What’s For Dinner?: 30-minute quick and easy family meals. The Sunday Times bestseller from the Taming Twins fuss-free family food blog

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Her book remains relatable to the very last line. This is all down to Jill’s writing style. Interesting, informative, entertaining and engaging, ‘What’s for Dinner?’ is easy to read and yet it asks a lot of pertinent questions. Celebrity chef Curtis Stone knows life can get busy. But as a dad, he also believes that sitting down to a home-cooked meal with family and friends is one of life’s greatest gifts. In his fifth cookbook, he offers both novice cooks and seasoned chefs mouthwatering recipes that don’t rely on fancy, hard-to-find ingredients and special equipment. And he breaks them down into seven simple categories: Jill finishes the book by saying, ‘Food shouldn’t be yet another source of angst and worry in our lives. Above all, food should nourish us’. I couldn’t agree more, and her book helps us to do that - guiding us to making informed, individual choices, without all the hype. Indeed, her "secret tippling" does not go unnoticed. Bryan remarks: "I wonder what gives a person the idea you can't smell vodka ... Did you catch her breath?" Maureen remarks: "It went to my heart when she almost fell over that rug." Whether or not Lottie has a drinking problem (there is no question, considering she is, in the next chapter, admitted to a hospital to be treated for her alcoholism) the hypocrisy of Maureen and Bryan should be noted. Are they any better for drinking in plain sight?... Ironically, the observation shared by Maureen and Bryan after the dinner (regarding Lottie's drinking) is mirrored during the dinner, when Lottie and Norris share a similar observation about Maureen and Bryan...

Again, not to be taken literally. But there is a grain of truth in her prediction. Norris is dismissive of Lottie's prediction, along with her dinner suggestion - "Did you say meat loaf? I surmise you're kidding." But it is as unclear to Norris as it is to the reader the implications of Lottie's prediction. Lottie's seemingly meaningless prediction is followed by a seemingly meaningless gesture...

Toys

There's something cute about the action, however dark or sordid the actions may be. But it is cute without innocence. There's a cuteness about the way in which the characters talk to each other, like the tunes in Oklahoma or the lyrics of Cole Porter... The question "What's for dinner?" is posed in the first chapter of the novel. Enter Mary Charlotte Taylor ("Lottie" for short) - the perfect wife and housekeeper, for all appearances. But the reader soon learns her embarrassing secret. Her husband, Norris Taylor, asks the titular question "What's for dinner?" The question is posed after Lottie asks: "I wonder what you'll do when I'm gone?" The question is rhetorical. In the context of the first chapter, it is a matter of no consequence what Norris will do when Lottie is gone (dead, that is). But in the context of the novel, the question takes on a new meaning. As a consequence of her embarrassing secret, Lottie will be forced to leave Norris. In fact, the novel covers the time of her absence. The questions "What's for dinner?" and "I wonder what you'll do when I'm gone?" are thereby aligned, not as literal questions but as questions related to novel - What are we, the reader, to expect from this novel? I learnt a lot from this book, and particularly enjoyed the chapter on bees. I have no farming knowledge, and while I’d (incorrectly as it turns out) had opinions on some of the areas that are touched on, there were so many other aspects of both the Australian and global food industry that I had never thought about, until now. I was hooked from the very first line where Jill describes a scene that reflects a constant source of frustration in my own life - ‘What would you like for dinner?’

What could be better than having a new arsenal of Stone’s recipes at your fingertips? . . . Charming for both his accent and kitchen knowledge, this man is as down to earth as they come.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Games

But the novel hasn't relinquished the cast of the suburb in Lottie's absence. Lottie's story, taking place in the hospital, is only half of the story. The other half follows Norris, along in the suburb with the Delehanteys. To this cast another character is added - Mag Carpenter, recent widow and friend of Lottie's. The set-up is obvious. The bachelor and the widow... I loved the glimpses into Jill’s own life (the story about saving the newborn piglets from a boar on her father’s lot was so visual it was almost as though I was there, cheering her family on), and her observations are infused with a gentle humour that had me smiling from beginning to end.