The Worst Cook in Cookbook Club

I come to you from a place of deep shame today

(Peeking out from behind my hands like I’m a toddler you found in hide and seek)

I failed at something I’m supposed to be good at. I like being bad at stuff I’m bad at, I think that’s good for the soul. The selective perfectionist in me is perfectly fine with embracing things I’ve defined as non-talents of mine. I am bad at bowling in a way that consistently defies belief, for example, and I still think it is very fun. But food is my wheelhouse. I love to cook for myself, I love to cook for my friends, and I especially love to cook for my cookbook club. The highlight of the month, every month. A group of women from fancy food media who have become dear friends in recent years. Big hearts, big eaters. My people!

It started because we’d see each other out at events all the time. We are lucky to be invited to cool restaurant openings and chef demos and such, but the scene here in NYC can be exhausting. Night after night making the same smalltalk with strangers (“So what are you working on lately?”). These gals became a beacon in a sea of repetition, familiar faces and then confidantes. We’d gather in corners or rearrange our place cards to sit next to one another at dinner. Afterwards we’d relive the best bites or talk a little bit of light smack about the event: did they ply us with drinks before (or, horror of horrors, without) properly feeding us? Did they insist we leave work early to arrive “promptly at 6” and then make us wait through a 90-minute cocktail “hour” before getting down to business? We’d compare notes on invitations, lining up our schedules when we could. Soon enough we were making our own dates to catch up, away from the watchful eye of work contacts.

A generous meal from A Generous Meal

That’s how cookbook club was born! Each month we pick a new release and plan a sort of potluck dinner where everybody cooks a dish from the book. I used to choose the easiest-looking thing (lazy!!), but now I try to take on a recipe that will teach me something. Collaborating on a big spread is such a good way to get a sense of the author’s taste and sensibilities. Plus we love eating, duh! We have a Google doc where we claim dibs on what we want to make and take turns hosting. At some point it happened: that yummy feeling when you realize new friends aren’t new any more. Connections and professional opportunities are shared generously, which makes the general upheaval in our industry feel just a little bit easier to bear. We’ve supported each other through layoffs and promotions, divorces and engagements. Take that, old boys club!

Like the events we go to, we have strong opinions after cooking from these books. Some of the girls are professional recipe developers and they will absolutely notice if a recipe is written in a way that’s confusing, unnecessarily complicated, or just flat-out doesn’t work. Sometimes someone has good gossip from behind the scenes of the book in question. But we didn’t choose a book this month because as you surely know if you opened Instagram this weekend, it’s Friendsgiving season.

(Actually, I rather enjoyed seeing Friendsgiving celebrations all across the country on my feed. There’s the former coworker who left the daily news grind behind and moved to Nashville, at a table full of people wearing cowboy hats! There’s the former schoolmate who moved to Portland and got really into baking elaborate pies he seems to take with him on hikes, beaming in front of his baked goods and bearded friends. Sorry but I love Instagram. Gimme that slice of life!!)

Instead, we each picked a recipe we were auditioning for Thanksgiving at home. For me it was the perfect chance to test a stuffing alternative.

We’re not the biggest stuffing guys at my house. Every year we’re like wait, what do we do about stuffing again? It’s the one dish we don’t have an emotional attachment to, probably because none of us really likes it that much. Mac and cheese, however, is always exciting (in my opinion). The divine Dan Pelosi, whose cookbook reads like a warm hug and who I have had the pleasure of working with, has a recipe for pumpkin mac and cheese with sage and brown-butter breadcrumbs that sounded like an automatic winner. He has you whisk up a roux, then mix in cheddar and parmesan and a whole can of pumpkin puree. It looked like Velveeta but it smelled like decorative gourd season, silky smooth while also giving cheese pull. I mixed in some fancy bronze-dyed noodles (thank you Eataly PR), topped it with all the crunchies, and baked it alongside an individual portion in a creme brûlée dish for taste-testing purposes. Hot out of the oven, it was freaking amazing. Chewy noodles, velvety sauce, crispy panko: texture perfection with all the flavors of fall.

It was going to take me an hour to get to the host’s house on the subway and I didn’t want to be carrying the baking dish when it was piping hot. So I did it all in the morning, figuring it would still be great later at room temperature.

It was not.

I think the pasta absorbed all the sauce as it cooled? By the time we sat down for our feast, my mac and cheese had congealed into a brick. You could have torn off a gluey hunk and slapped yourself with it, which is what I wanted to do. I watched in horror as people took seconds of everything else on the table. The pan was still mostly full after dinner and that does! not! happen!! The only person willing to take home leftovers was someone’s husband (*sobs*). Husbands cannot be trusted, they eat anything!!

Cookbook club is not a competition and yet I am still sulking around like a sore loser. Perhaps I am displacing some feelings from recent news events I am not allowed to talk about online, who’s to say. The only thing that cheers me up is planning to go extremely hard on the next one. It will be December, I’ll pull off my own little Christmas miracle. I’ll pregame the pregame, make my list and check i.e. cook it twice to ensure my contribution isn’t a dud. People always ask about the logistics when I post our get-togethers on Instagram, and one friend who recently moved out of state asked for tips on starting her own cookbook club as a way to build community there. Nothing could make me happier than that. So it’s a perfect time to take stock of what we’ve loved and why, for anyone else who might be curious.

Veg-heavy spread from Big Night

Cookbook Club Hits (a subjective list)

Book: The Woks of Life by the Leung family

Favorite dishes: chicken curry puffs; mapo tofu

Book: Big Night by Katherine Lewin

Favorite dishes: crispiest chicken Milanese; strawberry “pop-by” cake

Book: The Cook You Want To Be by Andy Baraghani

Favorite dishes: spicy coconut chowder with toasted garlic; fennel gratin

Book: Stuzzichini by Stef Ferrari

Favorite dishes: anchovy butter rice cake crunchies; pasta chips and parm sauce

Book: Mozza by Nancy Silverton

Favorite dishes: all the pizzas, Nancy’s famous butterscotch budino

Book: Mi Cocina by Rick Martinez

Favorite dishes: pozole rojo; albondigas en chipotle

Book: Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden

Favorite dishes: cauliflower with plums, sesame, and yogurt; pasta alla Norma

Book: A Generous Meal by Christine Flynn

Favorite dishes: crispy potatoes over creamy tonnato; dark chocolate and molasses cookies

Book: Asada by Bricia Lopez

Favorite dishes: pollo in guajillo; grilled romaine ensalada Caesar con miso