The Kinfolk Table

Kinfolk

by Kinfolk Magazine, Nathan Williams

Kinfolk magazine—launched to great acclaim and instant buzz in 2011—is a quarterly journal about understated, unfussy entertaining. The journal has captured the imagination of readers nationwide, with content and an aesthetic that reflect a desire to go back to simpler times; to take a break from our busy lives; to build a community around a shared sensibility; and to foster the endless and energizing magic that results from sharing a meal with good friends. Now there’s The Kinfolk Table , a cookbook from the creators of the magazine, with profiles of 45 tastemakers who are cooking and entertaining in a way that is beautiful, uncomplicated, and inexpensive. Each of these home cooks—artisans, bloggers, chefs, writers, bakers, crafters—has provided one to three of the recipes they most love to share with others, whether they be simple breakfasts for two, one-pot dinners for six, or a perfectly composed sandwich for a solo picnic.

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Cooking, Nonfiction, Design, Coffee Table Books, Reference

368 pages, Hardcover

First published October 15, 2013

Reviews

[Summer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book...let me tell you, books like this one are something I need for my soul. I love the concept, the style, photography. I loved learning about these people, their passions... chefs, interior designer, florists, coffee roasters, photographers, singers, cheesemaker, food writers, food bloggers, nutritionist, ice cream makers, jam maker, stylists, ... all this interesting people in the same book. I admire their way of living, I adore their fashion style and what a great idea to include their favourite recipes. Recipes that are special to them, that are in their lives from childhood, because their parents or grandmothers cooked this for them. These are the people I would love to be around, to be their friend. I hope my blog will someday be as wonderful as this book is.

[Danielle McClellan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely book filled with lovely people casually draped in doorways. Many florists, photographers, designers, a few hairdressers--linen-clad elegant, serious creatures stylishly posing with one another and with food as the narrative explores their marvelous lives, their recipes, their joyous late-night meals with many close friends. This book's recurring theme is all about digging below the surface of things to spend time with friends and to communicate and share food. I get that high-minded concept and like it a lot, but I am not totally convinced that this crowd is all that open to those outside the bubble; here the author does not seem to step beyond a fairly narrow circle of his own friends & blogging colleagues or people that work for him on the Kinship magazines (here is our designer, here is our printer, Julia here makes our photo shoot muffins). Also, why do all of these houses seem so pristine to me? where are the piles of books, instruments, kids drawings, crazy clutter or other detritus of messy, happy lives. These are the kind of folks that seem to have one perfect polished wooden bowl filled with lentils and pomegranates for lunch, and antique trestle tables cleared of anything but a single vase of perfect tulips. Not exactly food porn, but a certain kind of lifestyle porn. I do appreciate that the author stepped away from his exquisite hunter and gatherer friends to photograph his Canadian mother and grandmother. I especially liked his grandmother who keeps pushing her dusty, tasteless home-made fruit leathers on her grandkids. Now that sounds real to me.

[Katy · Rating 2 out of 5]

If Gwyneth Paltrow's cookbooks had a love child with an Urban Outfitters catalog, this is what their baby would look like.

[Tanya · Rating 1 out of 5]

HaHaHaHaHaHa! So self-conscious. And the recipes are terrible- uninspired and full of errors or adapted from elsewhere. If you have an interest in the kitchen you’ve probably tackled variations of most.

Pretty photography, but no one with a kitchen that sees heavy use would fill it with dead flowers and open shelves full exposed crockery and glassware. You’d be forever cleaning. And the contributors? So serious! Such an obsession with sweet potatoes! So much chambray! So many dead eyes!

I walked away with only two recipes: Tea smoked eggs and Sarah Britton’s Spiced raw chocolate mousse. The first is a variation of soy cured eggs, I guess. But the title is a misnomer because you neither use tea nor smoke in this recipe. And the recipe is TOTALLY wrong. Don’t simmer the damn things for 45 minutes. Treat it as a marinade. Well, I guess the only thing I took away was adding star anise and a cinnamon stick to the cured eggs I already make. So, uh. Yeah. I really like what Britton does and I highly recommend her blog: My New Roots. I am neither vegan nor a raw eater but I venture there from time to time and her recipes are elegant and successful.

But really, the book is useless.

Caveat: I could not look at these gentle, bland people with their heavily curated lives in front of their carefully rugged abodes without thinking: clean your gutters! Don't you know water damage when you see it! I could never drink sparkling water out of their cut glass decanters without fear of how dirty they probably were. Such obsession with surface undermines basic functionality.

[Louise · Rating 2 out of 5]

The subtitle of this book should be: White People* Looking Serious.

Oh boy, what a pretentious, twee, book. But I couldn't stop reading it! I had to take a few days off each time I read a chunk to give my rolling eyes a rest, but oh my god, I can't believe this thing is real. I hesitate to call this a cookbook or a recipe book because most of the recipes are crap and don't seem tested at all. It's like if I were to write a recipe -- and if you know me, you'll know any recipe I write is crap.

But seriously, there was a recipe for steel-cut oats with peanut butter and honey. The ingredients: steel cut oats, peanut butter, honey, cinnamon. The instructions, cook oats, and mix in the rest. Do you really need a recipe for that?!

The first time I picked this up, I was biding my time in a public library in Austin. Of course. But I was intrigued in a, "So bad I can't stop" kind of way. So I had tried to look for it in my local library, but it wasn't there. But the librarian offered to order it for me. I declined, but after he saw the description for the book, he thought the library might like it, so he ordered it anyway, which is how I came to read it. I wish I could put a little camera inside this book just to watch the reactions of all the other library users who check this book out while they read the descriptions and stories of the contributors to this book


* and a handful of Asians.

[Juli Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was disappointing. I waited for it to come into the library for probably five months, and found maybe three or four recipes worth my time. At least 3/4 of the book is pictures. Full-page, matte, lush pictures of hipsters opening their kitchen cabinets, riding mopeds, and gazing moodily out the window. Some pictures of food, but not as many as you'd expect. It's organized oddly; because the recipes are contributed by hip people all over the world, it is organized by geography. Half the book is recipes from Brooklyn, with Portland, OR, Copenhagen, and England getting smaller sections. The recipes look fine, but they are mostly the sort of over-seasoned, new American kind of food that you would get at an overpriced restaurant in Brooklyn (I'm looking at you, Vanilla, Lavender, and Earl Grey Chocolate Pudding with Sea Salt, page 257. Honestly, how many flavors does it take to make PUDDING taste delicious?!) I will try a few of the more unusual-sounding recipes (Buttermilk with Sweet Biscuits looks intriguing), but overall this book is mostly just eye-candy for college-age hipsters who haven't learned to cook yet.

[Georgette · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is the Muggle equivalent of 'Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them'. An overly-thick tome with gorgeous photographs of fairy-like creatures in their pristine habitats, detailing what they eat and giving a glimpse of how they live. I didn't finish reading this book. The date indicates when I gave up. Encyclopedias are only fun if you are very interested in the subject or if you're looking for something, which I'm neither. Stars for the photography and layout though.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

The pictures and aesthetics of this book are really up my alley and absolutely beautiful in a twee, Wes Anderson kind of way. The whole thing starts off with the editors talking about how they wanted to just include wholesome recipes that people all over the world could use to entertain, for their families, etc. However, all the people in this book seem to fall into two categories: creative agency types who graphic design by day but cook by night and live in the forest with their two blonde children, or Agnes Martin types who are free-spirited artists of some kind, and who probably love to do yoga and/or meditate 5-6 times a day.

The kicker for me was the "Simple Market Salad" which was so complicated, it took us literally 1 whole hour to put together... cute cookbook but ultimately impractical.

[Johanna Ilen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A feel-good book to just suck in the mood from the pictures, people, houses, food.

But also just a bit pretentious, and makes one think, should I also have this sacred connection to eating? And ability to casually entertain a group of people who show up unexpectedly? Maybe that is something to aim.

I made the lemon lentil salad already twice and marked several other interesting recipes to try.

And regarding the recipe from Finland, I must remark that what is referred to as ”pulla” in the book is actually ”korvapuusti”, a specific form of pulla. Regular pulla is a round bun, made with the same dough but without the cinnamon filling.

[Moi · Rating 2 out of 5]

high 2 stars, flirting with a 3-star designation

a sometimes-sweet curiosity -- quiet, often grave, naturally lit photographs of the recipe contributors provide a very hipster-minus-the-sneer sensibility. i wish they'd shown more detail shots of the finished recipes (though i suspect the people and lifestyle were more important to the publication than the food itself.) there were plenty of Hands Holding Bowls of Homemade Yogurt, raw linens, and gray tones. one picture, of a couple standing cheerfully against the side of a house behind a chest-high hedge, just made me laugh -- and not in an entirely kind way either -- at the "hey! look at us! we're TWEE!"

the book puts forth recipes from the author's friends in brooklyn, copenhagen, and portland, with a final chapter offering recipes from friends in other cities. the recipes are usually quite simple -- some so simple as to be odd candidates for a cookbook ("prepare herring however you wish, and top with tomatoes and onions; serve.") -- with a few more complex offerings thrown in there, usually by folks who are actually chefs. shrimp, lentils, and sweet potatoes abound. the recipes range from italian to danish to japanese. few jumped out at me as really interesting.

the author says the book has collected the participants' most frequently used recipes when these folks gather with friends in a simple, unpretentious way. it's perhaps for this reason that the collection feels more like a celebration of a lifestyle -- simple, nourishing, unfussy food with close, unfussy friends -- than it is a culinary inspiration or resource.

[Elsabe Retief · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was under the impression that I am such a lazy entertainer - I would much rather be having friends come over unannounced and cook an impromptu meal with everybody chatting and visiting. I am thankful that this book solved that little issue for me! I am happily re categorized !
Enjoying all the awesome stories of each and every one of the extremely interesting people in this delightful book!
I am South African and living in Canada. In my native language we have a word for exactly what this book encompasses: KUIER. The word also summarize my life.
I would want to give this book to each and every one of the people I have and love in my life, near or far.

[Lauryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this read. It was neat to dive into each person’s life that was providing a recipe. I made a few of the recipes and they turned out well. The photography was well done. And I appreciated the focus on hospitality. “They decided that a life of food, warmth, and open doors would be their way to care for friends and family—and so it is.” Inspired to get in the kitchen more and create, while keeping it simple and enjoying the company of others.

[Sarah Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The recipes are interesting and unique. Don't try to follow them though. They're basically useless except as an idea-generator. The stories are quasi-interesting, if you aspire to be so priviledge you can spend large amounts of time curating your life so deeply that nothing authentic remains. Then you can get together with all your friends and write a book about yourselves with some recipes thrown in. If it wasn't so visually stunning, I would've given it a lesser rating.

[Ann · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't realize that the (kin)folks behind Portlandia had published a cookbook...

[False · Rating 2 out of 5]

NOTES: It's obvious in reading this that the author truly understand how to use social media. His website requires subscriptions, the photographs emphasize linen shirts and homespun fabrics, weathered chipped pots of plants, fields of grains and flowers, and despite focusing on varied locales (New York, Portland, England, Denmark) the recipes often repeat on themselves like variations on granola (all beautifully portrayed and lit mind you.) Also, open faced sandwiches, sweet loaves and "vegetable stews." You finish the book feeling thoroughly manipulated into their lifestyle, so overall, I don't see the worth in this book as a viable, working book unless you yourself adhere to this lifestyle.

[Olya Chizh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book for anyone who loves food and people and who values the magical and sacred moments of a shared meal. It's not a cookbook , but more of an intimate insight into the lives of dozens of wonderful people. It's an invitation to slow down and enjoy your food in good company and spirit. The reason I give it four stars is that I wish there was a more handy index at the end of the book, like, based on ingredients or a type of meal. Apart from that, I find the layout perfectly in tune with the kinfolk spirit.

[Chessa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have never wanted to punch a cookbook in the teeth so much as I did this cookbook. Pretentious doesn't EVEN begin to cover it. Boring, pedestrian, precious...ugh, I need something to clean this off my brain. I've been wondering about the magazine Kinfolk, but after this introduction, I wonder no more. Hipsters who take themselves WA-HAY too seriously? No thanks, I'm good.

[Shelby *trains flying monkeys* · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and simple recipes. I need to check out Kinfolk Tables other publications.

Thanks Netgalley

[Ivanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

The collected stories and pictures of the people are amazing, but I expected tehe book to be more content-reach where it concens recipes.

[Lizzie Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

We have been cooking our way through this lovely book. Everything has been delicious so far and not too difficult to make. The stories are fun too!

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

2.5

[Ashley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wonder, did the photographers specifically tell the people in this book to look unhappy and unsmiling?

[Alyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read: March 2014
Where It Came From: eARC from publisher via NetGalley*
Genre: Lifestyle-Manifesto-with-Recipes
Rating: 3 Shared Meals

This cookbook will always have the odd distinction of being the one where I opened it up to a random page while browsing and saw my cousin’s wedding photographer staring right back at me. Weird coincidence, right? …I’m trying to come up with some way to connect this to the cookbook itself and what I thought of it, but am failing. Basically I just wanted to share that little tidbit because it was completely unexpected and made me laugh. Okay, moving on.

Kinfolk Magazine is a popular small press quarterly that bills itself as “the lead entertaining magazine for young food enthusiasts and adventure-seekers” and “a blueprint for a balanced, intentional lifestyle.” I’ve seen the magazine in my wanderings about the internet, and the relaxed, simple, rural-hipster vibe appealed to me. I haven’t picked up a copy yet, so when I saw this cookbook by the same people come up on NetGalley, I thought it would be a good way to try it out and get a sense of what Kinfolk is all about.

I love everything that the founder of the magazine, Nathan Williams, talks about in his introduction. He discusses the rituals of gathering together with friends to cook and eat, and how this sort of entertaining inhabits some middle ground between simply hanging out and the rigid, la-tee-dah associations the word “dinner party” can have. He says the idea for the magazine was “born in the course of trying to describe those evenings spent with friends when the hours pass effortlessly, conversation flows naturally, cooking is participatory, and the evening ends with a satisfying sense of accomplishment.” The goal of the magazine is to demonstrate this idea of entertaining and to make it accessible to younger people like himself and his friends. What he describes as casual, meaningful entertaining is something I’m totally behind—I’ve experienced it often in my life, though I never really thought of it in those terms until I read what he’d written about it. Some of those experiences that immediately came to mind while reading included the cooking schedule and group meals my flatmates and I instituted in college, the friends we'd invite over to help make/taste whatever recipes we were testing for the newspaper, our Magic Monday cooking and hangout nights while in Japan... Having experienced myself how fun, warm, and good-for-the-spirit these kinds of social interactions can be, I was excited to read about other people identifying and exploring that idea.

For this book, Williams traveled the world to visit the homes of many contributors to the magazine to experience their style of hospitality within this uncomplicated-yet-intentional idea of entertaining, and to gather some recipes they like to make for others. And here’s where The Kinfolk Table parts ways with most traditional cookbooks: It’s concerned with the people who provided the recipes as much as, if not more than, the recipes themselves. Which kinda makes sense, given the Kinfolk outlook on life and entertaining. The book is organized by cities (or areas) visited, and for each city, he profiles the people he met there. For each person, couple, or family, he talks a bit about what they do and how they exemplify the ideas behind Kinfolk, and then presents a recipe or two from them. Sometimes there are no recipes, but instead a suggested menu inspired by the person and the time spent with them.

It’s a pretty cool idea, but at the same time it can be a little disappointing if you’re expecting a cookbook. For a 340-page book, there are only 88 recipes, and that’s with me counting the menu ideas as recipes. If all you’re interested in is the food you can easily skip the Kinfolker profiles, but the organizational system makes it difficult to locate something specific, since there are no chapters devoted to desserts, or breakfasts, or anything like that. There is an index, but it’s a book much more suited to browsing and sticky noting rather than hunting down something particular. The recipes themselves are fresh and tasty-sounding, ranging from the exceedingly simple (sorry cousin’s wedding photographer, but do I really need a recipe to show me how to eat melon with yogurt?) to the more complicated but still doable (making your own phyllo dough!). They emphasize enjoying nature’s bounty and what’s local and in season. There are some cool international recipes, as well as many family classics and new inventions from varied cultural backgrounds, but there weren’t actually all that many that really jumped off the page at me and stuck in my mind like, oooh, gotta try making that. A couple that did stick with me were the Vanilla, Lavender, and Earl Grey Chocolate Pudding with Sea Salt and the Sugar Snap Peas with Fresh Mint and Whipped Ricotta. I also enjoyed learning about Danish open-faced sandwiches from the author’s friends in Copenhagen, and about pulla, a Finnish dessert bread. Yum! Many of the recipes, though, are for simple things, and while simple can definitely be delicious, I had hoped more of them would grab me and inspire me to make them.

The photography is beautiful, and showcases the people and places of the book with an artful, rustic simplicity. It’s hipster-y in the barn wedding, Madewell catalogue sort of way, but there’s no denying the beauty of the images. There are more pictures of the people and places than of the food from the recipes, and when there are pictures of the food the focus seems to be more on presenting it artistically than in getting a good look at the finished product itself (though to be fair, there are sometimes photos that put the attention fully on the prepared dishes). Personally I would’ve liked more of a balance between people/places and food photography, but that’s just me. And like I said, no matter how you slice it, the images are simply elegant and evocative.

Sometimes there’s header text for the recipes from the person who provided them, but often there’s not. Most of the non-recipe prose is in the author’s individual profiles preceding the recipes. For the most part, it was inspiring to read about people living creative lives and following their dreams while also making a priority out of spending time with friends and family, talking and eating. I liked that it wasn’t only young people, and that there was a range of professions represented, many of them creative in nature, but sometimes the words used to talk about these people and their lives and style of hospitality felt sort of…fabricated. Sometimes I got swept up in the beauty of the words, and other times I found myself getting a little irritated. Some words cropped up over and over again in the profiles, things like “nourish,” “easy hospitality,” and “meaningful conversation.” All good things and evocative phrases, but after reading them so many times to describe so many different people, true as they may be, they started to lose their power. At times the writing felt like it was trying too hard, and was more concerned with making sentences sound pretty and wise than in what they actually said. And though the writing was usually inspiring, there were times I got a mild hipper, organic-er, creative-er-than-thou vibe that was a little off-turning…like they’re trying to convince me these people never buy their pie dough from a store when they’re in a hurry, like they never get a craving for a McDonald’s French fry, like they never watch TV when they could be outside.

But maybe that’s just me. Despite any aspects of the writing that may have bugged me after 300+ pages, I still fervently support the ideas expounded upon in the introduction, which the author sums up nicely at the end of that section: “Entertaining looks different for each of us, but as long as we’re cooking and inviting people into our homes with a genuine interest in connecting, conversing, and eating together, then the way we do these things becomes insignificant and ultimately comes naturally.” I couldn’t agree more, and overall, it’s cool to read about people who live interesting lives, incorporate these ideals into them, and are kind enough to share some of their favorite recipes (though I would’ve liked a higher recipe-to-other-stuff ratio). There may not have been a ton of recipes that immediately made it onto my must-try list, but there are a few I’m looking forward to and others I wouldn’t be averse to trying out at some point. I’d categorize it as more of a lavishly photographed lifestyle or entertaining manifesto with recipes than a full-on cookbook, and though it’s not a favorite, I might pick it up someday.


*As ever, much as we are grateful for the copy, our review is uninfluenced by its source.


Originally posted on Read This / Eat That

[Beatrice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jag läser den som en bok snarare än som en kokbok. Både delarna som beskriver människorna som delat med sig av recepten, men också recepten.

Bilderna är väldigt vackra, och känns lagom stylade och lagom halv-spontana. Hela boken är faktiskt väldigt vacker.

Men recepten i sig inspirerar mig inte särskilt mycket egentligen. Inte heller en majoritet av människorna. De allra mest spännande människorna verkar vara de på slutet som inte är utvalda utifrån platsen de bor på. Boken är nämligen uppdelad i olika områden - Brooklyn, Köpenhamn, Engelska "landsbygden", Portland och "Wandering".
Allra bäst gillar jag nog de människor de faktiskt känner, för de beskrivs på ett mer naturligt sätt än det stundtals krystade sätt som nya bekantskaper beskrivs på.

Dessutom saknas det en variation av människor här. En absolut majoritet är vita män, eller vita kvinnor. Några är asiater, och bara en eller två är svarta. Och då är den ena ett adopterat barn som bara är med på en enda bild. Mångfalden fattas liksom. Även om flera av de vita har påbrå från andra delar av världen. Med tanke på den mångfald som måste finnas i de stora städer de fokuserar på i boken, så känns den helt enkelt inte särskilt representativ.

Men jag gillar att bläddra i den ändå. För bildernas skull. För trots bristen på mångfald är det som sagt en väldigt vacker bok.

[Navya · Rating 2 out of 5]

What can I say? Kinfolk has a very specific aesthetic, and sticks to it closely in this book as well. And while I like the clean, minimalist approach to many things in life, food is not one of them.

Nonetheless, I did find a few recipes I want to ty (particularly of sweets/desserts). Just...not a lot of them.

Two things perplexed me: firstly, I do not understand the geographical divisions that function as the chapters in the book. The idea is that the recipes come from the author's friends who live in those particular cities. But I am not sure that reflects in the recipes themselves? Those do not seem rooted in their location and felt like they could be swapped around - at least to me.

Secondly, I was surprised this was a recipe-only book, and areas such as table decor, food history, specialist interviews (all of which I think the Kinfolk team will excel in) were not touched at all. However, this expertise did at least shine in the photos/layouts of the book, which was also easily its best part.

[Rhiannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cooking for me is an expression of love and appreciation for the people in my life, and I think this cookbook captured the essence of that feeling perfectly. Not only that, but the author, Nathan Williams, brilliantly illustrated vivid portraits of the many uniquely wonderful artists and subjects of this book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading their stories.

From the members of the band “We Barbarians” to the handsome part-time fisherman in the Pacific Northwest to Nathan’s mother and grandmother, each person was someone I wanted to meet and break bread with and to discuss food, dining, and life with.

I think this cookbook resonates with me because it’s more than just a collection of recipes. It’s stories and lives mingled with the delicious wonder of food. No other book I’ve read, fiction or otherwise, has felt more relatable. Truly, I loved every aspect of it, especially the stunningly beautiful yet completely simple photos of everyday life and the meals we eat as we experience it.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy the way this book combines the stories of people with their recipes, the photography is also gorgeous. As a flexitarian I also appreciate that the majority of recipes happen to be vegan and vegetarian friendly.

My one complaint is that the finished food is often not photographed, I find it really helps when picking what to eat and also knowing what a recipe should look like while following it! I get that this book leaned towards artistic photography but that doesn’t mean you need to sacrifice the usefulness.

[Stephanie Steinberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me, a cookbook must have two things: beautiful pictures and recipes that inspire me to actually WANT to cook! The Kinfolk Table is an absolutely beautiful cookbook, and I loved reading the stories of the different people who contributed the recipes. Almost every single story made me want to go to my local farmer’s market and have a nice glass of wine while I prepare something wonderful to share with my family. I’m not sure if I’ll actually end up doing either of those things, but I sure did enjoy imagining it, and at least I have a beautiful cookbook to display in my kitchen!

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting concept of traveling, talking to people and collecting their recipes. I loved the introduction, which explains the off-putting definitions of both "home-cooking" and "entertaining" as well as the description of casual evenings in college where friends gathered to cook together. That was my experience, too. Food does, and should, bring people together. While some of these recipes seem a unnecessarily fussy, I bookmarked several to use in the future.

[Jenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most beautiful, thoughtful cookbooks I have ever read. I loved the recipes and the people. They inspired me to cook more and look for more local ingredients, become more adventurous and up my own creative game. I HIGHLY recommend this book if you at all love cooking for people and sharing time over food.