from the farmers’ market or your own garden to your table… with a little help from these amazing books
The spring cookbook club, Classic to Modern, was such a huge hit that we’re going to make a regular thing of it! The summer cookbook club begins on May 26, 2021 (register here!). I’ll be leading an enthusiastic group of passionate home cooks and culinary adventurers through four awesome books. Are you going to one of them?
Every 2 weeks for 8 weeks we meet on Zoom for a 90-minute discussion about our experiences reading, cooking, and eating from a new cookbook. Conversations are always lively and engaging. And, we get to host some pretty spectacular guests from the world of food and words. Last time we were joined by an America’s Test Kitchen cook, a cookbook author who runs a cooking school in Paris, and the one and only Sam Sifton of The New York Times Cooking. I’ve got a few new surprises in store for this round… you’ll have to join to find out!
Summer is the perfect season to learn new and delicious ways to prepare some of those gorgeous vegetables that you’ve admired, but didn’t know what to do with. So this time we’ll be cooking from four beautiful books that celebrate eating fresh and delicious vegetable-focused dishes (but not all vegetarian).
from asparagus to zebra tomatoes…
… and a few you may never have heard of before! This culinary journey is taking us beyond our backyard gardens and local markets (although we’ll learn plenty about what we have there as well). This season, our adventures take us to the United Kingdom, West Africa, and China.
meet this seasons cookbooks
Greenfeast: Spring, Summer by award-winning British food writer and cooking show host Nigel Slater. We’ll experiment with recipes celebrating the seasons’ glory in simple dishes he describes as “a deep scent of summer.”
To Asia with Love by bestselling cookbook author and founder of Brooklyn’s Arthur Street Kitchen, Hetty McKinnon. In her latest book, we’ll get to know the flavor-packed plant-based pan-Asian recipes that make this one of the hottest new books of the year.
Senegal: Modern Senegalese Recipes from the Source to the Bowl by Senegalese-American chef Pierre Thiam. Chef Pierre was profiled by the late Anthony Bourdain on Parts Unknown. He is celebrated for his vibrant flavors and soulful dishes and for bringing West African cuisine to the global fine dining world.
Ruffage: A Practical Guide to Vegetables by chef and farmer Abra Berens. This book was a James Beard Award nominee and named a Best Cookbook, Spring 2019 by The New York Times and Bon Appétit. It’s brilliant, creative, and an essential vegetable-focused cookbook.
how does it work?
Want to get in on the discussion? Of course you do! There are two ways…
- Join the club: The live via Zoom cookbook club is hosted by the 92nd Street Y and Kitchen Arts & Letters bookstore in New York City. But you don’t have to be in NYC to join us (I’m not!). We’ll meet every other week on Zoom for four meetings (one per book). If you can’t make one, recordings will be available. Most important – all four books are included in the registration fee – brand new, shipped directly to you. Sign up HERE.
- Follow along on Wander Eat and Tell: Not ready to commit to the live meetings? No problem! I’ll be blogging along with the program, sharing insights from our group discussions, and our experiences with specific recipes. Cook along, and share your experiences in the comments on the blog. Want to catch up on last season’s fun? Check out past posts by scrolling back in time here on Words on Wandering. Make sure to sign up for my newsletter HERE for regular updates.
However you choose to join in, my hope is that each book will lead us all on kitchen adventures that bring new perspectives on food, cooking, and culture. We’ll all be doing lots of cooking from these books. Even more importantly, I also encourage you to cozy up with each of them. Read beyond the recipes.
I like to think of cookbooks as travel guides. Read through for highlights before embarking on the journey. Get your imagination going and work up to the ultimate engagement with the recipes themselves.