What is the alchemy of food and love, the touchstones of our existence? Award-winning journalist and author Kate Legge's evocative reflections take us to the heart of this mystery. The pull of a child to cook alongside their mother. The path to connecting with your father through a love of ancient grains. The picnic produced on a first date that parades the possibilities of a romantic partner. The sugar-hit cake left on a porch to welcome you into a new community in a foreign land.

Their recipes-scribbled in biro on the back of a school sports carnival program (Janet's Date Loaf) or copied out in cursive script on lined paper (Deb's Chicken Pie)-are tried and true, staples of Kate's kitchen table, never-fail, simple fare. They have survived long years and all seasons, learnt by heart, much as the friendships that underpin them have weathered arguments, distance and forgiveness. All forged on the hearth, stirred with love.

Delicious is a tribute to the girlfriends, mothers, sisters-in-law, colleagues, friends and family who introduced Kate to taste sensations and nourished her soul. Home cooks, who shared their culinary secrets and wound up trading other intimacies, because sharing meals, talking in between and swapping recipes are the bones of life's broth.