Group Living and Other Recipes: A Memoir

Milholland examines her love of communal living in this colorful debut. Milholland’s childhood home in Portland, Ore.—nicknamed “the Holman House” after the street where it sat—felt like it belonged not only to her and her unmarried parents, but to the exchange students, travelers, researchers, and poets the family hosted. At Amherst College, Milholland sought similar community, regularly cooking vegetarian meals for 20 people in her dorm’s communal kitchen, though she noticed early on that her peers “didn’t have a shared commitment to one another or the place.” While studying in Japan in her early 20s, Milholland traded a host family who let her live quietly on the top floor of their home for one that cooked and ate together, discussing their meals and teaching her Japanese in the process. After college, Milholland longed for the comforts of the Holman House, so she returned to Portland and lived there with her brother. Even as the Great Recession and Covid-19 tested the siblings’ commitment to group living, they hosted a Thai cook, a hippie couple, a mushroom forager, and others. Supplementing the narrative with recipes sourced from friends and former roommates, Milholland paints an inviting portrait of life lived in the company of others. Readers will walk away feeling nourished. (Aug.)