Happy New Life Garden — recipes
Recipes from Lennox St Community Garden, Richmond, Victoria
The creation of this book was a bit like the ‘Happy New Life Garden’ itself; a little bit haphazard, idiosyncratic and characterful. Over a period of weeks, the gardeners brought dishes they had cooked to the garden for everyone to share. When they were happy with the dish, the recipe was jotted down on any piece of paper at hand and later sent to translators.
What you read in the book are the gardeners’ words, in their native language and translated English. Some modifications to recipes were made during a wonderful communal cooking day in the community kitchen on the North Richmond Housing Estate. The cools stressed that it is not their way to use exact measurements and they encourager swapping ingredients according to what is in season in the garden.
The gardeners decided that the name ‘Happy New Life Garden’, rather than the functional ‘Lennox St Community Garden’, expressed their experience gardening together in this small, productive patch of soil int he heart of North Richmond.
Enjoy! Sophie Moncrieff
February 2008
