Shredded paper can be a good source of carbon for the compost pile during the winter. Just be aware that there are no nuutrients in that paper.

Thx kimmsr

"I have an existing pile of finished compost I would like to incorporate the kitchen scraps in."
If it's finished, why add to it?

Newspaper or any non-glossy paper are brown, as well as toilet paper/paper towel rolls, paper towels & tissues. Heat is not a requirement for making compost.

Thanks "purpleinopp" for reply. It's an informative reply about making compost. Thanks for reply.

what do you think? I have year-old leaf mold which I could just leave alone and work into soil in the spring.
Or I could add leaf mold to kitchen waste to make compost. Then I'd have to wait for the kitchen waste to de-compose before I could use it.
any thot if one is better, more nutritious?

I used to wonder stuff like that too, but just don't have the energy anymore. Not really composting in a pile at all anymore, just a giant barrel for 'icky' stuff. It's so much easier to just put stuff in a bed somewhere, one move and done. Not that I have regrets, but in retrospect, almost all of the time I've ever spent fiddling with compost was unnecessarily spent. The natural progression is for OM to hit the surface and decompose in place. If I have too much of something to spread at once, just make a little pile at the back of a bed, spread later, if it doesn't shrink of its' own accord before I get around to it. Life's too short to spend it moving heavy compost around, IMVHO/E, that's a much more labor-intensive way. Wasn't so much of a problem in OH, but I can't have a compost pile here w/o it being slam full of ants. May be the fastest way to obtain actual compost, but too much of a haven for them for me to continue doing it, especially at the expense of my time, back ache, and bug bites. The plants seem perfectly happy with a more relaxed plan.

I would move that stuff once.

Leaves are a good source of plant nutrients, but the greater the variety of material put in to the compost the better it will be. In my experience kitchen waste gets digested pretty quickly. Perhaps this Composting Tutorial will be of some help.

Here is a link that might be useful: Composting Tutorial

Agreed, if nobody sees you put kitchen scraps under the Gardenias, they'll never know it's there!