A Recipe for Success?
Posted by: Neil Hollands
I wrote last week about three new chef memoirs that have caught my attention. Today, I stumbled into this article at the San Jose Mercury News about a new development: culinary book groups. Often sponsored by food boutiques or chef’s kitchens, these groups read and discuss culinary books, but also add demonstrations, potlucks from a particular cook book, tasting menus, wine tastings, talks by local chefs, restaurant visits, or a group cook of particular recipes to the agenda. Some meetings are devoted to particular themes, such as the cuisine of a particular country or the many ways to cook a particular food.
Poking around online led me to information about several such groups, such as the group surrounding the blog Cook the Books, which has been going since 2008. Cook the Books participants read the assigned book, whip up a recipe or two that their reading inspires, then blog about it.
The idea certainly has my mouth watering. Have any Book Group Buzz readers tried a culinary book group?
May 16th, 2011 at 2:41 pm
I did a cook book club when I worked at one of our branch libraries. I would pick a cook book, everyone would pick one recipe, and would bring in the dish to the discussion. Unfortunately it died out when I transferred to the main library in our system.