Title:	The Kitchen without Borders: Recipes and Stories from Refugee and Immigrant Chefs
	Author:	The Eat Offbeat Chefs
	Published:	June 9, 2020, Workman Publishing
	No. of Pages:	232
	Cover Price:	$24.95 Hardcover, $9.99 Kindle

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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.