Saturday, February 25 – 1:00pm
To mix things up a bit, we did afternoon tea this month! Alice’s Tea Cup by Haley and Lauren Fox seemed like the perfect cookbook for the occasion. The book shares recipes from their popular Alice’s Tea Cup restaurants in New York City. We had an amazing spread of cakes, scones, sandwiches, and more, plus a lovely assortment of teas. And we decided to dress up for our very sophisticated tea… look at how snazzy we look with our tea! (more…)
Sunday, January 22 – 6:00pm
This month we did a Chinese New Year party. Though the Chinese New Year’s day was on January 28, you typically spend a week closing out the old year and a week bringing in the new year. So the timing worked out perfectly for us to close out the old year with this event! There are a bunch of traditional dishes symbolic for things like long life, prosperity, and happiness. We chose two Chinese cookbooks – All Under Heaven by Carolyn Phillips and Land of Fish and Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop – so that people could have a variety of options and hopefully do some of the traditional dishes. (more…)
Sunday, December 11 – 4:00pm
The holidays are filled with get-togethers centered around cooking and eating. Certainly a favorite time of year for a group of people obsessed with food! But also an extremely busy time that already involves a ton of cooking obligations. We didn’t want our December event to add to the to-do lists and potential stress of the season. So we decided to make it a cooking party – no need to prepare a dish ahead of time. Just show up ready to put on your apron, roll up your sleeves, and make some fresh pasta by hand! (more…)
Saturday, November 12 – 6:00pm
Thanksgiving is one of the biggest food holidays of the year. A perfect reason for a bunch of food lovers in a cookbook club to celebrate! So we took this opportunity to make our party a testing ground for the dishes people wanted to try for their Thanksgiving celebrations. No assigned cookbook – just any recipe people wanted to test out for their holiday feasts. Of course there was turkey, sides, dessert (you might have mistaken it for modern art, but that’s a dessert plate!), and much more! (more…)
Saturday, October 22 – 7:00pm
In honor of Halloween, for October’s event we deviated from the single cookbook concept. Instead, we did a creepy, spooky potluck. Treats could be anything from food that seems creepy to eat (bugs!), foods made to look creepy (skeletons, graveyards), seasonal munchies (pumpkin seeds, apple cider), or candy and beer pairings. It was a great chance to put to use the culinary skills we’ve been acquiring, while tossing in a dose of our own creativity. And the results were amazing! From treats like beautiful candied apples and apple cider donuts (fried fresh at the party!), to tricks like prosciutto skulls and appetizer internal organs. (more…)
Sunday, September 25 – 6:00pm
This month’s cookbook was Lucky Peach Presents 101 Easy Asian Recipes, by Peter Meehan and the editors of Lucky Peach (the food magazine created by David Chang, founder of the Momofuku restaurant empire). While we wanted to expand our club’s repertoire to different kinds of foods, we were also sensitive to some people’s unfamiliarity with Asian ingredients and where to get them. As Sheana put it: “My inability to cook Asian food is precisely linked to my lack of Asian-cooking staples. What on earth is Mirin and why should I keep that next to the 8 kinds of vinegar and cooking wine that already take up my densely stocked shelf?” (more…)
Saturday, August 27 – 5:30pm
While we’re still in the summer months, we wanted to have a Cookbook Club event outside around an open fire, because fire is fun and grilled food is delicious! There’s a beach nearby with fire pits, so with that in mind as our event location, we chose the cookbook Around the Fire by Greg Denton, Gabrielle Quinonez Denton, and Stacy Adimando. Greg and Gabrielle are the owners of Ox Restaurant in Portland, where they cook dishes inspired by the wood-fired grilling tradition of Argentina. Their cookbook seemed perfect for our grilling event, plus it had awesome visuals! (more…)
Sunday, July 24 – 6:00pm
Our next cookbook was recommended by Colin, who is fast becoming a star member of the cookbook club (perhaps we will see if we can convince him to be a co-organizer!) – Deb Perelman’s The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. Smitten Kitchen started out as blog where Deb Perelman shared the dishes she cooked in her tiny Manhattan kitchen. We were drawn to her cookbook because the recipes sounded delicious, but accessible. (more…)
Saturday, June 25 – 7:00pm
With the start of summer comes an abundance of fresh local produce, so for this month’s cookbook we selected The Santa Monica Farmers’ Market Cookbook by Amelia Saltsman. We’re lucky to live in the LA area and actually be able to go to the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market to get our ingredients. The cool thing about this cookbook is that the dishes are indexed by season, so we could look up Summer dishes, or in some cases Fall since we’re right on the cusp of the two seasons, and away we went! (more…)
Sunday, May 22 – 6:00pm
For our next adventure we decided on Tom Colicchio’s Think Like a Chef. You might know Colicchio as the head judge on TV show Top Chef. It turns out, this is one of Sheana’s favorite cookbooks. “It’s basically the cookbook that turned me on to cooking. It taught me how to braise, roast, emulsify and more.” It reads a bit more like a story than just a collection of recipes. Colicchio imparts how chefs think about seasonality of ingredients and flavor combinations. One of the unique things about his cookbook is the section called Trilogies, where he chooses 3 ingredients and then includes recipes for several different dishes that can be made with those same 3 ingredients. (more…)
Chocolate Olive Oil Cake with Molasses Cream and Fudge Sauce
Quiche au Roquefort
Muddle Puddle Battle
Clafouti
Tomato Scallion Shortcakes with Whipped Goat Cheese
Corn Risotto-Stuffed Poblanos
Roasted Eggplant with Yogurt-Tahini Sauce and Cumin-Crisped Chickpeas
Melon, Cucumber, and Mint Salad
Bacon and Deviled Egg Salad
Eggplant Caviar
Salade Nicoise
Blackberry-and-Balsamic Grilled Game Hens
Renegade Salad
Roast Leg of Lamb with Oil-Cured Black Olives and Herbs