How to Cookbook Club
The best way to build community and celebrate food!
What I’m Thinking About:
👨🏼🍳 Everybody can cook.
🌸 Rhubarb and cardamom are two ingredients I’ve never cooked with but need to ASAP. (Update: just made the strawberry rhubarb syrup from this a few nights ago and can’t wait to put it in alllll the spritzes)
🍴 Speaking of Food52, their co-founder, Amanda Hesser, is leaving the company after 16 years. Can’t wait to see what she does next!
🧂 Samin started a substack. Immediately subscribed.
🥕 Hill House Home came out with a Farmers Market capsule and I am eyeing it heavily…
🍳 My mom and I got tickets to the Le Cruset Factory to Table sale in Columbus and my wallet has never been more scared! (Thank you, Lily, for telling me about this!!!)
How To Cookbook Club:
A few years ago, before this Substack was born, I started an in-person Cookbook Club. To understand why I wanted to start a Cookbook Club, I have to tell a littleeee bit of a backstory.
While I’ve always had an interest in food thanks to my mom’s passion for cooking, my love for the way food brings people together really took shape in college with a course called Eats 101. To this day, I still can’t believe that it wasn’t just a dream. It was a course I had read about on an early college visit at UNC and made it a point to apply as soon as I got admitted to the school. Soon after, I found out that the course was very competitive to get into and gave up hope. During the spring semester of my junior year while studying abroad in Florence, I got an email from someone named Sam, who said she was the assistant professor for the class. She asked if I was still interested as they were going through applications for the upcoming fall semester cohort and said to re-apply if I was still interested. I immediately filled out the application and the next day got a confirmation email that I was in. I couldn’t believe it.
Eats 101 was the course of a lifetime and something I will never forget. It deserves a post of its own, but the meals shared with my classmates throughout that fall semester helped me understand the value of sitting around a table, having conversations with people you know and don’t know, and celebrating food. We had leisurely meals together every week, oftentimes more than once a week, spanning from hors d’oeuvres and champagne to after dinner coffee. Our seats were assigned, which forced us to get out of our comfort zone and spark conversation with others in our class or any guests who we weren’t as familiar with. The guests were often professors who flew in to lecture us on their specific subset of food, whether it be a professor from Johns Hopkins talking to us about nutrition or a professor from Texas who flew in to discuss food and religion. Sometimes we’d meet local chefs or individuals in the local food industry, such as Big Spoon Roasters and Counter Culture Coffee. We became so close by the end of the semester that some of us joked about getting a tattoo to commemorate the experience — which I’m still considering given that it’s been almost 12 years and I still think about that class often. Our professor, Jim Ferguson, recently passed away and I would be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to thank him (and Sam!) for gifting me such an incredible experience that altered the way I view food and community forever.
Fast forward to a few years ago. I was craving that community and the magic of a shared meal again. At the time I joked that I didn’t read enough for a normal book club and a Cookbook Club could help fuse my favorite genre of books with an excuse to have a dinner party with my friends. I cannot take credit for the idea by any means, but it’s been the most fun and I cannot recommend it enough. While I have ideas starting to bloom to make Cookbook Club to the next level and bring it out to the community, here’s how it’s been run with my friends.
Pick a Cookbook:
Let me first preface this by saying that our Cookbook Club has been very informal when it comes to processes. Usually one of us throws out an idea, sometimes inspired by a new cookbook (we just did a Cookbook Club for Tahini, Baby, which came out in April!), or the time of year (we did a Galentines Day version featuring our favorite galentine: Ina). There was also the time we did a French themed cookbook club in honor of the Paris Olympics, so feel free to pick a theme rather than a cookbook itself. You make the rules!!! I’ve always wanted it to feel accessible, so although I usually pick a specific cookbook, I try to find cookbook authors who also have recipes available online or multiple cookbooks to provide additional options for those that don’t own that specific cookbook themselves. This is also a great time to remind your friends that libraries have cookbooks as well!
Set a date:
Again, multiple ways you can do this. Whoever has offered to host provides a few date ideas and a poll via text to the whole group. Whichever date gets the most votes is the winner. You could certainly have a rotating pattern of “every 3rd Saturday of the month” or something along those lines, but I’ve found this method helps us maximize attendance. Once the date is set, I ask for everyone in the text to confirm if they can come or not, then will start a separate text with just those who will be attending.
Figure out who brings what:
We have relied on our text group to report out who is bringing what and never assign anyone to specific categories such as entrees or desserts (though Lydia is our dessert QUEEN!). Each person just gets to decide what is speaking to them! Maybe they know they won’t have a lot of time to prep, so pick out an easy app. Or maybe they’ve been trying different variations of a roast chicken and use this as their opportunity to test out a new one. As people decide what to bring, they report it out in the text so that others can plan accordingly. Honestly, we’ve always had an incredibly well-rounded selection through this method and texting is super convenient. If you want to take it up a notch, you could start a shared Google Doc.
Let it Grow!
While Cookbook Club started with some of my closest friends, my favorite thing about it has been watching it grow. It’s been such a blast to have new people join as our own friendships evolve, people move back in town, etc.
My Best Advice?
Just start! You don’t need the perfect plateware or table settings. The first group you get together won’t be the final group list for forever. It’s okay if everyone in the group isn’t passionate about cooking. You can refine your planning methods as you go. Just start.
Our Tahini, Baby Spread
Baked Feta with Olives and Citrus
Tzatziki with Crispy Shallots
Eggplant, Cherry Tomato and Sage Galette
Lemon Ricotta Sweet Crumb Babka
Sugar Snap Almond Crunch Salad with Herbed AVvocado Cream
Arayes (lebanese stuffed pitas with cauliflower, mushrooms and walnuts)
served with Garlicky Tahini
Sunny Cherry Rice
Kohlrabi, Apple and Fennel Slaw
If you already have a Cookbook Club of your own, I would love to hear how you do it! Please let me know in the comments below!
I could cry reading this—Jim was a family friend (he taught with my dad at Carolina). What a lovely surprise it was to see this come through my feed 🩵
I love this so much!