Synopses & Reviews
A spirited and timely exploration of group living that encourages readers to reconsider the meaning of family and home.
Lola Milholland grew up in the nineties, the child of iconoclastic hippies. Her mom — energetic and intense at work and at play, whether at her job marketing for an agricultural co-op or paddling down a river, fat spliff in hand — had spent her life revolting against the strictures of her American and Filipino upbringing. Her dad, a child of the eastern Oregon desert, was a jovial documentary filmmaker and historian who loved to collect ephemera. Both threw open the doors of the Holman House, their rambling home in Portland, Oregon, to long-term visitors and unusual guests in need of a place to stay. Years later, after college and after her parents' separation, Milholland returned home. There, she joined her brother and his housemates — an eccentric group of stop-motion animators and accomplished cooks — in choosing to further the experiment of communal living into a new generation.
Group Living and Other Recipes tells the story of the residents of the Holman House — of transcendent meals and ecstatic parties, of colorful characters coming together in moments of deep tenderness and inevitable irritation, of a shared life that is appealing, humorous, confounding, and, just maybe, utopian — with a wider exploration of group living as a way of life. From spending time at her aunt and uncle's intentional community in Washington State to finding her footing as a student in Japan in the kitchen with her host family to mushroom hunting in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, Milholland offers an expansive and vibrant reevaluation of the structures at the very center of our lives.
Thoughtful, quirky, candid, and wise, Group Living and Other Recipes introduces a gifted memoirist and thinker, making a convincing case that "now is always the right time to reimagine home and family."
Review
"Reading this book is like finding a friend. With intelligence and humor, Lola Milholland invites us to join her in a timely (and delicious!) interrogation of the ethics of food, housing, family, land, and self. As an affirmation and celebration of our deep and radical connections with the world and each other, her book gives me hope." Ruth Ozeki, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Form and Emptiness
Review
"Part memoir, part cookbook, and all heart, Group Living and Other Recipes is a feast for the mind, body, and soul. Readers will love how Lola Milholland deftly explores the intersection of food and life through savory recipes, the compelling stories behind them, and her fascinating path to creating community. It is a book that you will devour whole." Adrienne Brodeur, author of Wild Game<.em>
Review
"This is an intimate and captivating interrogation of home as told from the communal kitchens of Lola Milholland's most uncommon upbringing. Each episode and every recipe is a delicious study in grace with an immense love for the messy everything of life." Aimee Nezhukumatathil, New York Times bestselling author of World of Wonders
About the Author
Lola Milholland is a food-business owner and writer. A former editor for Edible Portland magazine, she currently lives in Portland, Oregon, and runs Umi Organic, a noodle company with a commitment to providing nutritious public school lunch.