PORT TOWNSEND — Lola Milholland has two invitations for you, her reader.
One: Question the way we’re living our lives. No, really. Is getting married, buying a single-family home and turning it into our little spot the one way to go? Or can we try group living, cohousing or some other combination, mixing friends and relatives?
Two: See those people in your life? Truly see them. Notice them in all of their beauty and quirkiness. They bring richness to your days.
These are central ideas in “Group Living and Other Recipes,” Milholland’s memoir of living in a group house in Portland, Ore., and of spending time with her extended family in Port Townsend.
The author will give a reading at 6 p.m. Saturday at Imprint Bookstore, 820 Water St., and being an avid food sharer, she’ll bring treats, perhaps some Japanese rice balls inspired by a recipe in the book.
“Group Living” was published this week by Spiegel & Grau. The author is on what she calls “a tiny tour” that has included the prestigious Powell’s bookstore in Portland and stops around the country.
First off, readers get to learn how it is to grow up the daughter of two hippies who didn’t get married, and who lead highly creative, iconoclastic lives.
After college and a year living and studying in Japan, Milholland moves into their big Portland place. Her housemates are her older brother, Zak, and his roommates plus others who arrive as the story unfolds. They actually live happily ever after, thanks to the group dinners and acceptance of one another’s personalities.
“Group Living” is salted with 16 recipes. They include “Theresa’s Garlicky Pan-Fried Pasta” from Milholland’s mom; her own “Lola’s Jammy Eggs” and her dad’s “David’s Seedy Granola.” There also are “Corey’s Usual Bullshit (Spicy Ground Pork, Tofu, Mushrooms and Greens) from the author’s sweetheart, and “Amanda’s Rhubarb-Strawberry Crisp” from her cousin, Amanda Milholland.
Farmers markets, Port Townsend’s Rosewind cohousing community, protests of the weapons at Naval Magazine Indian Island, starting an organic food business, throwing big house parties, protesting in Portland following the murder of George Floyd — all of these bubble up in this big stewpot of a book.
Milholland writes about the experience of going with her uncle, Doug Milholland, to Indian Island to call for peace and an end to weapons shipments. She also writes about sustaining her family in such times with her home cooking.
That’s life as we know it, she said in an interview from her home in Portland: “We’ve been in this heavy place,” she said, “and now we have to make ourselves dinner.” Hence the account of the Milhollands’ anti-nuclear weapons vigil followed by a recipe for noodle salad.
Milholland also addresses the housing crisis in her home city and beyond. If it weren’t for her parents’ large house, she and her roommates could scarcely afford to be in Portland. Money, however, is not the sole reason they choose group living. For Milholland, friends sharing a roomy living space — and the cooking of nightly meals — is a recipe for a delicious life.
Milholland was careful to say she is not laying out a blueprint for group living for everybody.
“We as a society preach and latch on to single solutions,” she said. Yet, “there isn’t one way to do things,” and why not interrogate what’s been handed down from previous generations?
Milholland looks at her family and friends’ vocations and sees them as efforts toward a greater solution for the community and world. Her cousin Amanda Milholland is the executive director of the Jefferson County Farmers Markets. Amanda’s brother Danny Milholland is a driving force behind the nonprofit Production Alliance, whose motto is “building community through celebration!” and puts on events such as the Jefferson County Farm Tour, the Pride festival, Airport Day, the All-County Picnic and First Night in Port Townsend.
The author sees her cousins standing on the shoulders of their parents, the multifaceted community builders Doug and Nancy Milholland. And now those cousins are parents themselves, offering their shoulders for someone else to stand on.
This is a cycle of growth, death, decay and regrowth, she writes. This is the work, Milholland believes, for all of us.
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Diane Urbani de la Paz is a freelance writer and photographer who lives in Port Townsend.
