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For today's blog post, we put together a playlist in honor of our first cookbook, The Kinfolk Table: Recipes for Small Gatherings. Just like the cookbook, our playlist is about the people in our lives, the relationships we celebrate when we sit down at the table, and the music that we enjoy. The cookbook shines a culinary spotlight on a number of regions we traveled to, where we documented the lives and recipes of people we admire. Similarly, our Kinfolk Table playlist focuses on our current hometown of Portland, Oregon, its East Coast counterpart Brooklyn, the English countryside, and Copenhagen.

The Kinfolk Table Playlist from Kinfolk on 8tracks Radio.

Our list is a bit Portland-intensive (the late Elliott Smith lived here before moving to Brooklyn and Los Angeles back in the day) — many Kinfolk staffers are very fond of the talented songwriter who was nominated for an Oscar back in 1998. But Laura Veirs is a Portland singer-songwriter my wife, Katie (who cofounded Kinfolk), is very fond of, while our community director, Julie Pointer, is a big Laura Gibson fan. Andrew Gallo of Seachant (who makes our Kinfolk films) is the one who brought Pure Bathing Culture to our attention — many Portlanders are fond of their live show. Indie-nerds Gail O'Hara and Georgia Frances King both love PDX's M. Ward and Brooklyn's Sharon Van Etten, as well as Dirty Projectors, who also call this borough home. The amazing Jennifer O'Connor (who's been used in a number of TV shows) and Dump (James from Yo La Tengo) round out Brooklyn's list.

The English countryside has produced more than its fair share of folk, pop, and rock luminaries. We're fond of the Clientele and Amor de Días, whose members are known to plant community gardens, forage for wild mushrooms and garlic, and stumble through the twilit Hampshire forests. Molly Drake is the mother of the famous British folkie Nick Drake, and her own parlor songs are haunting and intimate. Donovan is another well-known 1960s folk-pop artist, while Mark Tranmer is a bit more obscure (he's part of a Salford duo called the Montgolfier Brothers who've made some delightful mellow guitar albums).

Making this playlist turned us into Copenhagen music aficionados, if not experts. We consulted with Norwegian intern Hanna as well as Joanna Han, our resident coffee snob who's obsessed with all things Scandinavian: they've suggested a few names, as did our friends. We ended up choosing Agnes Obel, Efterklang, Halasan Bazar, Sink Ships, and Mew to represent Denmark.

We hope the playlist fills the room as you make and bake things from The Kinfolk Table and hang out with your friends, surrounded by tasty goods.

1. Elliott Smith, "Waltz #2 (Xo)"
2. Laura Veirs, "Spelunking"
3. Blind Pilot, "3 Rounds and a Sound"
4. Laura Gibson, "Hands In Pockets"
5. Pure Bathing Culture, "Pendulum"
6. Holcombe Waller, "Risk of Change"
7. M. Ward, "The First Time I Ran Away"
8. Jennifer O'Connor, "Ready to Go"
9. Sharon Van Etten, "One Day"
10. Dirty Projectors, "Swing Lo Magellan"
11. The Clientele, "Haunted Melody"
12. Donovan, "The Tinker And The Crab"
13. Molly Drake, "I Remember"
14. Mark Tranmer, "Ghoat Intersection"
15. Amor De Dias, "In the Winter Sun"
16. Mew, "Comforting Sounds"
17. Agnes Obel, "Dorian"
18. Efterklang, "Hollow Mountain"
19. Halasan Bazar, "Wondering Why"
20. Sink Ships, "Half the Boy"
21. Dump, "Moon River"

Thanks to Bryce Edwards, Sophy Grimshaw, Robert McTaggart, and the Kinfolk

Today we'd like to show you a couple of the outtakes from The Kinfolk Table. After months and months spent scouting and planning, the main photographer for this project, Parker Fitzgerald, and I spent three months traveling around a half dozen countries cooking and photographing inside the homes of our contributors. Working in environments that were meant for cups of tea instead of full-scale photo shoots was often challenging, but we always somehow made it work. We feel incredibly blessed to be working with such a talented, enthusiastic team of people who supported each other through every step of this incredibly long and far-flung process. However, it was the breadth of ground we covered and the time we spent with each subject that made this cookbook special.

The 85-plus recipes contributed to the cookbook come from more than 50 different groups of people, from enthusiastic solo cooks to couples, work colleagues, and bands. Whether their recipes have been perfected through careful hours spent over a hot stove or simply memorized from childhood baking afternoons with grandmothers, most of these dishes have been imagined by home cooks, not professional chefs.

And of course, not everything always went smoothly. Often the photographs you see adorning the pages of culinary magazines depict casual entertaining as a drama-free, perfectly planned affair. But that isn't always true. The images you see in this cookbook may show the end result, but we didn't always get it right on the first try.

Chickens were burned. Glasses were broken. Hair was singed. Cakes crumbled. But the funny thing? It didn't matter. Sure, we had a deadline looming over our heads and were running out of the film we'd brought for the day, but often the times when things didn't go right created the most notable moments of true togetherness. After all, nothing says community like four people trying to put out a kitchen fire with damp tea towels.

That's what the Kinfolk method of entertaining ultimately simmers down to (that is, if you can get the pot to stop boiling): the meaning of a small gathering is in the intention and time spent with your friends, not whether your pie's pastry flakes perfectly or you correctly salted the stew. The Kinfolk Table aims to tell these social stories as much as it shares the recipes seen in them.

So speaking of sharing, here are some outtakes from behind the scenes of The Kinfolk Table.

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As mentioned earlier in this week's blog residency, our inaugural cookbook, The Kinfolk Table, brings together our extended circle of friends from Brooklyn, Copenhagen, the English countryside, our local Portland, and beyond to create a rounded tome of culinary goodness. Today, we'd like to give you a small insight into some of our favorite people we broke bread with through this process.

Here, we've chosen to profile three international contributors from The Kinfolk Table: the ice-cream making couple behind Brooklyn institution Phin & Phebes, one of Copenhagen's most well-respected young interior designers, and the founder of Sam's Kitchen in the historically stunning town of Bath in the United Kingdom.

As Portlanders ourselves, we also have gleaned recipes and stories from a cohort of local residents, which can be read and devoured in the pages of the cookbook. Some of these include the likes of the Heart Roasters founders contributing their recipes for Pulla (Finnish dessert bread) and, naturally, a meticulous recipe for home-brewed coffee. Some of our staff members, such as Kinfolk-cofounders Doug and Paige Bischoff, are featured as well as Community Director Julie Pointer, and Kinfolk contributors such as photographers/videographers Andrew and Carisso Gallo, florist Riley Messina, and photographer Laura Dart also make an appearance. And although she may still be residing in my native Canada, my mother Vera even offered up her family-famous recipe for her savory buns.

For now, here is a glimpse into the corners of the Earth in which we searched for the most interesting people and food to bring back to your own table.

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Brooklyn, New York: Crista Freeman and Jess Eddy

(Phin & Phebes Ice Cream Makers)

Recipe: Hummingbird Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

In 2010 Crista Freeman and Jess Eddy, better known, respectively, under the business name Phin & Phebes, found themselves literally neck high in ice cream, which could assumedly be the best place to find yourself. The pair had started making ice cream from their kitchen as a way to pass the frigid winter months. The hobby quickly became more than a fleeting seasonal activity, and soon enough, Crista and Jess were selling their tasty creations in markets and stores across New York City. Full-time jobs were quit, a business plan developed, and ingredient sourcing was determined. Phin & Phebes was standing on both legs and running.

By maintaining a strict demand for only the best ingredients, sourcing them locally, and constantly coming up with inventive yet balanced flavors, this young ice cream partnership has taken New York by a sweet storm. Their model is based on the idea that good ice cream comes first from good milk. So, they source from a cooperative of farms from surrounding New York counties, where the milk is so good it wins awards. Then they use that milk to make flavors that are natural, yet still new. Flavors like Vietnamese Coffee, Vanilla Cinnamon, or Coconut Key Lime. As far as flavor combinations go, Crista and Jess are willing to do what it takes to translate delicious flavor pairings into an ice cream — even if that calls for throwing entire chunks of pie into their mixer.

At home and away from the dessert world, Crista and Jess find peace and quiet on slow Saturday mornings, when they can scramble some eggs and lazily watch the early hours pass. During the week, their days are much more rapid. They sneak time to grill in the summer, but otherwise, their dinners have to be fresh, tasty, and fast. These ladies do not have the time for the unnecessary trappings of high-end cooking and entertaining when the world of ice cream is on their shoulders. They opt instead for simple dinners with friends and shaken cocktails in vintage glassware. That was all right by us. They fed us ice cream and kept us full, and we enjoyed every minute of their hospitable company.

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Copenhagen, Denmark: Nathalie Schwer

(Interior Designer)

Recipe: Hearty Barley Salad with Broiled Feta and Tomatoes

Nathalie Schwer is the face of young Copenhagen artistry. An accomplished interior designer, a frequent traveler, and a bike commuter, Nathalie embodies the ideals of the rising Danish generation, a generation looking to establish new traditions, further creative strides, and prove to the whole world that the Danish people have a voice to share and a voice worth listening to.

Nathalie's sanctuary is a spacious apartment overlooking Copenhagen's canal. Her rooms are light and airy, brimming with art books and vintage furniture. Her kitchen, filled with the fragrance of fresh rosemary and basil and with sun, provides room enough to gather friends around a sprawling tableful of roasted vegetables and wine.

Like many young Danes, Nathalie eschews archaic traditions. But she holds steadfast to the tenets of cooking with the season, grocery shopping daily, and making meals in the home. "I come from a great number of willful people," she told us while slicing avocados, adding that crafting "homemade food with a variety of fresh ingredients is the healthiest thing you can do."

Nathalie's experience and education in the kitchen began when she was a young child, helping her mother prepare meals or just setting the table. A lifelong contributor to the process, today she cooks with an easy passion and is always ready to host another party or jump on a plane to Paris. She is Copenhagen with curls and Chuck Taylors, a lover of food, people, and sartorial excursions, rooted in the past yet always looking toward the future.

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The English Countryside, United Kingdom: Sam Wylde

(Restaurateur)

Recipes: Pot Roast Shoulder of Veal with Tuna Sauce and Roasted Butternut Squash, Urfa Chile, and Buffalo Mozzarella Salad

Every town should have a resource like Sam's Kitchen. A meeting place in Bath with constantly evolving menus, Sam's Kitchen is a go-to spot for locally sourced food and artisanal treats. The restaurant is intimate and homey, open during the week for lunch and on Friday nights for live music and tapas. There are no individual tables, just a family-style communal one, and once the food is gone, it's gone. The space has played host to pop-up restaurants and supper clubs and is also available to rent out for catered parties and other gatherings.

Sam Wylde, proprietor and founder of his namesake restaurant, is laid back and approachable. He lives with his young daughter, Florence, in a historic town house in Bath, and constantly brings home delicacies and innovative new recipes to sample. Sam is moving forward in his culinary art, excelling in his craft of cooking and taking local residents along with him.

He has owned farmland with his family for

In today's second blog celebrating the release of The Kinfolk Table: Recipes for Small Gatherings, I'd like to share two of the most popular recipes imagined up by members of the Kinfolk team.

The process of curating this cookbook was quite simple: we wanted to showcase the personal recipes of friends from around the world, allowing our readers into the kitchens of the people close to us. Focusing on like-minded cohorts from Portland, Brooklyn, Copenhagen, and the English countryside, we spent afternoons in their homes with cameras, notepads, and aprons, replicating the memories of the past to reinvent for our readers.

Our small team and the spider web of connections that branch out from it may not be professional chefs, but they are passionate hosts. Most of the time, these gatherings are spontaneous, unfussy, and informal, put together on the whim of a good conversation and the contents of a pantry. While the food is often delicious, the meaning of the exchanges doesn't exist in cups of flour, but instead in some other immeasurable notion.

These two recipes for Citrus Lentil Salad and Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies can be thrown together using staple items you will already find in your drawers, making them perfect for drop-in guests or quick afternoon snacks. This way, you have more time to talk about your day and less to spend traversing supermarket aisles. We hope you enjoy eating them as much as we enjoyed making them.

Oh, and if you're in Portland and would like to come say hello to our team, please join us tonight at 7.30 p.m. at Powell's City of Books for a special launch event for The Kinfolk Table. Snacks will be provided! More details here.

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This first recipe is for a salad my wife and I make often during the fall and winter months because it's both hearty and refreshing. The lentils make the dish feel substantial and filling, while the lemon and basil bring a fresh taste from summer. It's quick to prepare and can be made in advance as the flavors get better after mingling and chilling for at least a few hours.

Citrus Lentil Salad

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 cup (7 ounces) green lentils, picked over

6 scallions, white and pale green parts thinly sliced

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon white wine or apple cider vinegar

3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Zest of 1 lemon or orange

1 tablespoon (.5 ounces) sugar

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Converted

200 grams green lentils, picked over

6 scallions, white and pale green parts thinly sliced

45 milliliters extra-virgin olive oil

15 milliliters white wine or apple cider vinegar

45 milliliters freshly squeezed lemon juice

Zest of 1 lemon or orange

15 grams sugar

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

1. Rinse the lentils under cold running water in a fine-mesh sieve until the water runs clear. Place the lentils in a medium saucepan and add enough cold water to cover by 3 inches/7.6 centimeters. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes or until the lentils are tender.
2. Drain lentils and return to pot. Add enough cold water to cover by 3 inches/7.6 centimeters. Remove and discard any lentil shells that rise to the top, then drain once again.
3. Place lentils in a large bowl and toss them with the scallions, olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice, zest, sugar, salt, and pepper.
4. Allow salad to rest for at least 20 minutes to let the flavors combine. Serve.

Note: The scallions may be substituted by half a red onion or 2 shallots, thinly sliced. The sugar may be substituted with agave.

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The second recipe we want to share today is by Kinfolk's community director, Julie Pointer. She joined us early on in the magazine's conception and is responsible for planning the dozens of events we hold internationally each month. When she's not parceling together delicately constructed packages to be sent to Kinfolk dinners from Moscow to Michigan, she spends a lot of time in her tiny inner-Portland kitchen whipping up these office-legendary oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

It's fairly normal to walk into our workplace in the morning to find a recently cooled plate of these morsels sitting on a bench, covered with a linen tea towel. The Kinfolk team makes sure they're usually completely gone before morning tea even starts, guaranteed. Once you've made your first batch, you'll understand why.

Everyone knows I have an insatiable sweet tooth — so while I love baking and making sweet things, I've now gotten in the habit of giving away most of the things I make. Otherwise I might enjoy them all myself! Thankfully I know most of my neighbors, so I have lots of willing recipients within close reach. I have a friend who refers to me as a little bear cub with my paws always in the honey pot; the comparison unfortunately rings quite true." – Julie Pointer

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes about 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients

Adapted from Annie's Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup (8 ounces/230 grams) packed dark brown sugar

1 cup (7 ounces/200 grams) granulated sugar

1 cup (8 ounces/230 grams) organic vegetable shortening, at room temperature

1 teaspoon (5 milliliters) vanilla extract

1 teaspoon (6 grams) salt

1 teaspoon (3 grams) baking soda

2 large eggs, beaten and at room temperature

1½ cups (7½ ounces/210 grams) all-purpose flour

3 cups (3½ ounces/100 grams) whole rolled oats

1 cup (12 ounces/340 grams) semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Combine the sugars and shortening in a large bowl and mix until smooth and creamy. Add the vanilla, salt, baking soda, and eggs, and mix until just combined.
2. Stir in the flour, oats, and chocolate chips. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 1 hour or until the dough is chilled and firm.
3. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
4. Using a small ice cream scoop with a release mechanism or a 2-tablespoon (30-milliliter) measure, scoop the dough out into balls and place them on the prepared baking sheets about 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) apart. Press the dough down gently with your fingertips.
5. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating and alternating the sheets halfway through the baking time, until the cookie edges begin to brown. Immediately remove the sheets from the oven and rap them sharply on a count

Food is the toffee-toasted mortar that binds people together, building stronger friendships that, when stacked sky high, create the most special of gatherings. Because of this, we're rather honored to announce the arrival of our very first cookbook, The Kinfolk Table, bringing together recipes, people, and stories from around the world. We hope it'll encourage you to clink china with those around you and form new traditions to sit alongside the old.

The Kinfolk Table shines a culinary light on the creatives of Brooklyn, Copenhagen, Portland, and the English countryside, inviting you into the lives and pantries of a diverse array of enthusiasts and professionals. We've twirled to the ends of our Rolodexes to seek family favorite recipes from coffee connoisseurs to ceramicists, fashion bloggers to florists, photographers to farmers, and even an addition from one of our sweet retired grandmothers. These delegates from varying walks of life will provide you with inspiration for gatherings that begin as morning teas, drag into afternoon finger sandwiches, and whirl all the way toward midnight pitchers of punch.

An edited excerpt from Nathan Williams's introduction to The Kinfolk Table: Recipes for Small Gatherings:

A home with an open-door policy that friends find irresistible can be anywhere, yet place is integral to the traditions we grow. Ask anyone from Alberta, Canada, where I spent my childhood, about the harsh winters and windy summers, and he or she will understand why it made sense for my group of friends to develop a habit of making food and enjoying dinners together as early as in high school. Since then, I've noticed a disconnect between both "home cooking" and "entertaining" and the ways my friends get together to share a meal. We gathered in a small apartment and cooked meals at least every other day, but we weren't pressing table linens, printing name cards, or brushing up on dining etiquette. We often used paper plates and stuck with the same fork for dessert that we had used for the main course, buttering baguettes with a paring knife so we would have fewer dishes to wash. Our formula for those evenings was to cook, eat, and talk. Nothing else was necessary.

The idea for the magazine Kinfolk was born in the course of trying to describe those evenings spent with friends when the hours pass effortlessly, conversation flows naturally, cooking is participatory, and the evening ends with a satisfying sense of accomplishment. The fledgling Kinfolk had two goals: to offer an alternative idea of entertaining — casual, intentional, meaningful — and to make that kind of entertaining feel more natural and accessible to a younger crowd like my friends and me.

Our first objective has been to peel off the fluff and commercial layers that complicate entertaining. Next we have tried to put the social reasons for inviting friends into our homes — the relationships, traditions, community, and conversations — in the foreground and let the superficial details like fancy recipes and table decorations recede into the background. Today Kinfolk is a consistent source of active, meaningful things to do for both our team and our readers, and the concept continues to grow with the quarterly print magazine, daily online stories, and in-person workshops, dinners, and events held around the world.

Each of those channels serves its own purpose. The quarterly print issues explore traditions and the reasons we gather together with in-depth essays and photo series. Our website is more focused on practical stories, with tips and tutorials teaching readers how to do things on their own. The event series provides settings for learning hands-on skills and meeting like-minded people in the different cities where readers live. These projects complement one another in offering ideas for things to cook, make, and do while promoting the deeper purpose of helping to build communities around ourselves.

The Kinfolk Table: Recipes for Small Gatherings applies the casual approach to entertaining depicted in our magazine to cooking and recipes. This book represents an effort to take the same communal neighborhood approach by welcoming you into the homes of our Kinfolk team, along with a diverse group of friends, family, contributing writers, artists, and other makers. Each person was asked to contribute because he or she lives a life consistent with the simplicity we try to promote in our magazine, embodying a balanced, intentional way of living and a genuine appreciation of food and hosting friends in their homes. I visited their homes for this book in an effort to capture a glimpse of what I think makes them each remarkable, and in these homes I observed the passion with which they embrace the Kinfolk spirit.

I can't help but be excited to introduce you to all the people in this book because they seem to understand that good food and community are just as important as the careers in which they work, that the rituals and traditions that bring us together are essential to balanced lives. The people in these pages personify the fact that there's something to be said for slowing down, sitting back, and breathing deeply.

Focusing on the locales of Brooklyn, Portland, Copenhagen, the English countryside, and beyond, these corners of the world seem to value simplicity, hospitality, and balance, pursued with intentionality every day of the week. In this book I wanted to bring to life some of the individuals who live there and have something unique to share. So I packed my bags and departed along with two friends from our Kinfolk team to spend time with each person individually, observing them as they prepared their favorite recipes and talked about the traditions that matter most to them. We sat at their tables and asked questions to figure out how they tick and how we could emulate their warmth and hospitality. We scribbled notes with lessons, tips, and recipes to share. I left each of their homes with a big, cheesy grin of satisfaction on my face and often stopped at the market for ingredients on my way home to replicate the dish I had just learned.

In each home we visited, the people living there reinforced my belief that "entertaining" has many more shapes and forms than what that term often brings to mind. It can be the most elaborate and boisterous thing in the world, and it can also be quiet, personal, and low-key, a meditative ritual we enjoy on our own. It can be planned, structured, and executed wonderfully, but it can also be last-minute, spontaneous, a team effort, and wonderfully imperfect.

Entertaining looks different for each of us, but as long as we're cooking and inviting people into our