Dinner at Mine?
New Inspiration for Everyday Ingredients
A cookbook replete with light bulb moments for the ingredients you quite possibly already have on hand, Kate Young’s Dinner at Mine? is a wisdom-filled, enterprising cookbook.
Young’s warm introduction reveals that she always dreamed of cooking for her family, though her definition of “family” changed after she grew up and emigrated to the UK. There, through pandemic lockdowns and life changes, she wound up cooking for friends and visitors instead, or for herself during pauses in work. The recipes that resulted represent a decade-plus of growth, experimentation, and shifts—a gift designed to grow with the audience: “these recipes are yours now.”
Built from a regular rotation ingredient list of fifteen and meant to be “supremely useful,” the chapters focus on single ingredients, including butter, zucchini, eggs, and cabbage, from which proceed feasts for six, takeaway items, freezer staples, and fast meals. The recipes range from cozy fare so easy that ingredient lists wind into the narrative instructions, as with “jazzed-up” ramen and tomatoes on bread, to luscious wonders that require more preparation, including lamb shoulder with green salsa and almond chicken on tortillas.
These ranging recipes are made more flavorful and memorable by Young’s pert and vulnerable asides. Of fried sage leaves and anchovies, for example, she insists that this is for when “you want to show off, to flirt, to woo.” A tandoori chicken recipe is prefaced by memories of her mother’s home cooking; a spicy chicken dish evokes seaside vacation memories. Elsewhere, Young chides herself “I’m such a twee little loser” while waxing poetic about apples and prefaces her tomato chapter with the admission that “my favorite way to eat a great tomato is from my fist, like an apple.” Along the way, she makes converts of her audience, convincing all of the simple, incomparable joy of a meal prepared with love for those you love, including yourself.
Approaching fifteen basic ingredients with imagination and delight, Dinner at Mine? is an inspiring cookbook.
Reviewed by
Michelle Anne Schingler
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
