Saturday, December 4 – 4:00pm

Our Cookbook Clubbers had the fabulous idea to do a holiday cookie swap, where each person made a batch of cookies and then everyone swapped so that you went home with a whole load of various cookies. The cookie recipe could be selected from several cookbook options – BraveTart by Stella Parks, Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan, or The Cookie Collection by Brian Hart Hoffman.

Saturday, October 23 – 6:00pm

October’s featured cookbook was In Bibi’s Kitchen by Hawa Hassan. The book’s subtitle is “The Recipes and Stories of Grandmothers From the Eight African Countries that Touch the Indian Ocean”, which is a mouthful but pretty much describes the cookbook. The bibis (grandmothers) are from these eight African nations – South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Comoros, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, and Eritrea.

Sunday, September 19 – 5:30pm

For our September cookbook, we used Nik Sharma’s Season: Big Flavors, Beautiful Food. The recipes are a fresh take on Indian cooking, and the book is filled with beautiful food photos taken by Sharma himself. The photography often includes his own hands at work, noted for their brownness in a food media landscape dominated by whiteness.

Saturday, August 14 – 6:30pm

Our August cookbook was Guerrilla Tacos. In the book, Wesley Avila tells his story of growing up in our very own city of Los Angeles, working in some of the city’s top-tier restaurants, and then going on to create one of its most sought-after food trucks. Avila shares the recipes he created along the way to opening “the best taco place in L.A.”

Sunday, July 11 – 6:00pm

In July, we used Gourmet Today – a massive cookbook of more than 1,000 recipes selected by Ruth Reichl, the editor in chief of Gourmet magazine. Every recipe was tested by the Gourmet test kitchen, and that’s a lot of recipes!

Saturday, June 19 – 6:00pm

After a long hiatus (thanks COVID) and a couple meh attempts at virtual gatherings (Cookbook Club just isn’t the same when you don’t get to eat all the yummy food), we are back! Our last cookbook before the pandemic shut us down was Milk Street: Tuesday Nights, so to try to pick back up where we left off 15 months ago, we did Milk Street: The New Rules for our reopening book.

Sunday, March 1 – 6:00pm

Our February cookbook was Milk Street: Tuesday Nights by Christopher Kimball. Winner of the James Beard Award for best general cookbook, every recipe is meant to be quick and easy enough for cooking in the middle of the week. Some dishes are categorized into Fast (under an hour), Faster (45 minutes or less), or Fastest (25 minutes or less), and others fall into themes like Supper Salads or Easy Additions. (more…)

Saturday, February 22 – 7:00pm

For February’s cookbook, we used The Silver Spoon. We’d previously done the Joy of Cooking, and now we’ve done Italy’s version with this bible of Italian home cooking that includes over 2,000 recipes. Originally published in Italy in 1950 by Italian design and architectural magazine Domus, a select group of cooking experts were commissioned to collect hundreds of traditional Italian recipes and make them available to a wider modern audience.

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Sunday, January 26 – 6:00pm

Our first cookbook for 2020 was Casablanca: My Moroccan Food by Nargisse Benkabbou. In it, Benkabbou shares 100 recipes for Moroccan meals. She also has a popular blog, http://www.mymoroccanfood.com/, which includes her family’s recipes and her cross-cultural creations. We made a combination of dishes from her cookbook and blog. (more…)

Saturday, October 26 – 7:00pm

Our October cookbook was Aarti Paarti, by Aarti Sequeira. She simplifies traditional Indian recipes in order to make the flavors and techniques approachable for the US market. (more…)