Introducing My New Cookbook – I Want Dopamine for Dinner!

Phoebe Thorburn -

THE DAY HAS FINALLY COME! 🥳

I am thrilled to finally announce my new cookbook... I Want Dopamine for Dinner: Maximalist Vegan and Gluten-Free Recipes with Neurodivergent, Grumpy Gut and Disability Considerations.

Which comes out October 21st and is now available for preorder in Australia/NZ!

Australian + NZ customers order here
International customers – preorders open Sunday 17th August via my Etsy Shop

This cookbook is the result of my accumulated resilience and commitment to the joy of cooking and eating despite the challenges in my way. It aims to demonstrate that to live with food sensory preferences, intolerances, neurodivergence or dynamic disabilities is to not be deprived, but with the right recipes and helpful tips can feel expansive and empowering!

The idea for this cookbook came about while browsing my grandmother's vintage Women's Weekly Cookbook collection during the long lockdown evenings in 2020. These recipe magazines struck me as being one of the early examples of "accessible" cookery books (something I'd tapped into with Gentle Foods and Big Mouth and wanted to explore further). Plus the charming Australiana design seemed like an extension of my own food photography-style and something I'd like to emulate.

Over the next few years, I started my own microbakery, Biscuit Tin Bakery – which offered inclusive modern takes on Australian bakery classics. The intense experience of which pushed me into burnout, eventually leading to an autism and ADHD diagnosis.

Add chronic health problems on top of that and the last five years have been challenging to say the least! My relationship to food and cooking took a massive hit, then (with a lot of time and patience) grew back stronger than before.

So this work – I Want Dopamine for Dinner – is full of the usual playful and reliable Honeybunch-style recipes, but is also infused with lived experience about cultivating a varied and enjoyable relationship to feeding yourself alongside neurodivergence, gut issues and invisible disabilities.

You don't have to identify with one of those labels to enjoy this work though, because we can all benefit from having more tools to look after ourselves in the current political and social climate. Being well-resourced is an act of resistance and so too is cultivating more care and pleasure in our lives (and on our plates)! 💛

WHAT TO EXPECT

  • Over 90 new vegan and gluten-free recipes
  • Low FODMAP adaptations for 95% of the recipes
  • Interesting dinners, moorish lighter meals and delicious sides n' salads
  • Impressive cakes, slices and buns – including 16 Biscuit Tin Bakery recipes
  • Simple recipes and bland meal inspiration for overwhelming days
  • Tips and resources for cooking with ADHD, sensory issues and fewer spoons
  • A delightful nostalgic design
  • Just lots more delicious, reliable Honeybunch of Onion Tops-style recipes

You can read more information about it here and if you are able to preorder in the next fortnight I would be beyond grateful as that would help me fund printing the books and order enough that it can have a long and happy life!

Thank you endlessly for your patience and support while this work was on the hob. I cannot wait for you to cook from it!

– Phoebe