Making the Table

Making the Table is a celebration of vegetarian cooking as a practice of love and collective liberation. Going back and forth between the kitchen and mobilizations in the streets across North Carolina, Noah Rubin-Blose noticed that cooking is full of lessons for how we create a more just world. Food offers a gathering place for people and a reminder that we need each other. Food is art that is made to be impermanent, and cooking can build our capacity for change. Food carries stories, and when we cook and share dishes that are meaningful to us, we honor where we come from and share those stories with each other. The more than 100 delicious recipes here encourage you to cook with the cycles of the seasons, honor the ancestors who make our food possible, and share comfort food with community. Drawing on Noah's experience as a caterer rooted in Ashkenazi Jewish, Italian, Southern, and queer food traditions, recipes include main dishes, salads, soups, sauces, savory baked goods, desserts, and beverages. Many of these dishes are vegan, and many are nut- and gluten-free. Recipes are interspersed with tips for successful vegan cooking and stories about what cooking can teach us about building community, growing as people, and bringing forth a liberated future.