Cooking Clubs
Cooking clubs provide a fun outlet for exploring new cuisines, trying out new recipes, and socializing with friends. You can organize a cooking club in many ways, including around a different regional cuisine, cookbook, or ingredient for each gathering.
Each member can bring the dish of her choice (potluck style), or a particular course of the meal can be assigned to each person. You can just simply meet to fellowship and enjoy each other’s food, or you can also set aside a little time during your meeting to discuss what each person learned from making her dish.
There are a variety of other ideas you can come up with for ways to share information and expand your culinary knowledge and skills with others. Here are some other possibilities to consider and use as a guide in organizing your cooking club.
Themes
- Regional (Mexican, Italian, Thai, New Orleans, Southwestern, etc. – Choose a region, and everyone brings a dish of that region)
- Ingredients
(Choose an ingredient, and everyone brings a dish featuring that ingredient) - Cookbooks
(Everyone brings a dish from a different recipe in the same cookbook) - Course
(Everyone brings a dish for a particular course … desserts, appetizers)
Meeting Frequency
- Monthly
- Quarterly
- Semi-Annually
During Your Meeting
- Share recipes
- Provide constructive feedback on each other’s dishes
- Discuss likes and dislikes on a featured cuisine, cookbook, etc.
- Fellowship
- Motivate and inspire
- Hire a sommelier to facilitate a wine tasting for your club
- Hire a personal chef to give an in-home cooking class for your club
Evolve
- Take a culinary vacation together
- Plant a community garden
- Each member plant a home garden or herb garden and share the rewards
- Organize a food drive
- Volunteer as a group at a soup kitchen
- Make a group donation to a hunger or food advocacy nonprofit
INSPIRE OTHERS!
Send me a photo of your group and a brief story about your cooking club, and I’ll feature you on FlavorDiva.com. Send photos and stories to tesia [at] flavordiva.com
