Every month there is one weekend that I look forward to all month long. It’s usually my favorite weekend. This would be the weekend of the cookbook club I belong to. I just happened upon this group by accident. I followed a woman (@amandainindy) who goes to different restaurants in Indy and shares her experiences. One post was about the cookbook club she belonged to. I messaged her and asked if new people were allowed to join and she sent me the link to the cookbook club. My first one was in June 2023, and I think I’ve only missed one or two since joining!

There is a little structure in place to make sure it continues but is loose enough to make it easy for everyone to participate. We meet monthly and at the current meeting, we get a volunteer to be the next host. The next host picks the date that works best for them. And then we decide on the next book to cook from. We have a running list of cookbooks that people have added to. For the list, we do try to pick books that have been around for a few years. And we try to pick cookbooks that have several copies at the public library so people can check them out and have time to pick recipes and cook from them. Since we know I have a slight cookbook collection problem, I have bought all of them to keep for myself so far - as my bookshelves fill up I may rethink this decision.

In general, each person brings at least one dish, sometimes more than one. People usually bring a serving utensil too, but the host can always provide some if needed. The host provides a place to sit and plates, silverware, and cups. After we all arrive, we explain what we made, and if there was anything interesting about it or why we picked what we did. And then we serve ourselves and enjoy the food together. We usually fill up two plates to get bites of everything! We share what we think about the food, maybe our favorite bite. And then we just talk about life stuff - food, kids, partners, difficult family situations, religion, politics, events around Indy, a little bit of everything. We usually hang out for a couple of hours and then pack up our dishes. And if you have a good memory, you bring a container to take home leftovers of everyone else’s dishes to enjoy later.

Then after the cookbook club and after I get home, I clean up any dishes that may have been left from my preparation. And then I mark up all of the recipes that people brought. I make a little post-it note marking it as “cookbook club” and then make notes on the recipe page of how the food was.

So I look forward to this every month! Looking through the chosen cookbook and trying to decide what to make. Then actually cooking the dishes I decided on (usually more than one). Meeting with everyone and sharing our food and experience. And then coming home, marking up my cookbook, and thinking about all the delicious bites all over again. I usually like to post our feast on my social media and tag the author. I’ve gotten a few likes and comments back from the authors which makes our whole group feel famous! I feel so lucky to have stumbled into this group and have made some really good connections. And food!

And since I love lists and organization, here are the books we’ve done so far for the meetings I attended.

June 2023: Cook Real Hawai’i