Best-selling cookbook author Nava Atlas of www.vegkitchen.com, sent me a copy of her new book Secret Recipes for the Modern Wife: All the Dishes You’ll Need to Make from the Day You Say “I Do” Until Death (or Divorce) Do You Part.

This satirical recipe book will make you laugh as you reflect on the joys and challenges of modern marriage. Each ”recipe” is accompanied with retro 1950s graphics and vintage advertisements.

Nava Atlas tackles the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood with humor and wit. For example, this except from her recipe for “Completely Fried Wife with Toast of Total Exhaustion”:

Swirl unfinished projects together with never-ending laundry, dishes, and clutter that has to be dealt with over and over, never getting completely done and never, ever going away.

Despair over piles of paper that you can never quite get on top of, and shove sundry messes into closets and drawers. Repeat all these steps as needed until your life descends into utter chaos.

Some of the recipes are snarky- “Old Boyfriend Buffet” and “Hypercritical Cinnamon Buns”- and others sweet- “Happily-Ever-After Ambrosia,” which serves to inspire hope in an age of cynicism.  Some recipes such as “Gender Role Casserole” are critical of husbands and may not reflect many modern marriages, but “Secret Recipes for the Modern Wife: All the Dishes You’ll Need to Make from the Day You Say “I Do” Until Death (or Divorce) Do You Part” is full of witty and sarcastic humor.

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