How to Start a Cookbook Club

A cookbook club is a great way to spend time with friends, meet new people, expand your cooking horizons, and enjoy delicious food. 

Ever trying to find an excuse to meet with your friends on a weeknight?

Try forming a cookbook club!

What's a cookbook club?

It's a group of people who cook from one cookbook {our 2014 pick was Gourmet Made Simple}.

We started out with a group of twenty ladies and created groups of five {to make four groups of 5 people}.

Each group picks a month to cook, and that group hosts the entire cookbook club. The hosts for the month pick a few recipes from the cookbook and the entire group enjoys dinner together.

It's basically a great excuse to meet new people, eat good food, and do something fun on a weeknight.

The first group hosted in May and did a fancy sit-down dinner full of mouth-watering dishes.

They even had cute little menus for each of us, and the kind hosts served us each course!

My group {pictured above} hosted in July, and we did a barbecue/casual/picnic type of meal with a buffet-style dinner and paper plates {no clean up! whoop whoop!}

I used a grill all by myself for the first time ever which was amusing...

We made Smoked Strawberry Mozzarella Crostini, Shrimp and Mango Summer rolls, Planked Salmon with Asian BBQ Sauce, Planked Turkey Burgers with Chipotle Ketchup, Watermelon Feta & Arugula Salad, and a yummy cobbler for dessert.

In September, we enjoyed a late summer's meal full of all the bountiful produce a girl could ever ask for and steak! {my fave!}

It was finished off with a gorgeous Lemon Meringue Pie.

Our cookbook for 2015 is Ina Garten's Back to Basics which is one of my all-time favorite cookbooks. {And I've even made a few recipes from it - like the most delicious tomato soup ever made}

Since I can't take credit for this idea, I asked one of the girls who started our group in New Orleans some questions...

How did you start the cookbook club?

One of my Atlanta friends followed someone from Birmingham and started an Atlanta group. We got the ideas from them.

Atlanta has 30 ladies and meets every other month. They have teams of 5 and all over the Atlanta area. I think the first cookbook is chosen by the first 5 hosts, then each year suggestions are thrown out. They've been doing it for almost 3 years and rotate friends in and out.

How do you decide on the cookbook?

I chose Gourmet Made Simple because it is exactly that and what a group of busy women want to ultimately do - make a simple gourmet meal!

How many people should be in the cookbook club?

Adrienne, Casey, Kate, and I [Meg] were the original 4 hosts and we invited 5 women each to start our New Orleans group. We've lost a few and added a few to stay at 20. We thought 20 was about as many as each house could host.

{the lovely hosts from our first Cookbook Club}

So round up a few friends, get them to invite a few more friends, and start your own cookbook club! It's super fun and a great excuse to drink wine with friends on a Tuesday {or whatever weeknight you choose} 😉

Meme