A Basket by the Door, Hardcover

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.

Sophie Hansen is a journalist and writer by training. As an editor for Slow Food International's English website from 2001-2003, she was based in Italy for 3 years and is fluent in Italian. She was features editor at Australian Table magazine, an editor with R.M.Williams' publishing, staff writer for Outback magazine and continues to be a regular contributor for Australian Country Style Magazine. In 2013 Sophie launched her successful blog, Local is Lovely (www.local-lovely.com) and in 2016, was named the Australian Rural Woman of the Year by the Australian Government's AgriFutures body. Her podcast, My Open Kitchen has been downloaded over 120,000 times and is now into its third season. She is 'The Treechanger' columnist with the Sydney Morning Herald and also hosts a calendar of workshops, bringing online creatives and social media experts together from around the world to share, inspire and connect.