A Basket by the Door Books

A Basket by the Door is about fostering connection, community and good old-fashioned country hospitality as much as it is about recipes and the food that brings us together to eat. Cooking for someone is empathy made edible and is a double gift of time – your time to relieve some of their time – and time is one of the greatest gifts you can give. There are chapters with ideas on what to cook for friends or family who are mid-house move, busy with a newborn baby, celebrating a milestone or who just need a little love. Whether it’s an aromatic chicken pie made from scratch, or trio of freshly made dips and homemade lavosh biscuits or a sturdy picnic cake, delivered in a basket, for afternoon tea on the riverbank, there are recipes and ideas here to cover every occasion. There is also a chapter dedicated to Christmas with suggestions of food gifts to make and give, as well as recipes for useful things to make and take to friends’ houses when invited to dinner or for a weekend away. Every recipe includes information on how to wrap, transport, store (and for how long) and re-heat or serve. There are also variations for seasonal options with lots of ideas to tweak and adjust recipes according to what’s available or plentiful.

Introduction to A Basket By The Door

Food for thought, ideas for wrapping and delivering food gifts

Cooking for another – be it a meal or a jar of biscuits – is the most thoughtful act of all because it shows that person that you care enough to set aside Sunday morning to make them a chicken pie. That you care about their wellbeing. And that however tired, sad or sick they might feel, someone is watching out for them.

I didn’t understand this concept until I met and fell for a farmer, shortly thereafter moving to the country and my new home, our family farm about half an hour out of Orange, New South Wales. Thirteen years later, I have been on the giving and receiving end of many a care package and I have seen firsthand how this generosity can make a difference in the best and worst of times – when babies are born or bushfires threaten, in loss or illness.

This is a heartfelt, home-made book. I took the photos over a year at our table, on our farm and my parents’ property, at both special and prosaic moments.

Every recipe is simple, tasty and seasonal, because while fancy food can be fun, wholehearted food is what we truly crave when life gets tricky.

Some of the recipes are quick and easy, some take a little more time. While I know we are all really busy, I hope that this book inspires you to dedicate the odd Sunday morning to cooking good things not only for your own family but another family too. Throw open the windows, enlist helpers, play your favorite music and take pleasure in the process as much as the end result.

I hope you enjoy my book and that you find within its pages some ideas and inspiration to leave a basket by someone’s door soon.

Sophie x

About the Author