Cover Image: The Kitchen without Borders

The Kitchen without Borders

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Member Reviews

i really enjoyed readin this cookbook, i love how vibrate the pictures were and also hoe easily understood the recipes were. it would be a stunning book to sit on a cookbook shelf

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I love reading through cookbooks and this one is really fun and inspiring. The recipes are unique and I love the diversity that they bring. While there are some uncommon ingredients most of the things I either have in my kitchen or I have seen them in the grocery store. I love the profiles of the chef's that are tucked within the pages of the book and how they seem to tie the full book together.

I just wish that there were pictures for every recipe as I am a very visual person and don't like trying to make something without a picture reference of what it is supposed to look like.

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The Kitchen without Borders is a beautiful cookbook filled with recipes from around the world from Africa to Asia to the Middle East to South America.
All the recipes are based on traditional recipes from the home countries of the chefs from the Eat Offbeat Kitchen in New York. The catering kitchen provides jobs to immigrants and refugees and the book does a great job of giving the background on all of the chefs and how they came to work in the kitchen.
The recipes vary from smaller easy recipes like appetisers and drinks to recipes perfect for a family feast that take a bit more time and planning.
For the most part, the ingredients used may not be pantry staples but you should still be able to find them in international grocery stores or the international aisles in many supermarkets. Substitutes may also need to be made for those ingredients you might only ever use one which the book could have provided as an option for each recipe but didn't.
I look forward to making more of the recipes and I wish I lived in New York to experience the real Eat Offbeat's food.
Thanks to Netgalley.com and Workman Publishing Group for providing me with an ARC copy for review.

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A book with potential. As an ARC, this one needs some serious editing. There are a lot of grammatical and typographical errors. The stories of the chefs were impactful and interesting. This book could be 4 stars once it’s been thoroughly edited. I try to be generous when reading advanced copies, but this one given out too early in the process. However, there are still several months before it will be released and may be fixed. The concept of teaching refugees a trade and reading their backgrounds is fantastic.

I was slightly irritated by Chef Rose’s story. If you keep repeating “only surviving daughter” over, and over then you need to tell the story on how the other(s) died. If she’s not comfortable sharing that story then remove surviving.

Since I couldn’t make every recipe, I wondered at how accurate the quantities of ingredients were for some of the recipes. One called for 5 teaspoons of seven spice. This is an incredibly strong ingredient, and not one I prefer, but 5 teaspoons seemed excessive for 16 kibbeh.

This was the first cookbook I’ve reviewed and will probably be the last. I like the idea and wish they had a restaurant that I could visit instead of only a catering company in New York.

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From the very beginning this book stole my heart.
The history behind eat offbeat is a heartwarming one.
A company that hires talented refugees who come to call New York City home.
To share their stories through cooking their own dishes as they would their own family
This not just spread love, but some great food too.
packed with wonderful recipes and the individual story behind the person who cooks each dish.
Real food for thought. And mouthwatering dishes.

I voluntarily read and reviewed this book, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

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Being able to expose myself (and my palate) to different cuisines I wouldn't otherwise stumble upon is one of my greatest joys as a food writer and home cook. The recipes these chefs share throughout the pages of Kitchen Without Borders fulfills this need in such a huge way, introducing me to dishes I've never heard of (Poulet Gras from Guinea, Sri Lankan Kanawa Curry) and new favorites I can't wait to cook over and over again. That jollof rice, oh my god!

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I thought I knew a lot about global food. This book has taught me, I was wrong. I learned so much about foods that I never would be able to try in my city or that I need to seek out in my city. The variety of recipes is astounding. I can't wait to get a physical copy of this book so I can make more of the recipes.

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I have been waiting for this book for quite a while and it did not disappoint. The story behind the authors is captivating and inspiring.
The book lovingly presents immigrant chefs from different regions of the world . They share a story of hope and success followed by yummy recipes. At points while ready the stories I wished I could spent a day at the kitchen with them.
As the tittle implies the book is about chefs from different parts of the world, so you will have a great collection of international recipes. Don’t be scared, the chefs are not sharing complicated recipes. They share their home home-cooking with us. You might need to search for some ingredients in Middle Eastern , Indian or Latino shops but nowadays that is NOT complicated since big supermarkets are well stock and if that fails , you can get them online. For the most, the ingredients are not hard to find for the novice cook who wants to attempt an African or Middle Eastern dish, I promise!!
There are recipes for soups, salads, entrees and desserts. There is even a vegetarian section , I appreciate that in a book since many families are trying to introduce more vegetables in their diets have having more meatless days. . Found simplified versions of Iranian dishes that my family love. The Lentil Soup from Nepal is delicious, The Nepali pizza was a hit with my children, tasted like ordered from a fancy Italian restaurant.
This books belongs in every kitchen. The pictures of the finished dishes are beautiful and I love to see the chef sharing meals with their families.

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A cookbook to read if you're interested about immigrants, authentic recipes, and international (and particularly underrepresented) cuisine.

I personally read cookbooks for the recipes. There were several in this that I bookmarked. I tried two - hummus (which was easy to make and definitely delicious), and jollof rice, an African side dish that was delicious, but took quite a few dishes to make. I want to try others, but haven't had a chance yet.

There's a lot of information in here about Eat Offbeat and their chefs, whose recipes are featured. I enjoyed reading about their experiences, although that's not usually something I look to cookbooks for.

Each cookbook chapter has a list of recipes at the beginning, which I LOVE. Although they's a glossary of ingredients in the front of the cookbook, I wish that each recipe had given substitution options as well. When trying out recipes, I stuck to ones that didn't take special ingredients or weren't going to be too spicy (since I'm feeding my 5 year old as well). The recipes seem authentic, but probably won't be made by everyday cooks without suggestions for substitutions.

The e-book formatting of this cookbook was a mess. Luckily I was interested in the recipes, or I wouldn't have bothered reading it. Hopefully this formatting will be fixed upon publication.

I received an advance copy of this cookbook via NetGalley for free for an unbiased review. All opinions are my own.

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This is a refreshing cookbook to read. Rather than listing recipes, the Eat Offbeat chefs have used this opportunity to not only introduce recipes from various cultures around the world, but also to create loving profiles of their own chefs and employees, which really added to the richness of the book. My one criticism would be that the profiles were a bit distracting; it was tough to tell how they were organized among the recipes. I would have enjoyed it more had the profiles been compiled into one section.

If you're looking for some bold new recipes to try and have access to some of the more elusive ingredients, I would highly recommend picking this up when it's published and trying some recipes. (I recently made the hummus; it's very tasty!)

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This is not your typical cookbook. It tells the story behind the recipes and delves into the many cultural aspects of our prized family recipes. I really enjoyed this cookbook but I can see someone who is not an experienced cook getting overwhelmed very quickly due to the sheer number of specialty ingredients and time involved in the recipes. That being said, adventurous experienced cooks with access to the internet and the willingness to use it will have a great time with this one.

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I think the idea behind this book is exceptional. Food is a large part of our culture. Preserving traditional recipes and telling current stories of the immigrant chefs who provided those recipes makes this a special book.
However, this is not for an every day home cook providing their busy family with a meal. These recipes take time and abundant ingredients that could be challenging to find if you don't live in a large, multicultural city like NYC. In addition, the copy I received had formatting issues and some partial sentences in the middle of a story.
Overall, it's a beautiful book with gorgeous pictures of food and chefs that is preserving their culture, but I would find it hard to use in my kitchen.

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What a charming, wholesome cookbook! This book is half recipes, and half stories from the chefs. They're stories of immigration, of refugees, of family and traditions, and the importance of food as a way of bringing people together and sharing with one another. There's little bio chapters for the chefs with their personal stories as well as why they included the recipes that they did and things like personal/family photos. It was touching and I really loved they way that all these chefs from radically different walks of life come together over their love of nourishing others with their home cooking. These recipes are exotic and from a wide variety of countries, including Sri Lanka, Eritrea, Iran, Algeria, Afghanistan, and way more than listed here.

The cookbook is divided into sections by course: Appetizers and Dips, Salads and Soups, Rice and Grains, Vegetarian Dishes, Meat Dishes, and Desserts and Drinks. There's also a section in the beginning that talks about ingredients and potential substitutions, as a lot of the spices and ingredients here may be difficult for your average reader to find locally. Helpfully, there are websites included in this book, should you wish to chase these harder-to-find ingredients down for yourself.

The steps are written well and are easy to follow, and there are a lot of pictures included in this book. That's a good thing for me, since I haven't eaten- let alone made- most of these dishes. It's nice to have a reference to see if what I'm doing looks even a little bit right.

Some of the recipes that sounded the best to me include zeytoon parvardeh (olive, pom, walnut tapenade), narges kebabs (almost like a scotch egg), and fesenjan (stewed chicken).

If you're looking for bolder recipes or to become a more well-rounded home cook, or if you just want to spice things up, this is a great cookbook to add to your collection.

I received a copy in exchange for my honest review. Thank you!

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I am an avid cookbook collector and I really, really enjoyed this cookbook. I love that is features recipes from all over the world (Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, and Venezuela) and had many I'd never heard of. I did have to go out buy spices that I had never worked with before and I found that so exciting. It allowed me to expand my cooking knowledge with super unique flavor combos but also the photography is out of this world. I loved that not only was this a cookbook but it profiled the chefs and read like a book. I am from the South and I get the link between traditions/lifestyle/childhood are brought out in food. Food is such a powerful way to communicate and connect with others. I will definitely be buying this when it comes out. I already have it in my Amazon cart.

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This was an interesting read but many of the recipes include ingredients which would difficult to source in the uk. It was still fun reading about the recipes and the chefs. I'm sure these days any obscure ingredients could be ordered online but if your anything like me you like to read a recipe and then run to the kitchen to make it straight away.

I recommend this book to people who like to read about food and its origins.

I received an advance copy of this title in exchange for an unbiased review.

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This book is outstanding. Not only is it beautifully designed, but the recipes included are well written, introduce (some) new ingredients in a thoughtful way, and include a mix of familiar but well-executed "classics" and new/new to me preparations that I likely would have never thought to try. I tested several recipes and found the results delicious.

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I really enjoyed this book. It is an interesting combination of story telling and recipes. I found that I wanted to read the chefs stories as much as I wanted to cook the recipes. I learned from both threads in this book.
I have not cooked the recipes, but I found many that are interesting and unusual. So many recipes come from countries whose foods I have never experienced. As a cookbook collector, I read to learn as well as to cook. I plan to add this to my library when it is released.

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The Kitchen without Borders: Recipes and Stories from Refugee and Immigrant Chefs is a fascinating look at talented chefs from the Middle East. The one thing that ties them together is that they are either immigrants to the US or refugees, and have found a home at a unique catering company, Eat Offbeat. The company was founded by brother and sister Wissam and Manal Kahi, who immigrated to New York from Lebanon. They first noticed that store-bought hummus was nasty, and wanted to introduce authentic hummus like their Syrian grandmother made. Things grew from there, and they began hiring talented chefs to cook at Eat Offbeat.

This book isn’t just a cookbook – rather it is a compilation of individual chef’s stories that are not only interesting, but also help readers understand some of the new foods they have introduced and the reasons for cooking them. There are some inspirational aspects of this book, too, like why their cultures choose to eat together.

Of course the first recipe the lucky owners of the cookbook should prepare is the hummus; it is absolutely delicious and is a good reason never to buy hummus at the grocery store again. Grocery store hummus is not made by Syrian grandmothers, and is heavy compared to the Kahi’s recipe. Other intriguing and unique dishes include Chu La - Ground chicken curry, Paneer (a delicious vegetarian cheese that is easily made at home), Egyptian Moussaka, Ouzé - Lebanese Rice with Beef and Chestnuts, and a delicious vegetarian dish, Manchurian Cauliflower. The list of tempting dishes from this cookbook is getting longer, and families may be eating more and more delicious food as their queue from this book grows.


This is a unique and fun cookbook. There are beautiful photographs, but unfortunately, not a photograph of every dish. The chef stories are a fun read, and the recipes are mouthwatering. The variety of good recipes is amazing, and for foodies, this is a great cookbook to put on the cookbook shelf.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

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I received this advanced copy through netgalley. It had many editorial mistakes and some formatting issues that were probably due to the ebook format. I’m sure this will all be worked out before the publication date in June 2020.
Having said that, this book was very inspiring. All of the recipes are from refugees and immigrants who hail from the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and South America. Their stories are interspersed throughout which really gives everything even more flavor.
While some of the ingredients may be hard to find, the recipes don’t appear to be very complicated. I love cookbooks and love to find new flavors. There are so many interesting recipes in this book. I can’t wait to make the Ma’areena Soup that is Syrian but has spaghetti, mozzarella, tomato, and beef in it.
This is a great resource for anyone looking to expand their flavor profiles and try something new.

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Thank you to NetGalley and Workman Publishing Company for sending me a free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Kitchen Without Borders is a fantastic cookbook that I know I will continue to return to as I work my way through every recipe. Like the Eat Offbeat chefs pointed out in the book, it’s less about the food (although each recipe is a delicious standalone) and mainly about the stories - each dish carries history and memories from cultures all over the globe.

This cookbook is an amazing collection of delightful recipes that celebrate the diversity (and possibilities) of food. It also carries an important message, sharing another side to the refugee conversation with educational spotlights on some of Eat Offbeat’s refugee chefs.

Beyond the included conversion tables and the recommendations for substituting (or omitting) unique ingredients that aren’t as familiar (or as readily available) to Western audiences, each recipe includes:

- The chef & the dish’s country of origin,
- Dish name,
- A sentence about what the dish is,
- Quantity the dish makes,
- Short description by the chef of why this dish is special,
- Ingredients,
- Easy to follow directions, &
- Most recipes also include photos; in the final version I hope there is a photo for each recipe.

I loved every aspect of this book - it’s SO well thought out and I cannot wait to add a physical copy to my collection. The hummus recipe alone is worth purchasing the book for - it’s easy to make and absolutely PHENOMENAL. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves cooking, anyone who wants to broaden their culinary taste buds, or anyone who just plain enjoys good food.

Thank you again to NetGalley and Workman Publishing Company for the privilege of reviewing an ARC.

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