One way around a small kitchen is to cook a little everyday. Roast some garlic one day; make a stock or a flavored oil the next. The result is you always have the flavors you like on hand and can put together a meal in minutes. This is not a novel approach; it is how most restaurants work. 

Finding the Bowlfood Cookbook a few years ago, I immediately bought several copies. It was a kindred resource since it was in sync with how I already cooked, and it reads like a one-recipe-at-a-time cooking class for beginners. 

Aronson and Simon organized this book by the building blocks that go into its 200 bowl recipes. The authors share the idea that bowl food is welcoming, eater friendly, fun and infinitely improvisational. The book teaches cooking fundamentals in the same spirit. Entire bowl food dinner parties, from appetizers to desserts, can be designed from cherry picking personal favorites or following the menu planning suggestions in the margins. 

The BowlFood Cookbook is evidence that sophisticated comfort food is not an oxymoron and that maybe a dinner party for six in your small flat is not so insane.