Each month a group of people gets together, swaps books and enjoys a fabulous home-cooked meal. It is a book club, with a new twist. A COOKbook club—a book club for those who love to read, cook and entertain.
The main thread is the theme—what does the group wish to experience? The aim is to try a new culture, country and/or food via cookbooks. Each month the location, the theme and the cookbook are chosen. Then cookbooks are bought or shared, or recipes are sourced from a library cookbook. When we met, everyone has a chosen dish to prepare and share. Members discuss the pros and cons of each dish, how easy or difficult to prepare it might have been, how easy or difficult it was to find the ingredients, the taste and “wow” factor of the dish and what they learned. Hosts are chosen via monthly rotation, so everyone gets a chance to show off his or her own kitchen and home.
Jill Diffendal of Pottstown and her friends began their cookbook club with the many cookbooks they received as Christmas presents. “We realized we had this plethora of cookbooks, and we love to read, we love to cook and most importantly, we love to eat!” she explained. “We just moved into a new house so I have a lot of fun with preparations and entertaining.”
Use the following suggestions to spark your own ideas and get a cookbook club going with your friends, family, neighbors or coworkers.
A Targeted Theme
When you want an evening’s theme concentrated on a particular flavor or style, a perfect cookbook could be Serena Liviana Pierno’s Pizza Recipes on the Grill—Delicious and Popular Pizza Cookbook Recipes or Katie Webster’s Maple: 100 Sweet and Savory Recipes Featuring Pure Maple Syrup. Featuring an entire evening of pizza variations or unique maple dishes can be fun and inspiring.
Another fabulous theme is comfort foods from cookbooks, like macaroni & cheese, fried/baked chicken, chili, spicy soups and stews and quiches. Themes such as vegan or paleo would also be a great base for an exciting night of new foods and tastes where friends can share their personal cooking styles and expand each other’s palates.
Meal Themes
Try choosing a theme by a specific meal: brunch, tea-time, dinner or desserts. Kim Laidlaw’s Dessert of the Day: 365 Recipes for Every Day of the Year from Williams-Sonoma is excellent for a frosty ice-cream sundae in July or a warm berry cobbler in October. Or how about tea-time, with petit-fours, cucumber and salmon mini sandwiches or piping hot tea with scones, lemon curd, jam and clotted cream?
Culture and Country Themes
Irish, Turkish, French, Italian and other cuisines are all fertile ground for a themed recipe evening. Choose from The Complete Irish Pub Cookbook, The Sultan’s Kitchen: A Turkish Cookbook, Julia Child’s iconic Mastering the Art of French Cooking or perhaps Giada De Laurentiis’ Everyday Italian, just to start. Cooking with a cultural theme is a great way to learn more about where recipes come from and how they began.
Holiday Themes
Halloween, Christmas, Fourth of July, Hanukkah, Memorial Day, Boxing Day, Mardi Gras and Cinco de Mayo are just a few of the holidays that can inspire club members to create, serve and entertain with holiday-specific dishes like potato latkes, guacamole and king cake.
Participating in a cookbook club and trying new dishes from new books and places broadens everyone’s experiences in food, dining and culture. “We can’t always travel to where our food and recipes originated, so this is the next best thing,” said Jill.
Whether you are a seasoned chef, a weekend warrior or a game-day prepper, a cookbook club could be just the thing to add some spice to your recipe collection. We hope you’ll give it a shot and let us know how it goes!
- Cookbooks photo: Michele Kornegay
- Pasta photo: FoodiesFeed
- Tapas and Cajun cookbooks photo: Kristen Kwiatkowski
