I was doing some reading. Scouring the internet in search of recipes of comfort. Hearing about the news of the Covid19 lockdowns in Melbourne, Victoria, specifically the nine public housing towers, reminded me of the Grenfell tower fire tragedy in England in 2017.

I think it was mostly the words public housing towers from the Melbourne news story that jogged my memory. I recalled reading about a community kitchen had formed to provide a place for the displaced community members to come together and cook food for their families and each other. I went on to find out that it’s called the Hub Community Kitchen and that hubb in Arabic means love ❤️ I thought about how food unites us and has the ability to provide deep comfort as I was learning about this community kitchen. It turns out that the kitchen cooks have created a cookbook called Together – Our Community Cookbook! It was created to garner funds to allow the kitchen to be open every day, rather than the two days a week it was initially opened for.

The idea for a cookbook came about after Meghan The Duchess of Sussex visited and asked why the kitchen was only opened two days a week. The answer given was “funding”, or rather a lack of funding. The knowledge that this book is filled with diverse recipes that are all about comfort and love filled me with anticipation to discover some new favorites for my own family. I ordered my copy from Amazon and it arrived in two days! It cost nineteen dollars and is an absolute steal for such a treasure trove of recipes. You can also feel great about contributing to an amazing cause that provides such a fundamental necessity to a whole community of families 🙂

The foreword and introduction of the book are meaningful and beautiful. In fact the book itself is gorgeous. I love the recipes in this book and some are foods that I grew up with. I’m excited to try and recreate them myself. xo