Cookbook club instead of dining out / entertaining at home

[rhta5a]

We started having people over for dinner, then it became taking turns with others hosting dinner on Friday or Sat night....

Sodha, M., & Loftus, D. (2015). Made in India: Recipes from an Indian family kitchen. ISBN-10: 1250071011

It's available from our library.

[boyerbt]

Very cool - Do you get the group together every week or a few times per month?

[swick]

Love this idea! Do you share around the cookbook ahead of time, or do you choose books that have a few copies available from the library? What a fun way of actually getting to try a bunch of recipes from one book without having to make them all yourself. Very neat!

[Stachey]

A friend of mine used to do this in the 90's.  Her and her husband and about five other couples would meet once a month and have a potluck based around a pre-determined theme.  Sometimes it was fancy French food.  Sometimes it was casual BBQ food.  They would decide on a menu beforehand and decide who would bring what. 

The cool thing is that this was before the internet was big so she has a huge pile of themed recipe booklets with photocopied recipes from many different cookbooks.  It's like a time capsule...it's very cool.  It's so wonderful to see all the thought and attention that went into each meal.

[Spog]

I've had mixed experiences with potluck style gatherings. I've found that in more conventional circles people will buy a cheap quiche, pack of sausage rolls or similar from the shops and you end up with a tedious selection of 'beige' foods. In my 'hippie' days (when I lived in an eco-village) people would really go to town with homemade dips, foraged salads etc. and the combined offering would be really special, despite a small or even no-cost contribution from each person/couple/family.

[nnls]

This is a good idea, might suggest it to my friends.

My uncle and I currently have a learn to cook something new each month thing, where we will cook something new for the other to try either dinner or snacks. but would be good to extend it to my friends

[JLR]

We used to meet up with friends every week, taking turns at whose house we would eat. One year we chose a different country each week and tried to cook something from that country. Whoever was hosting would cook at home and we would eat there, the other family would bring a different dish along.

It was lots of fun.

[KT's Stache]

A group of friends and I do a "Friday night dinner" each week and usually do a "semi-assigned potluck" style. Its worked well for us over the past 2 years. A local chef in town released a cookbook, and so now, once a month, we are doing a complete meal out of the cookbook. It has been really fun to cook fancy food, but its manageable for us because each person only needs to worry about 1 course of the entire dinner. We can play off each person's strengths and have come out with some amazing meals so far. Once we get done with this book we are going to find another one to do. I am glad other people are having fun with this too!

[Zikoris]

I've had mixed experiences with potluck style gatherings. I've found that in more conventional circles people will buy a cheap quiche, pack of sausage rolls or similar from the shops and you end up with a tedious selection of 'beige' foods. In my 'hippie' days (when I lived in an eco-village) people would really go to town with homemade dips, foraged salads etc. and the combined offering would be really special, despite a small or even no-cost contribution from each person/couple/family.

I think it's getting worse over time. Both me and my boyfriend have had occasional potlucks at work, and we're always the only ones bringing homemade dishes. I thought that was so weird at first, but it seems to be becoming the norm.

[Zikoris]

+1 on the lack of homemade stuff---

Actually the worst I ever saw was:

"Employee Appreciation Pot Luck " --- yes you read that correctly--- bring your own food to the annual employee appreciation event....

Lol! I wonder if that's going to be my company next year - they've been scaling down the annual employee appreciation lunch considerably. When I started, it was a three or four course meal at a fancy restaurant. This year they had it in the cafeteria.

[Trudie]

I like this idea.  My parents used to have a cooking club.  I've toyed with getting people together on a regular basis.  But it's surprising to me what passes for "fancy" food.  We have neighbors who used to proclaim when I'd invite them over, "Everything is so fancy!"  Sure, things were homemade (lasagna or chili) but hardly fancy.  There are generations of cooks raised on eating out and eating prepared foods that considering anything fresh to be fancy.

I would like to try foods from different countries, but I think we need to expand our circle to do so.  LOL.

[MicroRN]

I used to do this with a group of friends, and it was a great experience.  We picked a theme rather than using a specific cookbook.  We did Indian,  "Onna Stick", Autumn Harvest, 5 Star restaurant, and a number of others.  Have fun!  I really miss living near those friends.     

[MoneyCat]

Cookbook club sounds like an excellent idea. I'll have to try that. Lately, we've been having friends over for homemade pizza and they bring ingredients and beverages, then we either play board games or watch sports events on free TV. I like cheap socialization.


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[Goldielocks]

I've had mixed experiences with potluck style gatherings. I've found that in more conventional circles people will buy a cheap quiche, pack of sausage rolls or similar from the shops and you end up with a tedious selection of 'beige' foods. In my 'hippie' days (when I lived in an eco-village) people would really go to town with homemade dips, foraged salads etc. and the combined offering would be really special, despite a small or even no-cost contribution from each person/couple/family.

I think it's getting worse over time. Both me and my boyfriend have had occasional potlucks at work, and we're always the only ones bringing homemade dishes. I thought that was so weird at first, but it seems to be becoming the norm.

I know what you mean! 

One of the trending reasons behind it is that some people are really turned off by the idea of eating food made in a non food-safe kitchen.  I have heard this more than once now, in more than one office environment.

It has bled over into elementary schools, too.  Some schools insist on store bought items over handmade treats, so that the ingredients and food safe level are known.  I call it OCD BS...

[MicroRN]

It has bled over into elementary schools, too.  Some schools insist on store bought items over handmade treats, so that the ingredients and food safe level are known.  I call it OCD BS...

Our daycare has that rule.  You can bring in treats for birthdays but they have to be commercially produced and in the original packaging.  It's mostly to limit the risk of allergen cross-contamination. 

[Carrie]

Last year we did an international dinner club with three other families.  We got together 1x per month and we would draw a country from the hat.  That country would be the theme and we had to create a dish that was as authentic as we could get it.  To arrange who brought what - the host would provide the main dish and everyone else would pick something else.  We coordinated via text message and then by facebook group.  Everyone in the group were really talented and experimental cooks.  We had some really great dinners and I learned so much.

I'm sad because the group came undone when the founder moved to a different state.  I've been meaning to pull another group together (seriously, we vet the invitees to make sure they can cook real food -- and with real skill), but we've had a hard summer and I haven't gotten around to planning it and auditioning new people. :) 

I'm also wanting to start a dinner club in our neighborhood so that we can walk to all the dinners.

Another themed dinner club I want to have is a budget dinner party, but this could be tricky as I'd want to keep quality food and so many people don't know how to do quality & inexpensive.

[Goldielocks]

It has bled over into elementary schools, too.  Some schools insist on store bought items over handmade treats, so that the ingredients and food safe level are known.  I call it OCD BS...

Our daycare has that rule.  You can bring in treats for birthdays but they have to be commercially produced and in the original packaging.  It's mostly to limit the risk of allergen cross-contamination.

But when you have worked with retail stores and food service as long as I have,  you realize that home foods are no better or worse chance of cross contamination, leaving only prepackaged foods (that have rigorous in plant controls and overwrap)...     Better to just have the family of the allergic child bring something to share that the child can eat, and train them not to try other foods that they don't know.

[SeaEhm]

wow! That is awesome!

Pick a cultural food and then have a potluck each week.  Have some fun board games after the food to make it a solid evening of great food and activities!

Thanks for sharing

[nnls]

We started having people over for dinner, then it became taking turns with others hosting dinner on Friday or Sat night.... we'll it got popular so we thought about ways to get more people  together without putting in a ton of effort and cash, but not a regular boring pot luck.... enter the "Cookbook Club"

It was a real success! We used google spreadsheet to make sure 5 people weren't bringing the same dish. It was a lot of fun!

Our next book is
Sodha, M., & Loftus, D. (2015). Made in India: Recipes from an Indian family kitchen. ISBN-10: 1250071011

It's available from our library and we've already been cooking from it.... We're gonna have a nice feast.......

Success this past Friday--- here's a pic of some of the food.... I'll post what was made later.... everyone agreed it was the best pot luck they'd been to---
Here's the authors website--- some recipes are available...."Worker's Curry" and "Daily Dal" are soooo good!
http://meerasodha.com

we're trying to come up with the next theme for October....

looks yum

[limeandpepper]

Very nice-looking spread! I love this idea and hope to do something like this someday. :)