My mum taught me the joy of cooking. As a kid I could never quite work out how she knew which ingredients to put in the bowl and in what order. But one of my earliest memories is waiting patiently for those beaters to stop spinning, watching her scoop the cake mixture into the cake tin and being handed all the gooey leftover utensils to lick!

Every birthday there were brightly coloured creations for my brothers and I, pavlovas and sponge cakes for special occasions, and puddings and pancakes for after-dinner treats. I grew up on homemade everything—from meat pies to roast dinners with Yorkshire pudding.

Susie and Katrina want to make this childhood experience one all families can share. And like any good recipe, passed on through the generations and tweaked and improved with time and testing, this book is a community effort. Friends and families offered up must-make favourites, taste-tested the results, made more than one blunt suggestion, sent our kids around to star in the photos and brought the authors' kids home with us while the intensive parts of writing and publishing a book required some days to be child-free.

I believe passing on the joy of cooking to our kids is a special gift. It's easy, it's fun and it's something our little boys and girls will delight in for the rest of their lives— sharing with others again and again, the wonderful cycle continuing.

My grandmother taught my mum, and now I'm teaching my boys. My four year old plays in the dirt and collects rocks but he's just as happy sifting flour, cracking eggs and waiting patiently for those beaters to stop so the licking can begin.

Natalie Barr

SUNRISE Presenter, Seven Network, Australia