A cookbook club starter

How to organize a group — and why you’ll want to

In a cookbook club, you still get to see friends, while gathering to commune over and discuss a book. But the food is better. And you don’t have to read that 350-pager (that no one ever gets through). If you’re doing it right, you

reading the book, but it’s faster.

Participating in such a club also forces you to cook from the cookbooks you buy. How many have you bought and never gotten around to trying? See? And you get to have a dinner party at a table full to groaning, but you only made one dish (or two or more for the more ambitious).

To get you started, here are some things we’ve learned along the way to cooking the books.

If

I have one more Google doc to manage, I’ll die. We use email. The string can |

If you like the idea of joining a book club but would really rather not debate pacing and character development in the latest best-selling novel over overly garlicky spinach dip, there’s another option: a cookbook club.

get long, but we manage. But, yes, if you’re the super-organized type, create that online doc.

I laughed when I read advice to make cookbook groups 25 members. What an organizational nightmare. Limit your group to six to eight people: large enough to try a number of dishes in a book, small enough to manage the dinner party.

You’ll consult one another and pick a range of dishes across appetizers, entrees, sides and desserts. A potluck means you end up with the luck of the draw. This is not that.

Make it easy to get together. Be reasonable about how often you’ll meet. Monthly sounds like a death knell. How about bimonthly? Or quarterly?

We take turns hosting at one another’s condos and houses. No one cares if it’s a tight squeeze, or if we eat standing around the kitchen counter.

Let the host choose. Assuming all of you have similar goals, no one is going to pick something wild like Rene Redzepi’s mossdominant “Noma.” Also, the choice should be about discovery for every member. I would love to have our group cook from my friend Robin Mather’s “The Feast Nearby,” but I know that book already.

We all want to support cookbook authors, but buying several books a year might be too steep a price for some members. Plus, what if it turns out you don’t like the book? Share. Pick your dish then pass the book along. Or pick up a copy at the library, or use e-books.

Are you coursing the dishes (we do) or throwing everything on the table at once? The answer will affect your dish.