Particularly valuable is the chapter on marketing healthy food to your children whatever their age, and how to discourage tantrums.
She gives numerous tips and many positive stories to tell them - "Brainy grains can help you play computer games so I've made you a grainy sandwich for lunch", "Green beans give you strong arms for playing basketball," or "Green vegies and fish can help you have lovely skin".
There are also recipes (with tips on various allergies) and meal plans.
• Most of us could find The Thrifty Cookbook: delicious recipes to feed your family on a budget (Ryland Peters and Small, pbk, $26.99) useful in these days of rising food prices.
What appealed to me were that many of the recipes were inspired by simple peasant food from various (mainly European) countries.
Things like a traditional Greek cheese pie, a vegetable tagine, Tuscan pork and bean casserole, risottos and tortillas.
The recipes come from several different writers who are credited at the back.
• Celebrations are always a time for feasting, but everyone does it in their own way.
This is what makes My Family Feast (Hardie Grant, hbk, $70) so interesting.
Australian chef Sean Connolly visits 13 immigrant families celebrating occasions ranging from weddings, baptisms, religious festivals, birthdays or name days, to a family weekend making passata (pureed bottled tomatoes) or just a meal with friends.
The families, from Afghanistan to Vietnam, share traditional recipes that have been passed down for generations, and adapted to Australia, such as using salmon in a Bengali curry or barramundi grilled in banana leaves with Burmese spice paste.
Each family's story is told briefly and the book is lavishly illustrated with photographs.
• Judging by the numerous books in the nostalgic Kiwi cuisine cookbook genre published recently, it seems that we are at last celebrating our own traditional food.
A Good Spread: Classics from the recipe books of rural women (Random, pbk, $35), is the recipe for some hearty cooking ranging from soups, salads, fish, meat and vegetables to baking of all sorts.
Although it includes recent recipes from today's country kitchens, at its heart are updated recipes from the 1965 Women's Division of Federated Farmers cookbook, and some come with special recommendations from some of today's rural cooks.
It's interesting to see how fashions change - there are many old recipes using jelly and gelatine, numerous loaves and fruitcakes, pikelets, scones and muffins.
A nostalgic culinary trip with some contemporary recipes too - including some that have won prizes at shows.
• Wattie's Kiwi Favourites Cookbook (Penguin, hbk, $40) is published to celebrate the brand's 75th anniversary.
There are recipes for many old and not-so-old favourites, from cheese ball and stuffed eggs, to macaroni cheese and Belgium biscuits, as well as a few contributed recipes from Wattie's recipe search, which include spaghetti pizza pie, mince savouries, and boysenberry tart.
• In case you followed the Tour de France and wondered what they ate in the regions the cyclists passed through, French-born Australian chef Gabriel Gaté has collected classic recipes in Taste le Tour: Regional French Cuisine (Hardie Grant, hbk, $40).
However, it was a surprise to find recipes for yabbies, blue-eye and other Australian fish, but then these are French recipes for Australians.
