Saffron Press

🌱To talk about stories centred around food while simultaneously witnessing the forced starvation of populations around the world would seem thoughtless, cruel, antagonistic even, if not for the fact that food, like most of what we consume, is inherently political.

✨Mona Zahed, eight times displaced is a Palestinian chef and published author of her very own cookbook TABKHA: Recipes from Under the Rubble. When we chatted a couple of days ago, she had walked for hours to find flour. She says hunger has worn their bodies down. We can help.

Tabkha began as an idea from her tent in Gaza where she documented ancestral recipes. She met Akko, a Japanese chef online who suggested Mona create a booklet that could be sold to raise funds. Chef Akko helped Mona start the process and then sold copies in Germany and Japan. an initiative requesting donations for the price of a coffee to raise funds for families, supported Mona to develop the booklet into an illustrated recipe book.

A passionate entrepreneur, running a catering business, Mona’s food was enjoyed by friends and family at events and celebrations. Her most loved recipes - twenty-two in the first edition - are a form of resistance, ensuring that her heritage lives and her book - published by - serves not only to nourish her and her family but many other families in her community along the way. If you are still unsure of what collective liberation looks like - this is it, in action.

Tabkha is a cookbook you want to hold in your hands, experiment with the beautifully illustrated recipes, each one by its very own artist, and savour. Mona offers vegetarian and vegan recipes among the collection.

If you’ve been wondering how you can support families in Gaza, please consider purchasing this book. All proceeds will go directly to support Mona and her community.

Purchase TABKHA: Recipes from Under the Rubble by pre ordering the second edition, complete with additional recipes from Slingshot Books . I also found it available in Canada at

You can also support Mona Zahed directly
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This work is and always has been for all children. May we never look away. Let’s be prepared to have conversations with our Little Ones so that humanity survives.💭📚🌱
In We Are Cheesemakers, young siblings consider who looks after the land when people are pushed ‘there’ or pulled ‘here’. Their home is lost due to poisoned soils and Mummī firmly states that “Humans forget”
Whether it’s climate justice, hunger or forced displacement, our liberation is interconnected - it’s up to us to see how. Ask questions. Invite conversation. Humans - do not forget again.

✨Join us this Saturday!🌱

You are invited to a community gathering where we will listen to stories about migration and the impact of these journeys on the lives of humans in our very communities.

In almost 16 years since launching Saffron Press, this will be our first book launch and community has always been central to this work.

Our place of gathering was created to be fully accessible and to include people with disabilities who are so often marginalized and excluded from participating in community activities.

A book reading of WE ARE CHEESEMAKERS, an art activity and more!

If you can attend, please register - link in bio. We look forward to hosting you to come, gather and eat!