Together: Our Community Cookbook
Tom Verde
The Hubb Community Kitchen
2018, Clarkson Potter, 978-1-984-82408-0, $16.99 hb.
The recipes in this book originated in the Hubb (Love) Community Kitchen in West London, near the site of the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire that took the lives of 72 people, most of Middle Eastern or North African descent. After the fire, women gathered to offer comfort and support by making meals for impacted neighbors and friends. United not only by their humanity, but by their “love of cooking and sharing food,” they prepared traditional comfort recipes—published here—such as braised Algerian sweet lamb, Moroccan chickpea-and-noodle soup and Indian shortbreads. Their efforts attracted the support of the duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, who donned an apron and joined them in a community kitchen that she describes in the foreword as “a place for women to laugh, grieve, cry and cook together.”