The producer of An Inconvenient Truth, Laurie David's new mission is to help America's overwhelmed families sit down to a Family Dinner, and she provides all the reasons, recipes and fun tools to do so. Laurie David speaks from her own experience confronting the challenges of raising two teenage girls. Today's parents have lots to deal with and technology is making their job harder than ever. Research has proven that everything we worry about as parents--from drugs to alcohol, promiscuity, to obesity, academic achievement and just good old nutrition--can all be improved by the simple act of eating and talking together around the table. Laurie has written a practical, inspirational, fun (and, of course, green) guide to the most important hour in any parent's day. Chock-full chapters include: Over seventy-five kid approved fantastic recipes; tips on teaching green values; conversation starters; games to play to help even the shyest family member become engaged; ways to express gratitude; the family dinner after divorce (hint: keep eating together) and much more. Filled with moving memories and advice from the country's experts and teachers, this book will get everyone away from electronic screens and back to the dinner table.

“The ideal cookbook to remind us that togetherness is the only perfection needed when it comes to dinnertime.” —Carla Hall, TV chef and author of Carla Hall’s Soul Food Research has shown what parents have known for a long time: sharing a fun family meal is good for the spirit, brain, and health of all family members. Recent studies link regular family meals with higher grade-point averages, resilience, and self-esteem. Additionally, family meals are linked to lower rates of substance abuse, teen pregnancy, eating disorders, and depression. Eat, Laugh, Talk: The Family Dinner Playbook gives you the tools to have fun family dinners with great food and great conversation. The book includes conversation starters as well as quick and easy recipes to bring your family closer. You will find tips for bringing your family to the table such as setting dinnertime goals, overcoming obstacles, managing conflicting schedules, and how to engage everyone in the conversation. Eat, Laugh, Talk also includes real stories from families who have successfully become a part of The Family Dinner Project’s growing movement. Let’s do dinner! “There’s no doubt family dinner has proven social, emotional, and nutritional benefits for kids, but many parents grapple with a lot of obstacles (and guilt!) in trying to make it happen. Armed with these doable strategies, kid-friendly recipes, and dinner table games, families will feel empowered to gather around the table together more often to share meals—and make memories.” —Sally Kuzemchak, MS, RD, author of The 101 Healthiest Foods For Kids and founder of Real Mom Nutrition

Has your family dinner table become a landing spot for junk mail, homework, and bills? Is scheduled dinnertime in your home 6:00 for mom, 7:00 or later for dad, and . . . are the kids even home tonight or do they have another activity to get to? Because with sports, activities, long hours, and commutes, family dinners seem to have gone the way of the dinosaur . . . And it’s time to bring them back--before it’s too late!Studies have tied shared family meals to increased resiliency and self-esteem in children, higher academic achievement, a healthier relationship to food, and even reduced risk of substance abuse and eating disorders. Written by a Harvard Medical School professor and mother, Home for Dinner makes a passionate and informed plea to put mealtime back at the center of family life and supplies compelling evidence and realistic tips for getting even the busiest of families back to the table.Parents looking to make family dinnertime more than just a fantasy will find inside this invaluable, life-saving resource highly relatable stories, new research, recipes, and friendly advice to help them:• Whip up quick, healthy, and tasty dinners• Get kids to lend a hand (without any grief!)• Adapt meals to the needs of everyone--from toddlers to teens• Inspire picky eaters to explore new foods• Keep dinnertime conversation stimulating• Reduce tension at the table• And moreBoth parents and kids need a family mealtime environment that allows them to unwind and reconnect from the pressures of school and work. More than just offering them nutrition and energy for another intense day of jet-setting about, the incalculable family therapy provided for all will far surpass the small sacrifices it took to gather around the table for a short time.

Inspired by her beloved blog, dinneralovestory.com, Jenny Rosenstrach’s Dinner: A Love 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 magnificent, palate-pleasing recipes. 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.

Great-Uncle Benson prepares exotic food dishes in order to lure Rachel's family to a communal meal.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Three signs you need this book: 1) Chicken fingers qualify as adventurous. (Hey, they’re not nuggets.) 2) You live in fear of the white stuff touching the green stuff. 3) Family dinner? What’s family dinner? When Jenny Rosenstrach’s kids were little, her dinner rotation looked like this: Pasta, Pizza, Pasta, Burgers, Pasta. It made her crazy—not only because of the mind-numbing repetition, but because she loved to cook and missed her prekid, ketchup-free dinners. Her solution? A family adventure: She and her husband, Andy, would cook thirty new dishes in a single month—and her kids would try them all. Was it nuts for two working parents to take on this challenge? Yes. But did it transform family dinner from stressful grind to happy ritual? Completely. Here, Rosenstrach—creator of the beloved blog and book Dinner: A Love Story—shares her story, offering weekly meal plans, tons of organizing tips, and eighty-plus super-simple, kid-vetted recipes. Stuck in a rut? Ready to reboot dinner? Whether you’ve never turned on a stove or you’re just starved for inspiration, this book is your secret weapon. Praise for Dinner: The Playbook “Your hard-to-please crew will wolf down these inventive ways to introduce ‘fancy’ foods. Jenny Rosenstrach created them for her family, and she swears you’ll be shocked by the clean plates. . . . Dinner: The Playbook mixes ‘You can do this’ inspiration, practical planning, and easy recipes [with] hard-earned wisdom for getting a kid-pleasing meal on the table, night after night.”—Redbook “The master of simple, low-stress cooking. You might know her from her blog, Dinner, A Love Story; her new book, Dinner: The Playbook, is full of the same secret strategies for busy women.”—Glamour “Families and novice cooks who accept Rosenstrach’s challenge will definitely find a few ‘keepers’ here.”—Library Journal “Jenny Rosenstrach has truly mastered the art of the happy family dinner. This is the most sensible advice on cooking for kids I’ve ever seen: no gimmicks, no tricks, just practical advice for working parents. I wish this book had been around when my son was small.”—Ruth Reichl “This book is for anyone who loves the promise of a home-cooked dinner but gets bogged down by the day-to-day reality of it: picky kids, picky spouses, the extinction of the nine-to-five workday, and the pressure—oh, the pressure—to get it on the table before everyone collapses into a hangry (hungry + angry) meltdown. Which is to say that this book is for me, me, me. And I bet it’s for you too.”—Deb Perelman, author of The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook “Well, Jenny Rosenstrach, on the behalf of my whole family, thanks for the most practical—and yet still inspired—cookbook on our shelf. You are singularly responsible for my return to the kitchen.”—Kelly Corrigan, author of Glitter and Glue “Jenny Rosenstrach is warm, wise and a genius when it comes to dinners.”—Joanna Goddard, blogger, A Cup of Jo

Sara Moulton may be a professional chef and television personality, but she’s also a working mother who has to get dinner on the table for her husband and kids every night. In Sara Moulton’s Everyday Family Dinners, she shares more than two hundred new family-tested, family-pleasing recipes—whether you’re new to the kitchen or just looking for a way to spice up your recipe repertoire, Sara’s carefully tested recipes are a great place to start. Chicken Saltimbocca with Artichoke Sauce is a welcome change of pace, while Oven-Fried Fish Sticks are a lighter update of a kid-friendly classic. If you’re looking to experiment with new ingredients and cuisines without venturing beyond your local grocery, the Korean-inspired Clay Pot Vegetable Stew and Sara’s take on Vietnamese Bahn Mi make it easy to try global flavors. For a quick, pulled-from-the-pantry meal, try Polenta Lasagna or BLT and Egg Pie. Shake things up and serve appetizers like Pork Sliders, Asian Style, and Manchego-Stuffed Figs Wrapped in Bacon for dinner, or declare Sandwich Night and serve Picadillo Sloppy Joes. If you have a vegetarian in the family or you’re just trying to economize, flip to the chapter on vegetarian mains for recipes for delicious and nutritious fare like Tortilla Pizza or Rustic Potato and Greens Pie. For dessert there’s Butterscotch Pudding Cake, Warm Chocolate Cheesecake, and much more. And finally, on Sunday, when you have a little more time to cook, there is a chapter for comfort food that will cure the end-of-the-weekend blues and get the week started right. Perhaps most important to the overscheduled home cook, Sara’s recipes help you cook smarter, faster, and cleaner. Each recipe lists cooking and preparation times, and easy-to-follow instructions streamline the process by integrating prep and cleanup into each step. Sidebars on shopping, storing, preparing, and serving share the tips Sara has collected over many years of answering questions from home cooks across the country. Creative, crowd-pleasing, and fuss free, the recipes in Sara Moulton’s Everyday Family Dinners make family dinner a pleasure for everyone.