Quick Cooking for Busy People

Patricia A. Myers is a historian at the Historic Sites and Archives
Service, Alberta Community Development, and the author of Sky Riders: An
Illustrated History of Aviation in Alberta, 1906–1945.

There is no shortage of cookbooks that promise to help you put a yummy
meal on the table in 30 minutes. It takes a fresh approach, a
user-friendly design, and appealing recipe ideas to stand out in this
crowd. Quick Cooking for Busy People takes a different tack.
Organization is the mantra here.

The intrepid author bakes batches of cookies while tidying the kitchen.
She organizes her shopping list according to the arrangement of the
grocery store. What she does not do is offer anything new or
particularly helpful. Side dish suggestions include sliced tomatoes,
carrot sticks, and a list of “deli choices” such as potato or Greek
salad. Oven-baked chicken is just that: put chicken breasts in the oven
and bake them until juices run clear. Meat balls, chicken vegetable stir
fry, salmon with butter dill sauce—all the usual choices are found in
these pages. Cook extra and freeze it, Wokes suggests. This is new?

The author may have put innumerable meals on the table for her family
over the years, and there’s certainly victory in that. And her system
may work for her: stacking everything in the freezer in labeled bags,
preparing detailed menus, then shopping lists, then store charts. But
there’s nothing in this book that makes me want to head to the kitchen
and cook. It’s all reduced to a rather grim chore—and that’s no
fun at all.