and gardened together. I love your writingโ€”yet, I hesitate at your focus on a โ€œTrader Joeโ€/ โ€œWhole Foodsโ€ audience. Iโ€™d love to see you include folks who are struggling to make ends meet, financially.

  • Avatar andy says:

    I am going to preorder 27,000 copies of this. (Iโ€™ll use your credit card, ok?)

  • Lisa Clarke says:

    I am very much with you. Book duly pre-ordered ๐Ÿ™‚

  • Avatar Laura says:

    Fabulous! Wishing you all the best with your latest book project. Destined for success. I look forward to reading it.

  • Avatar Noellen says:

    Congrats! To you! To me! Just what we need in our lives short of you being our live-in menu-planner/shopper/meal-maker. We are suffering a slow death with our โ€˜tiny table terroristโ€™ right now. Seriously, way to go on this โ€“ it will be a huge success and as well loved as everything DALS ๐Ÿ™‚

  • Avatar Sam Carvell says:

    Iโ€™m a fairly new DALS devotee (to both the book and the blog)โ€ฆ but I CANNOT GET ENOUGH! You have brought so much joy and fun (not to mention delicious recipes) back into our family dinner routineโ€“ and my whole family thanks you and yours!

    Weโ€™re so happy for you all, and wish you nothing but continued happiness and success!!

    And last but not least-
    book = preordered!

  • Avatar Carol says:

    I am so in! This is truly exciting and I canโ€™t wait to get my copy โ€“ hello Motherโ€™s Day gift!

  • Avatar Joy says:

    I am definitely in!

    Your first cookbook is my favorite cookbook ever so I really look forward to this new one.

    The cover looks great. I agree with the commenter who said that the spine reminded her of a Little Golden Book. Thatโ€™s the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw the cover.

  • Avatar Chris says:

    Congrats! Iโ€™m still trying new recipes from your book. Last week it was porcupine meatballs that my kids didnโ€™t like the look of, but loved the taste. Thanks for doing what you do!

  • Avatar Reynaul says:

    I AM IN! Also, this was already pre-ordered on Amazon before the put the cover up! I am so ready for this and congrats on this! I still use your other two books every week, but I canโ€™t wait for this one!

  • Avatar kim says:

    i have never been more into anything in my life. (i wish i was kidding.)

  • Avatar Gwen says:

    Yep, Iโ€™m in! I use DALS recipes regularly, and can always use new inspiration. With four kids under 7, dinner time is anโ€ฆ.adventure, for sure. I was just thinking to myself yesterday, while browsing Keepers (you have that book, surely?) that I need MORE good family cookbooks that read like novels. Now youโ€™re giving me another one! Thanks. ๐Ÿ™‚

  • Avatar Shalini says:

    Hi Jenny, Iโ€™m so glad you did this. How inspiring to cook something different every day for 30 days. Love the reality of the situation, too. A child moving their chair to another room sounds like our house. Congratulations!

  • Jan @ Family Bites says:

    Yay โ€“ this looks like another amazing creationโ€ฆcount me in!

  • Avatar Jesse says:

    i cannot wait! way too excited!

    http://semiweeklyeats.blogspot.com/2014/03/not-sad-desk-lunch-4.html

  • Avatar 13bees says:

    obviously beyond psyched.

  • Heather says:

    Happy happy day! Couldnโ€™t be more thrilled, for you and for all of us!

  • Avatar Jessica says:

    Yeah! I am so excited! Your first book was awesome, and I know that this next one will be just as great! I am up for the challenge! Iโ€™ve got 4 active boys that all eat differently (a foodie boy, and one thats picky, you know how it goes). Between their baseball and karate schedules and our work schedules, we can use some guidance. WE ARE IN! I am pre-ordering now!
    Thanks Jenny for getting this out there!

  • Avatar Tara says:

    So exciting! I canโ€™t wait. I just wish I could get my hands on it sooner. We are seriously in the dinner doldrums right now. Congrats, hooray and way to go!

  • Tristan says:

    Absolutely! Iโ€™ll read it just for enjoyment, and cook from it because your recipes are always great, and I donโ€™t even have any kids :-).

  • Avatar Lexi says:

    I am SOOO with you. Just pre-ordered. So nice to think of it arriving in August, for so many reasons!

  • Avatar Ron Lieber says:

    So in.

  • Avatar CB says:

    This news has totally made my day. Great writing along with new ideas for dinner is so exciting. Congrats to you!

  • Avatar Lauren says:

    Yes! Iโ€™m in! And congratulations.

  • Avatar Kara says:

    Iโ€™ve broken the spine on my copy of Dinner: A Love Story โ€“ itโ€™s my โ€œgo to cookbookโ€ when I plan our meals for the week. For lunch right now, Iโ€™m eating the eggplant parmesan recipe from your blog, which our 2 1/2 year old called a meatball last night. Thank you for making dinner delicious and fun! I canโ€™t wait to splatter some cooking stains on your new cookbook in the fallโ€ฆ

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