Author(s): Clare Scrine

Cookbook general

Shared dinners are an important ritual for many roommates: an opportunity to catch up with over a home-cooked meal. Whether it happens weekly, monthly or just when busy schedules align, it's around these meals that we come together and make plans for a better future. Each of the 16 chapters in The Shared Kitchen celebrates a common fruit or vegetable staple - from apple to zucchini - showcasing recipes that centre the ingredient in fun and interesting ways. Good food and exciting recipes shouldn't require expensive, artisan ingredients; here, humble staples become the stars of the show. Each chapter features different roommates who share their food rituals and dinner table discussions - if a global pandemic has taught us anything, it's the value of what's close to home: growing our own food, giving it away for free and caring for each other around and beyond the dining table. The Shared Kitchen isn't about preaching the virtues of expensive, organic produce sourced only from the farmers' markets. That's not possible for everyone. How we eat, share food and talk over the dinner table is what matters here. Alongside recipes for pies and cookies, delicious vegan salads and heartier meals and desserts, this book is also about finding the pleasure and therapeutic joy from cooking with what you already have excess of, whether it was grown in your garden, discovered at the bottom of your crisper drawer or sold in cheap buckets at the market. The recipes themselves are plentiful and packed with flavor, but still simple enough for the beginner home cook to follow. Alongside meals designed for dinner, there are also sweets and sides to keep your house eating all day.