Her father died in 1704, and in 1707, when their widowed mother married Sir Simon Harcourt, Diana Astry and her sister Arabella moved to Pendley, Hertfordshire.

The sources of the recipes and tips are acknowledged and reflect not only the lifestyle of the upper middle classes in England and housekeeping knowledge required to run a country house, but also Astry's wide circle of influential friends and acquaintances.

A good soup is made with a leg of beef, veal, mutton, a cock, lean bacon, a pigeon, cheese, ginger, mace, cloves, onions, carrot, turnip, horseradish, anchovies and sweet herbs".

There is a recipe for catchope/ catchop/ ceachup (ketchup) utilising white wine vinegar, 6 anchovies (‘unwasht’), cloves, mace, bay leaf, bunches of rosemary and sweet marjoram, and a little balm, to be coloured with claret.

Red hot brass farthings were put in white wine vinegar with salt to make a solution to green any sort of pickle.

In her 2003 book The British Housewife, Gilly Lehmann comments that "There is not much evidence of French dishes in this notebook" even though "Astry's own collection of cookery receipts contained many fricassees and raggoos".

In 1709, Simon Harcourt wrote to Richard Orlebar "hoping to hear the young ffox hunter thrives apace, & that you’l soon have occasion to demand my promise of making it a Christian" (being godfather).