Celebrating 20 Years with a Collaborative Cookbook
It’s a slightly overcast evening in early June, there’s a cyanotype workshop in an hour and gardeners are filtering in and out: some working solo, others quietly chatting—speculating about the development that’s slated to go in next door or offering advice on bees. Across the lot, people are practicing lacrosse, but their hustle only accentuates the stillness of Fox Point Community Garden. I find myself wondering at the sense of ease in the air, an ease that seems difficult to explain, given the amount of labor that must go into the garden’s obvious abundance.
You wouldn’t necessarily know the garden was here unless you went looking for it. A pizza slice of land at the northwest corner of Providence’s Gano Park, the garden nestles behind a nondescript building at the intersection of Gano and Power, a stone’s throw from the Gano Street Dunkin’. I’m here to meet Maddie Mott, the garden’s manager, who spends 45 minutes showing me around the garden and answering my questions. Our conversation is punctuated by Maddie’s “Hey! How’s it going?” as she passes each gardener or pauses near the fence to help a workshop attendee find their way to the garden’s gate.
This year, the garden celebrates its 20th anniversary. I spoke with Maddie and several other members to learn about its history and a very special project commemorating the anniversary: a Fox Point Community Garden cookbook.
First, the history: Maddie explains that the whole area—some 109 plots, two beehives, several compost bins, a shed, a (new!) sink and a pile of mushroom logs—used to be a parking lot. She’s quick to stipulate that in the garden’s 20-year span, she is a relative newcomer; a member since 2019, she’s been garden manager since 2023.
The garden was founded as a City effort to bring more foot traffic into the area, which was itself an attempt to reduce crime. Initially, Maddie says, the garden was ensconced in a perimeter of berry brambles. Nowadays, however, the fence is friendlier, with team-maintained border gardens for broader community use, hand painted signs (“BEE AWARE! ACTIVE HIVE”) and whimsical veggie-themed metalwork by the Steel Yard.
Maddie sees the evolution of the garden’s border as a reflection of the space’s matured role in the neighborhood. “I think as time went on, we started viewing ourselves more as a welcoming community space that should be accessible to people.” She says that anyone is welcome to visit the garden whenever the gates are open. “This is the best spot to be when it’s so hot in your apartment and you can’t take it anymore, because it’s so beautiful and breezy down here,” she adds, pointing out an elevated deck-like area with pastel Adirondack chairs and burgeoning flowers.
The garden has grown into its role in the community in other ways, too. Garden members work with nearby Temple Beth El to donate produce to local pantries. In the last year, garden treasurer Kimbly McNulty says, the garden generated nearly 700 pounds of fresh produce for the program. The garden also partners with Groundwork Rhode Island’s composting project, Harvest Cycle.
And the garden holds regular workshops (the cyanotypes, for example, and birdhouse-making) and a monthly potluck. July is garlic-themed, just in time for members to show off their yield.
Which brings us to the cookbook. Its creation was shepherded by board member Charlie Usadi, who joined the garden in 2021 and has a penchant for combing through bookstores for used cookbooks. Charlie sees community-made cookbooks, especially annotated ones, as “heirlooms.”
“I feel like they are such rich little windows into specific times and places,” they said. And the community garden seemed like the ideal place to pull one together. “Food is such a central part of the space. Everybody is always talking about what they’re going to cook with what they grow, new recipes, how they’re going to keep up with their bumper crop of tomatoes.” With the 20th anniversary on the horizon, the timing was right, too.
The result, a spiral-bound beauty with inky blue botanical prints and about 100 recipes, was a true group effort. Charlie says that, in addition to the 90 or so gardeners who shared recipes (an impressive turnout for a 119-member garden), a team of about 25 collaborated on its production. “That’s where the strengths of the community came in,” they said. A member who directs a college writing center led the editing. A couple of architects contributed to the design and layouts. “And then also just a lot of community members with great ideas and the dedication to putting in the time.”
In the book, readers can find staples like dill beans and caldo verde as well as such unexpected delights as pickled daylily buds and arugula lemonade. Each recipe lists the contributing gardener’s name and plot number and sometimes an anecdote. There’s also a garden history by Norma Anderson, one of the founding members (or, as the gardeners call them, “founding fathers”) of the garden.
The gardeners made the book their own in other ways, too: a rundown of the herbs they grow and their uses; a look at the garden’s beehives; recipes for things like purslane, a common (but also edible) weed; an index organized by produce.
“There was a big conversation around how to decorate, whether we wanted traditional illustrations or photographs or what—and we ended up settling on cyanotypes, which are this old form of photography closely associated with botany.” The gardeners came together to make the images using materials from the garden: fennel flowers, bug-chewed tomatillo leaves, nasturtium buds.
Back on my tour of the garden with Maddie, I ask her about her goals for the garden. “I would like to just see it keep going,” she says. “I don’t have any plans for, like, world domination in the park. I think I just want it to still be a welcoming community space for another 20 years. That would be my ultimate goal.”
Charlie echoes Maddie’s sentiment. They say that making another cookbook might be a possibility, but they’re more interested in seeing this one age. “It’s so exciting to me to think that some of these will end up in thrift stores and used book shops,” Charlie says. “Someone else will find them, and maybe they’ll never have been to this garden, but they’ll get a sense of it.”
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You can learn more about the Fox Point Community Garden by visiting their website. They’re also on Instagram at @foxpointcommunitygarden.
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Rachel Harrison lives and writes in Providence, where she is finishing her degree at Brown University. Her writing has appeared in Edible Rhody and Consequence Forum. She also serves as web archivist for AGNI. Before moving to Providence, Rachel worked as a professional ballet dancer for seven years. When she’s not working, you can probably find her fawning over her plants or playing word games.
Pickled Beets
By Norma Anderson for the Fox Point Community Cookbook
Pickled beets have a very bright color and will stain if spilled. Detroit Dark Red Beets are best.
1. Cut the greens off of 10 beets, leaving 1 inch of stem, and wash thoroughly.
2. Cover beets with water (a little salt in the water). Bring to a boil, cover, simmer for 30 to 45 minutes.
3. Discard boiling water, and cover the hot cooked beets with cold water. Keeping the cold water running, rub the skin off the beets and set the skinned beets aside.
4. Heat 1 C of cider vinegar and ½ C of sugar to a boil. Add a spoonful of whole cloves and a tsp of caraway seed.
5. Slice the beets into a quart glass jar. Pour the vinegar/sugar/spice mixture to cover the beets, and keep in the refrigerator.
Norma Anderson, Plot 45
Originally published in the Fox Point Community Garden Cookbook (2025) and contributed by Norma Anderson. Reprinted with permission of the Fox Point Community Garden.
Caldo Verde
By Pedro Lopes de Almeida for the Fox Point Community Garden Cookbook
This is a traditional Portuguese recipe. Pairs wonderfully with broa (savory Portuguese corn bread). “The soup had an odd look. Do you remember those rivers in which during childhood you weren’t allowed to bathe because of the long, trailing grasses which, they say, would twine round your ankles and pull you under? This soup looked like a dishful scooped from just such a river, weedy grasses and all.” Gordon, Jan & Cora. Portuguese Somersault. New York: National Travel Club, 1936, pages 40-41.
400 g (3 3/4 C) Galician cabbage or kale
3 medium potatoes
1 medium onion
1 clove of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 chouriça, cut into 6 slices
Salt and olive oil to taste
1. Peel the potatoes and cut them into 4 to 6 pieces each, cut the cabbage/kale into very thin strips, and peel the onion and cut it into 4 pieces.
2. In a pot, put the potatoes in cold water, add salt to taste, garlic and onion. Bring to a boil.
3. Blend everything with an immersion blender.
4. Add the cabbage and cook for 30 min.
5. After the cabbage is cooked, pour in a drizzle of olive oil and remove from heat.
6. Preferably in clay bowls, serve the soup with a slice of chouriça on top.
Pedro Lopes de Almeida
Originally published in Fox Point Community Garden Cookbook (2025) and contributed by Pedro Lopes de Almeida. Reprinted with permission of the Fox Point Community Garden.
