For generations of Deadheads, the Grateful Dead has been about more than just the music—it’s a way of life. From parking lot cookouts to meals shared among newfound friends, food has always been a part of what brings the community together. That spirit lives on in Dead in the Kitchen, the official, fully authorized Grateful Dead cookbook.
Beautifully designed with the band’s iconic skulls, lightning bolts, and swirling psychedelic colors, the book is a love letter to the band’s legacy of kindness, improvisation, and community, brought to life through vegan and vegetarian recipes. It arrives with a foreword from vegetarian icon Mollie Katzen (Moosewood Cookbook) and creative input from the Dead’s longtime archivist David Lemieux.
“I grew up in Sonoma County around tons of Deadheads. It was just in the water,” author Gabi Moskowitz told L4LM. The spark ignited one summer at Camp Tawonga near Yosemite. “Two hundred kids in a dining hall belting ‘Ripple’, ‘Uncle John’s Band’, and ‘U.S. Blues’. That’s when it clicked. I listen to music that gets into my heart, and that’s what the Grateful Dead did.”
For Gabi, food and music have always shared the same frequency. What drew her to this project wasn’t just the songs; it was the culture outside of the show. In the ’70s and ’80s, Deadheads built community on the road, sharing veggie burritos, falafel, grilled cheese, and endless love in the parking lots. That lot food fueled nights of dancing and became a soft revolution—a grassroots push that helped make vegetarian eating mainstream in the United States. Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, and Bob Weir were vegetarians themselves at points of their lives, modeling a lifestyle rooted in gentleness toward the body, the planet, and each other.
When it came time to shape the book, Lemieux suggested an idea only Deadheads could dream up: “Structure it like a show.” Gabi took the cue and followed the Grateful Dead playbook—quick and easy recipes for the first set, more involved ones for the second, and a “Drums/Space” section for experimental culinary improv. The chapters mirror the full concert experience: The Lot (parking-lot fare), The Dressing Room (sauces and condiments), Opening Act (snacks), Tuning Up (soups and salads), Side Players (accompaniments), First Set (quick entrées), Riff Break (improvisation), Second Set (deeper entrées), and Encore (desserts).
“Improvisation looks spontaneous, but the freedom comes from being incredibly prepared,” Gabi explained. “Stock your pantry, learn basic skills, then relax. If you don’t have the ‘right’ mustard, it’s still going to be fine.” That idea, rooted in flexibility, echoes the Grateful Dead’s own spirit: you don’t need perfection to make something beautiful, just heart, intention, and a willingness to play and improvise.
That’s the foundation of what she calls a kind kitchen. Kindness has always been a thread in the Deadhead community, and here it translates into how you feed yourself and others: kind to animals through mostly or entirely plant-based meals, and kind to the earth through sustainable choices. The book lays out pantry staples, fridge essentials, and a few simple tools to make earth-friendly cooking easy. It’s less about rigid rules and more about setting yourself up to improvise, to nourish, and to care—just like a jam that starts loose and turns into magic.
That spirit of improvisation—and kindness—weaves through every page. In Deadhead culture, “kind” isn’t just a buzzword; it’s an entire infrastructure, a way of feeding one another, living gently, and making everyone feel welcome. Gabi’s “Kind Kitchen” celebrates that, spotlighting pantry staples and sustainable tools that reflect how Deadheads have cooked for decades—plant-based, flexible, and inclusive. She’s not here to preach purity. “Full disclosure, I’m not a strict vegetarian,” she admits. “We eat mostly veg at home because it’s flexible, affordable, and inclusive.” The book reflects that practicality: start with plants, and anyone—vegan, gluten-free, omnivore—can eat together.
Like a seamless second-set segue, Gabi’s recipes flow between sturdy grooves and playful detours. Curried Vegetable Pot Pie and Meatless Meatball Sandwiches feel like instant crowd-pleasers, perfect for potlucks and parking lots. “Cardamom Roasted Carrot Cake is her ‘Wall of Sound’—roasted carrots puréed into the batter so the natural sugars caramelize and the flavor turns up to 11.” Spring Green Minestrone shifts with the seasons—farmers’ market fresh in April, frozen veg in January. And yes, the Shakedown lot classics are here too: falafel, burritos, and grilled cheese.
This is no novelty project. Grateful Dead Productions and the publisher approached it with care and thoughtfulness, bringing Lemieux in to guide the flow and Mollie Katzen to ground it in a real culinary lineage. The result isn’t merch. It’s a contribution to the archive, an artifact that captures the way Dead culture lives offstage. For decades, Shakedown Street’s vending culture has been more than tailgating—it’s been a portable commons: pop-up kitchens, kindness economies, and the shared belief that there’s always enough to go around. That’s what Dead in the Kitchen is all about.
“I hope it’s a little bit of everything,” Gabi said. “For older Deadheads, a literal and figurative taste of their youth. For younger fans, a doorway into that feeling. And maybe some people come for the recipes and stay for the music. Everything’s vegan-possible. It’s for all skill levels.”
Dead in the Kitchen is more than a cookbook. It’s a manual for hosting the way Deadheads dance—welcoming, unruly, and deeply kind—a reminder that sometimes, feeding each other is the most revolutionary thing we can do.
Dead in the Kitchen is available for purchase here. For more about the book, read our previous coverage here. To follow Gabi Moskowitz’s socials and link tree, click here.