A couple of years ago on one of my weekly cookbook stalking jaunts at my local bookstore, I fell in love with a book just by it’s cover. I bought it for my birthday with the gift card my brother and his wife gave me. It was a cookbook unlike any other I had perused before (and those of you who stalk my various social profiles know that I have a lot, somewhere in excess of 600). It was a cookbook about a group of women who cooked every Monday morning. A group that became a club, a club that preserved tradition and immortalised it for future generations through stories and recipes in a gorgeous compendium. A sisterhood.
The Monday Morning Cooking Club.
Now I know that there have been cooking clubs but what
these gutsy gals have done is truly commendable. They have taken a local meet and cook to a whole new level. They have gone mainstream with their cooking club, sharing their stories and family recipes with the world via a stunning cookbook, inspiring scores of people to explore different cultures and embrace the tastes of their melting pot. And they are donating all profits to charity. The Monday Morning Cooking Club cookbook published by Hardie Grant in Australia reads like a story woven around the cooks (the Jewish community) that have contributed to this rich resource. Each recipe in the cookbook unravels that cook’s culture and food. There is a good mix of savoury and sweet but a cursory glance at the cookbook will tell you that the world is more a sweet place than savoury.
The cookbook skims the surface of many cultures without becoming too intimidating for the experimental cook. It does well in sharing some of the key recipes from most cultures. There are interesting snippets of information, both cultural and technical. Interspersed with stunning photos of the recipes are pictures of the process and people enjoying and celebrating the wonder that is food.
Some of the recipes that instantly caught my eye were My Own Red Chicken (an interesting brown sauce based baked chicken recipe from South Africa), Pelushki (a type of Polish dumpling made with potatoes and onions), Custard Chiffon Cake (a gorgeous yellow cake that looked like it was made of clouds), Fish Sambal (an Indonesian fish curry), Bienenstich (honey almond squares from Vienna), Zserbo Slice (a Hungarian walnut and chocolate pastry), Plum And Walnut Kifli (cream cheese filled rolled pastry), Patilla (Russian prune and walnut log), Masala Chili Fish (a spicy fish curry from India), Palacsinta (Hungarian chocolate pancake dessert) and Baby Peri Peri Chicken.
I have cooked quite a few recipes from the cookbook and adapted some others. They have always turned out well. The recipes are clear and concise and the accompanying stories give you a feel of what you are cooking. I have adapted, cooked and blogged about
Coffee Kugelhopf and
Honey Chocolate Pistachio Bark from the Monday Morning Cooking Club cookbook. This cookbook is a celebration and a must buy if you love food, culture, stories and the whole sense of community.
Hardie Grant has very generously offered to giveaway one copy of The Monday Morning Cooking Club to one lucky reader of Cook Republic.
To Win This Cookbook
1. You MUST be an AUSTRALIAN RESIDENT.
2. Leave A COMMENT to this post and tell me IF YOU WERE TO START A COOKING CLUB, WHAT WOULD IT BE AND WHAT WOULD YOU CALL IT??
3. Giveaway runs from August 24, 2012 to September 4, 2012. Winner will be picked by THE AUTHORS OF THE COOKBOOK based on originality and entertainment value of the answer and announced on the blog and my facebook page on September 5, 2012.
Good Luck guys!
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** COMMENTING IS NOW CLOSED ON THE GIVEAWAY. WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED SHORTLY **
** WINNER ANNOUNCED**
RHUBARB WHINE
Congratulations!!
This is what the fabulous girls of the Monday Morning Cooking Club had to say about how they picked a winner.
"The Virtual Kitchen” is such a great concept that resonates so strongly with the ethos of the Monday Morning Cooking Club. We love how it would bring together a group of likeminded people who really represent the wonderful melting pot that is Australia. How beautiful that friendships would form (despite the geographical distance) across the entire country, any loneliness might be abated and a new (and real!) community would be born; food, recipes, cultures and traditions could be shared, and new cultures and traditions in cooking and eating could then be created. And of course, these recipes would then all be written down and preserved for future generations! We love it!
I’d call my cooking club the “BRING YOUR OWN OUZO” COOKING CLUB. Our main focus would be to cook Greek foods that are mainly eaten during major festivals. These would include main meals, appetizers, drinks and desserts (of course!). The foods would be traditional meals eaten at Easter and Christmas feasts and Name Day parties, plus also foods that are eaten during times of fasting.
Fika Time, for afternoon gatherings filled with making sweets and snacks over chats and cups of tea 🙂
‘Fika’ is a Swedish term for drinking coffee or tea, usually accompanied by something sweet!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE the look of this book. So much fun! I know I’m not eligible to win this, but I just wanted to share my thoughts. 🙂 (Btw, some of us boy bloggers are launching a cocktail blog called The Boys’ Club) 😉
I’d start a club called ‘SMOTOAB’ (or ‘RASM’)!
This book’s on my ”To buy/invest in'” list and, as a “single-mother-on-a-budget” (or “redefined-as-single-mother”), it inspires me to make new ‘traditions’ for me and my 3 kidlets. <3
A grest sounding book!
Don’t count me in, I’m not an Australian resident… ;-((
Cheers,
Rosa
If I started a cooking club it would be called “BOTTOMS UP”! It would focus on Wine-pairing dinners! Each week we would choose a wine region (eg.Spain, Napa Valley, Baroosa Valley) or variety (eg. Pinot Noir) and plan the menu around that. Each member could bring a wine to compliment a particular course. All recipe menus would include wine suggestions for each course and we would learn to cook each menu while tasting our results with the corresponding wine! I’d have to control it somehow though because I can see a tendancy for there to be MORE BOTTOMS UP than FOODS UP! ha, ha!
I would call my cooking club Boiling point as it’s name that would get people talking and its hard to forget.
Don’t cout me in the giveaway, but what a beautiful book! I love the concept of a cooking club – what a sweet idea!
My cooking club would be ‘Mamma & her Four Daughters’. Hopefully the daughters (includes me) could get all the old recipes from mum before her dementia gets worse. Mum grew up in war-torn Italy, Trieste and came to Australia in the 1950’s, – so many recipes are a mix of Austrian, Yugoslav and Italian – a couple of cousins had a Trattoria and one has moved to America to make his fortune, Mauro Maffrici. Recipes that brought our family together includes Dolce Freddo, Melanzana alla cacca feugo, Uccello ripeno – and maybe I could get the correct spelling while I’m at it! LOL luv ya mum
I’ve been thinking about how to organise a cooking club for a long time and the MMCC has long been a source of inspiration. I’m 28 and have had a passion for food my whole life but rarely come across other young people with the same interest in food and desire to cook as I have. When I go overseas I visit food markets and artisan producers instead of clothes stores and night clubs. My food blog ‘Gourmetician’ is mostly stories about food I cook rather than reviewing places to eat out. I feel that many traditional dishes and techniques will be lost if the younger generations aren’t interested in learning so I’ve been involved with programs that teach kids about food. It’s important to start from a young age.
I would call my club ‘Stir The Pot’ with the aim of inviting all nationalities, religions, cultural backgrounds, gender, marital status etc to share their ideas, have healthy debates and build a community of likeminded people in their late 20’s to early 40’s. The focus would be on traditional cooking and using a state of the art venue that I have access to and others would be welcome to supply a venue. Especially if it have the group the opportunity to cook on a wood fired oven, spit etc in the name of authentically recreating recipes from the past.
Good luck to everyone who entered. I love reading your responses.
The Cooking Geek – to celebrate the recipes that our mother’s, and our grandmothers taught us
Mine would be “The Happy Cookers”, a humourous nod to a book that was around in my teenage years, when many of my closets friendships were formed.
We would cook all the kind of crazy stuff that you want to have when you are kids, like burger ring and tomato sauce sandwiches and chocolate cookie icecream cakes with coke spiders, probably more stirring and putting stuff together than cooking, but it would be fun! We could be called The Crazy Not Kids Anymore Cooking Club!
I love the sound of this book, it’d be great to win it but as a non Aussie I’ll have to see if I can find it here. GG
I am loving the look of this cookbook…
You know now thinking about it I think if I ever have a cooking club I”ll name it Food & Love.. 🙂
I know I’m not eligible to participate to win this… But I had to drool over this cookbook and let you know the name of cooking club if I ever have one….
I am 18 and much to my Nonna’s distress I am terrible at cooking! If I was going to start a cooking club I would call it the ‘Don’t expect it to work’ cooking club. I already consider myself to have been a member of this club for years (mum thinks I have a lifetime membership). I personally think that I haven’t totally given up on cooking, love reading the recipes on this site!
As a lover of anything sweet, my club will be called “Sugar n Spice” and we will dish up only all things nice, just as the rhyme goes !!
I’d call mine “More Cheese” because there are so many different types of cheese and we all get stuck eating the same (small) selection.
Also, “more cheese” is currently my toddler’s catch phrase, so he could be the club mascot! 😀
I’d love to start a cooking club for people who live in remote areas or in isolated communities. So many foodies who reside away from suburban areas and who are not able to meet in one place to share their love of fresh produce. Think of all of the interest and knowledge that could be shared by the vast array of regional flavours shared across this great vast country?
Farmers, land owners, remote area teachers, indigenous communities, land carers, sea farers… the list of remote residing food loving kitchen passionates is endless. By accessing my virtual cooking club, it would allow a chance for like minded foodlovers to teach, learn and develop a kitchen community like no other. My cooking club? Simply “The Virtual Kitchen”.
Captain Cook and Associates
Love this book. I use my mums copy!
If I started a cooking club l would call it 246ATE
2nd Saturday of the month
4 hours to cook
6 recipes tested
ATE (enjoy)
What a lovely book and giveaway! I would call mine “Cooking the Books” and turn it into a cookbook club of sorts where we would go through our favourite cookbooks and cook a dinner party from each, share our thoughts on the recipes and stories that come with the food.
‘Cooking For Pleasure’ I would love to teach men to cook meals other than steak and pasta etc. Not all ladies love to eat this – teach them how to cook meals that are super delicious without being overly heavy so that there is room for dessert – which would always be a little over the top. The pleasure would be men learning to prepare a meal in an orderly manner and share this simple gift with their partners and hopefully reaping the rewards of doing so. All women love to be spoilt but most of us believe the simple things are the most important. Then offer other classes for the younger males so that they can learn basics to win them many successful dates in their future and in the meantime spoil their mums/grandmothers/aunts etc..
‘Family, Friends & Food’ – I love getting together with friends and family and sharing great food over a few drinks and lots of talking & laughing. There’s nothing like great food and company to make someone feel loved, included or comforted.
Love the glasses! lol
I would start up a baking club because I feel like the first step anyone takes into learning how to cook, is to bake. Or at least that’s how I started. Plus, it would mean we could indulge in all sorts of yummy sweets! I would name it the dough-mestic club: baking for beginners and diet sinners.
I think my club would be ‘cooks on tour’; with club meetings at a different club members house each time. Then we’d be sharing not only our cooking, but our homes/families/quirks. Once a year we could hold a progressive club dinner for the ultimate suburban fun, friendly, food tour!
I would call my Club “What’s to Eat”, because that is what my kids always say to me.
I love the idea of a cooking club, what a great way to share and learn from other people with similar passions. I’d call mine ‘the mixing bowl’. As someone who has travelled a bit and lives away from my family I would love the opportunity to cook with people of all ages and cultures so I could learn as much as possible.
the glasses! And yes this book looks awesome!!
Vege Boys – A club designed to encourge little children, especially little boys (like my four)to eat vegetables and reduce the number of hours infront of a computer.
Little hands in the garden encourages them to try what they grow!
My cooking club would be called The Pea Journeyistas, it would involved myself and my siblings and it would chronicle our journey from Grey overcooked meat and mushy overcooked vegetables (sorry mum) to crisp steamed veges and pink moist meat. We are all wonderful cooks God only knows how we became that way given mums penchant for overcooking everything and eating peas with every meal of my 18 years living at home!
My cooking club would be call “Foodie Fair” and we’d draw a random key ingredient from a hat and the type of cuisine from another and that shall be our task or challenge for the following meeting to make the key ingredient a star of a dish from the specified type of cuisine. I love spontaneity and I think this will really get people thinking with creativity. Not to mention we’ll have a ball. Who cares if there’s disasters!
My cooking club would be called ‘From Mothers To Daughters’, each session someone would bring their mother or grandmother in to teach a traditional recipe and then we can pass that on to our children … or maybe I should call it ‘If you are going to steal my MMCC the least you could do is cook me something from it’ (my mother has stolen my book and the bookshop is having trouble getting another copy)
The Experimentals, The rules… Try anything, be open to the experience and amazing flavour of new ideas new textures new tastes. Any age, anybody just don’t say can’t say lets try!
Slow Dance-I am enamoured with the slow cooker-an awesome device for working mums:-)
The baking bowl – together we’d bowl each other over with our tasty baked treats!
I love cookbooks too and have a cupboard and bookshelf full. I do try to cull them occasionally but it’s very difficult to part with my babies!
My cooking club would be called “Devils in the Larder” because the aim would be to be a little bit naughty and have lots of fun.
“Naughty but Nice” – it would be mostly decadent desserts 🙂
Mummy and me munching moment cooking!
a tantalizing club for mummies and children alike to cook up a storm! no matter the gender the kiddies will be able to have a cooking experience that will blow their taste buds out of their mouth!!
I’d start a vegetarian cooking club! 🙂 I would name it something boring, because I’m not a fan of overdoing things haha..
50 Shades of Green – a cooking club for vegetarians!
Oh I have been admiring this book for ages, every review comes across like the reader is made to feel like part of the club! Hum, if I had a cooking club it would be called ‘Sunday Brunch Sessions’. I may as well feed my brunch addiction with friends! So who wants to join me for pancakes??
The Mighty Mixers… We would each pick a different country each month and make a feast of some of the popular dishes from that country.
Nothing like travelling the world from your own kitchen
Wow what an awesome Cook Book!
If I was to start a cooking Club I would call it “Crazy Mumma’s Cooking Club” Though I think we would drink more wine than cook….lol
“Bork, Bork, Bork” after the hilarious and sometimes crazy Swedish Chef from The Muppets. It show all of us, you can try anything in the kitchen but duck when the utensils start flying!!!
My club would be called the “Single Dad’s kitchen disasters Club” I need all the help I can get!!!