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Extra Helping: Recipes for Caring, Connecting & Building Community One Dish at a Time
Show up, be kind, and cook! Sixty recipes for those who need a helping hand in your community.
There is no more essential way to show up for people than on the plate. Extra Helping is for anyone who wants to respond to the challenge of baby announcements, PTO meal chains, and CaringBridge alerts with compassion and creativity; who wants to send something to a niece overcome by finals week or a neighbor who is grieving; who wants to rise above their default setting; and whose limits of time and other resources leave them feeling more confused than inspired. With recipes tailored to meet many of the dietary modifications that illness and recovery (not to mention modern life) often entail, as well as suggestions that range from mailing a kick-ass care package to bringing over a full, hot meal, Extra Helping frames a philosophy of support, a personal identity of tending, a creative and unique-to-you style of saying, "I am here for you"--one delivery at a time.
In eight chapters, Extra Helping walks the helpful friend through cooking for people who are dealing with illness, recovery, and loss--or celebrating babies, birthdays, and new homes. Personal stories from the front lines of care, shortcuts for the time-strapped, and sidebars full of tips and embellishments round out a collection of over 60 recipes, aiding readers in developing a style of caregiving all their own.
There is no more essential way to show up for people than on the plate. Extra Helping is for anyone who wants to respond to the challenge of baby announcements, PTO meal chains, and CaringBridge alerts with compassion and creativity; who wants to send something to a niece overcome by finals week or a neighbor who is grieving; who wants to rise above their default setting; and whose limits of time and other resources leave them feeling more confused than inspired. With recipes tailored to meet many of the dietary modifications that illness and recovery (not to mention modern life) often entail, as well as suggestions that range from mailing a kick-ass care package to bringing over a full, hot meal, Extra Helping frames a philosophy of support, a personal identity of tending, a creative and unique-to-you style of saying, "I am here for you"--one delivery at a time.
In eight chapters, Extra Helping walks the helpful friend through cooking for people who are dealing with illness, recovery, and loss--or celebrating babies, birthdays, and new homes. Personal stories from the front lines of care, shortcuts for the time-strapped, and sidebars full of tips and embellishments round out a collection of over 60 recipes, aiding readers in developing a style of caregiving all their own.
256 pages, Paperback
Published November 13, 2018
6 people are currently reading
345 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
December 23, 2018
There are cookbooks that define eras of my life with the intensity of a pop song to which I know all the words, the one that comes on the car radio and sends you right back to Homecoming with Bruce Webb and his red truck and his shy, awkward smile. Betty Crocker is growing up Mormon in my mother's laminated kitchen, the one with the frying pans left perpetually on the stove to steep in oil. The Enchanted Broccoli Forest is my apartment on Genesee Avenue in Syracuse, New York, when I was trying to write short stories like Raymond Carver and also to bake my own graham crackers. My early years of marriage are the Silver Palate, and anything after that, from the birth of our second child to now, is the cooking blog A Raisin & A Porpoise, which first handed me so many of the life-sustaining words and dishes in Extra Helping, including chocolate pudding and Chili-Kill-Me Casserole (see page 213)--you should go make those two things right now. I've been making them for years and years and they can't possibly be any more delicious or comforting. Put the chocolate pudding into small jars with lids just like Janet says. You will be the boss of everything then but in a nice way. And take time to read all the parts in between the recipes--stories about love and family and food that you can absorb while you're spooning the last bit of the chocolate pudding out of the second-to-last jar (it's too sad to think of it being the very LAST jar).
P.S. I know that Janet says whipped cream is optional but if you happen to have any and you whip it up the way my mother used to so that it barely has any lines in it when you throw in two spoonfuls of sugar, I think you'll begin to feel like the beginning of that song that was everywhere in 1983 when Bruce's friends knocked him into me at lunch and he bashfully said so hey what if we went to Homecoming. These are highway-run-into-the-midnight-sun level recipes, people, so pick a page, any page, and start a new era.
P.S. I know that Janet says whipped cream is optional but if you happen to have any and you whip it up the way my mother used to so that it barely has any lines in it when you throw in two spoonfuls of sugar, I think you'll begin to feel like the beginning of that song that was everywhere in 1983 when Bruce's friends knocked him into me at lunch and he bashfully said so hey what if we went to Homecoming. These are highway-run-into-the-midnight-sun level recipes, people, so pick a page, any page, and start a new era.
August 7, 2018
Extra Helping shares 60+ recipes and tips on taking care of community in both celebration and in grief. Each of the eight chapter covers a common life change (such as relocation, new baby, illness/recovery) with an introduction by the author including personal experiences and how we can be helpful to the people we care about through both food and actions.
The recipes included cover most dietary needs and include vegan, vegetarian, and a few meat options. Gluten free options are usually included in the recipe and end with further substitutions/suggestions.
Some of the recipes contain random ingredients the average household probably won't have on hand, including dried Kombu seaweed (where do you even find that??), buckwheat flour, and flax seeds.
I appreciated the section on feeding a large crowd, where recipes for 20+ servings were included.
My favorite recipes in this collection were wild rice soup and lemon mousse.
While there are some common comfort foods included in Extra Helping, most recipes are unique and some of the ingredients and instructions can be somewhat involved. I mostly appreciated the author sharing her personal experiences, tips, and discussion on the importance of community.
Many thanks to Roost Books and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
The recipes included cover most dietary needs and include vegan, vegetarian, and a few meat options. Gluten free options are usually included in the recipe and end with further substitutions/suggestions.
Some of the recipes contain random ingredients the average household probably won't have on hand, including dried Kombu seaweed (where do you even find that??), buckwheat flour, and flax seeds.
I appreciated the section on feeding a large crowd, where recipes for 20+ servings were included.
My favorite recipes in this collection were wild rice soup and lemon mousse.
While there are some common comfort foods included in Extra Helping, most recipes are unique and some of the ingredients and instructions can be somewhat involved. I mostly appreciated the author sharing her personal experiences, tips, and discussion on the importance of community.
Many thanks to Roost Books and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Want to read
September 23, 2018Somewhere I read that “food is culture” which I take to mean that all our human histories are tied up in food and one of the best ways to experience cultural sharing is to share meals across borders. After reading through Janet Elsbach book Extra Helping I now think that food is a way of life and all your social world and ways of being are reflected in the food you eat and prepare for others. All this is to say that I am comforted by just the existence of the world this cookbook had to have originated from. There are so many means of caring for other people practicably outline in this book. She describes a s social existence where the community is not just a feeling but a practice. She outlines a few decades worth of tips and tricks for taking care of people in many different real world tough situations. I want to try out some of these recipes for my own selfish self. Most of the ingredients are super basic, which I appreciate, and the more obscure ones are purely there for the taste or to make the food more accessible to wider ranger of people with dietary restrictions. She includes wonderful notes about how to pack up the dishes not just in general for to make the food more approachable for people in various situation. I actually feel better prepared to take on the role of a nurturing person just from reading the cookbook.
Also, the illustrations are excellent and at least one of the instructions encourages the reader to crumble tofu by pretending to be the incredible hulk and squeezing it. ❤
Also, the illustrations are excellent and at least one of the instructions encourages the reader to crumble tofu by pretending to be the incredible hulk and squeezing it. ❤
January 14, 2019
Thank goodness for this book. Janet Reich Elsbach's clever and engaging prose makes it the kind of cookbook you want to read before bed. It's also the kind of cookbook that inspires hilariously long grocery lists--grocery lists that, once accomplished, would give you the option of cooking any one of the ten recipes that you feel like you MUST MAKE TODAY. I have had to force myself to narrow down my ambitions to only one or two recipes at a time. The recipes I've cooked so far are comforting and simple, and yet it feels like the author is always teaching me something I didn't know before. This book kept me sane and healthy during finals at graduate school--when the people who needed extra helping were my frazzled classmates and me--and it offered a wealth of recipes to try when I wanted to cook for my parents and family back home during break. Plus, it made for the easiest and most perfect Christmas presents ever!
August 30, 2018
#ExtraHelping #NetGalley'
Heartwarming recipes to help friends, family, and people dealing with illness, recovery, and loss, or celebrating babies, birthdays, and new more. Good inspiration for community kitchen projects.
Heartwarming recipes to help friends, family, and people dealing with illness, recovery, and loss, or celebrating babies, birthdays, and new more. Good inspiration for community kitchen projects.
January 12, 2019
If you're wondering what you can do about some of the issues in the world (and here at home): GET THIS BOOK!
It's beautifully written, and packed with recipes that comfort and nourish. Other favorites are the Resource section and that part of the proceeds go to helping end hunger. Thank you Janet!
It's beautifully written, and packed with recipes that comfort and nourish. Other favorites are the Resource section and that part of the proceeds go to helping end hunger. Thank you Janet!
January 28, 2019
This book! It's a manual for how to take care of people, specifically through food. It offers recipes for various crises or celebration or tediums (tedia?) but it's also a guide to finding how to show people they are loved and cared for. It also validates the worthiness of the project of taking-care-of-people. It distills the wisdom of generations of mothers and overlapping networks of sisters and friends. It inspires me. It also sets reasonable expectations for time, effort, equipment, and skill. I wish I'd had this book 20 years ago, but I'm thrilled to find it at this stage in my life.
I am not a reader of cookbooks. I prepare 3 meals and a snack for my people every day, but I prefer to cut my recipes from magazines or copy them from friends, a handful or cookbooks, or trusted online collections. Yet this is beyond a cookbook. I also rarely buy books, but I intend to buy this, because it will help me help others, and I need to have it on standby rather than on a library shelf where I can't consult it when someone's need comes to my attention. (I did find it thanks to a display at my library, because libraries are geniuses at that effort!)
However, there are some quirks. Namely, quirky ingredients that Elsbach says should be commercially available. I have lived in 14 places as a cooking adult. Some of these ingredients are emphatically not readily available in my everywoman's food stores. Further, some of her comfort standbys would have the reverse effect than she intends. (While I appreciate squash of all kinds, one of my daughters shudders even to think of eating it, for example.) These are matters of taste, and one of Elsbach's strengths is describing how to discern and accommodate taste issues. But it made me laugh several times to read the assumption that I could or would get my hands on some of these flavors.
I am not a reader of cookbooks. I prepare 3 meals and a snack for my people every day, but I prefer to cut my recipes from magazines or copy them from friends, a handful or cookbooks, or trusted online collections. Yet this is beyond a cookbook. I also rarely buy books, but I intend to buy this, because it will help me help others, and I need to have it on standby rather than on a library shelf where I can't consult it when someone's need comes to my attention. (I did find it thanks to a display at my library, because libraries are geniuses at that effort!)
However, there are some quirks. Namely, quirky ingredients that Elsbach says should be commercially available. I have lived in 14 places as a cooking adult. Some of these ingredients are emphatically not readily available in my everywoman's food stores. Further, some of her comfort standbys would have the reverse effect than she intends. (While I appreciate squash of all kinds, one of my daughters shudders even to think of eating it, for example.) These are matters of taste, and one of Elsbach's strengths is describing how to discern and accommodate taste issues. But it made me laugh several times to read the assumption that I could or would get my hands on some of these flavors.
January 22, 2019
It’s hard to put into words the importance and depth of this book. It's part cookbook, part life guide, part memoir, part love letter to humans, part community involvement toolkit, and part soothing balm. Take this book to bed to you to read Elbach's humorous, compassionate, and insightful prose. And wake up in the morning inspired and ready to nourish folks with her crazy delicious, cozy, accessible, and cleverly named recipes. When you read this book it feels like you're sharing tea with Elsbach at her home, and when you cook from it it feels as though she's right there with you guiding you and anticipating your cooking technique questions. Elsbach reminds us that the simple act of cooking for and feeding people is a most powerful tool for creating positive change individually, in our closest circles, in our broader community, and globally. I also love the "Resources" section in the back of the book that suggests concrete ways to get involved. To top it all off, the papercut illustrations throughout the book by Anna Brones are gorgeous and a perfectly complement Elsbach's writing. What a gift!
February 17, 2019
I love everything about this book: its impulse, its voice, its recipes. I read it in two long, luxurious sittings today, pausing once to make the savory granola (a winner) and another time to shop for ingredients for a few more recipes, and now it's bristling with post-its for the other recipes (probably 1/3 of the book) that I want to make. Elsbach's voice is so warm and funny and realistic; this is absolutely a cookbook to read, like Laurie Colwin's or Nigella Lawson's. The recipes are great, I have already picked up a couple smart tricks (puree those preserved lemons, of course! now they are so much more useable) and she offers lots of adaptations to make them gluten free or vegetarian. I know I will be wearing this book out, cooking for my people.
September 18, 2018
I really liked the idea for this book 'extra helping', 'helping hands', 'community'. It's a great book that encourages helping (and with good food). It seems a grassroots organization book which I loved. This collection is well-thought out with great 'For' section that changes recipes dependent on the needs (gluten-free), or the 'other ways' section. I'm someone who needs photos (for ideas of what it should look like when I fail miserably) and unfortunately, Extra Helping does not have any. However, I found the entire book easy and interesting to read and how organized the recipes were (food for expanding families, those who have been rearranged and relocated, illnesses, etc).
January 18, 2019
This book is beautifully written, with mouth-watering recipes. It is worth buying just for the writing alone -- and for the vegetable stock recipe, which is both rich and succulent as well as being light and delicate (quite a feat). The author's tender, compassionate, and funny observations about how food (the great common denominator) can be used to show up for people through joy, celebration, heartache, sickness, and unfathomable loss fills a gap in the cookbook genre. It belongs on everyone's shelf. The author's efforts toward feeding the hungry in her personal life and the world at large are admirable.
March 25, 2022
I love this! A cookbook specifically designed with hospitality in mind? Yes, please! I especially loved Elsbach's short essays and musings about food, cooking, and offering care to those in our community through food. There are some recipes in here that I definitely want to try but there were also some that didn't sound so appealing or accessible. Overall, I so appreciate that this book was written. It's clear that Elsbach actually thought through things like packaging, transporting food, and feeding people of all ages, cultures, and dietary restrictions. This is one I'd like to own and return to the next time I need to contribute to a meal train or feed a crowd for cheap. 4.5 stars.
April 30, 2019
The warmth and love, passion and curiosity, that Janet has for people - her people, your people, your peoples people leaps from the pages of this book. Everyone take time to learn from the humility she shares by giving against the most treacherous journeys of loss and the joy she unconditionally sprinkles on the people she loves... this.is.love.
March 25, 2023
This book delivered all of my hopes for it! Equal parts compassionate, witty, wise - the author walks through various ways to serve and love others through food. The writing and recipes are evidence of walking with others through celebration, sickness, and life transitions with others. Very human. Very simple. My favorite.
June 6, 2022
This is a beautiful book. Not because there are lavish pictures, or lavish recipes, for that matter. It is simply the kindest, warmest cookbook I have ever read, full of recipes that come from the heart to help you and those around you feel better.
January 9, 2022
This book is like a hug. Her writing makes me laugh and cry. Still need to get my hands on some hemp hearts!
August 7, 2019
I enjoyed the content, along with Janet Reich Elsbach’s writing style, and the simplicity of many of the recipes. I look forward to reading more of her books!
January 30, 2020
I adore this book. It dropped me into a world where people genuinely care and food is a powerful and important agent of healing. Wildly comforting.
June 12, 2022
Comforting and inspirational with the added bonus of so many want-to-cook recipes!
October 17, 2024
I'm so in love with the concept of this book, and also appreciate the variety of recipes. Lovely, so lovely!
January 3, 2025
Checked this book out of the library because I’m a fan of the illustrator. It was so delightful and refreshing I bought a copy. I can’t wait to start cooking my way from the front cover to the back!
January 4, 2019
In a way this is a fantasy book, because in our society of isolated people, with its "epidemic levels of loneliness" (some institute declared that, can't remember which), who has a huge and vibrant community of people caring enough about you to bring you food whenever your family is in crisis? But it's nice to fantasize, and also to have some extra recipes in your culinary toolkit, say for sickroom situations and convalescence. The author includes vegetarian and gluten-free option for her recipes, very cognizant of people's varied and individual food needs/preferences.
January 8, 2025
For a book supposedly focused on supporting others with food, there seem to be a lot of ingredients that might be hard to find. And there are so many options and alternatives within each recipe that it is a bit confusing to follow. I get that Elsbach is trying to be helpful, but I think I'd rather just have separate recipes instead of going back and forth in one recipe about gluten vs not, etc.
October 20, 2022
I love the idea behind this book - thoughts and recipes for providing and nurturing others. The recipes weren’t really my style (which means I’d be unlikely to cook them for somebody else) and there are no photos (photos are my favorite part of cookbooks).
January 10, 2019
I love the idea of this book and found many helpful suggestions include with the recipes.
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August 9, 2019641.5 E493 2018
November 10, 2021
Honestly I found the short essays that started each section to be the most compelling part of the cookbook.
February 19, 2022
Good premise. Recipes are ridiculous
July 25, 2022
I love the photos & helpful tips when delivering the meals & presentation of the food.
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October 15, 2024Appreciate the concept but I got lost in the essay-length explanations and stories
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews