How do those women you see on the tube decade after decade keep it glued together? Deidre Hall, best known to many as the ever-patient, impossibly good Dr. Marlena Evans for more than thirty years on NBC’s Days of Our Lives, is obviously having fun with this. Along with her longtime pal Lynne Bowman, Hall includes you in the conversation about food, friends, shopping, and cooking. In the hour or less it might take you to pour yourself a cuppa, sit down and read it through, you will have had more than a few laughs-out-loud, and you may also think differently about some things. There are great recipes in the book, but this is not any kind of challenge to the tall-hat chefs of the world. Hall and Bowman are sharing information about what you might actually do in your kitchen. The duo claim they are finally over the soggy, the greasy, the boring and the indigestible in every area of life, and they’re intent on sharing their hard-won wisdom about slapping it on the table when it has to be fast, cheap, look good, taste great, and make your hair shiny. Expect to find solid nutritional information you didn’t already know, along with kitchen management tips, all wrapped in a surprisingly charming package. Also expect some straight talk about how to eat -- the kind you only get from that one pal who really tells you how it is. Hall and Bowman are dishy and fun, but not so down-and-dirty you wouldn’t want your Aunt Ruth or your 11-year-old to read it, too. In fact, especially if your Aunt Ruth has ever secretly curled up in front of the soaps, this is an ideal gift.