This has nothing to do with the latest Kim Bartmann restaurant, Book Club, which opened in Minneapolis’ Armatage neighborhood a few weeks ago (though we hear it is excellent). Yes, we are clearly talking about food; making it, and, most importantly, eating it. But this is abour a much more hands-on, literary, and social way to do so.
The idea behind cookbook club is a simple one: A group of friends, or complete strangers (soon-to-be friends, as we say in the old country) prepare recipes from the agreed-upon cookbook, and then come together to share the results.
Something like a crowd-sourced feast.
Discussion typically ensues, knowledge is given and gained, and everyone leaves full, happy, and all the better for having been involved. Everyone likes to eat, after all. No matter the perceived political, religious, social, or cultural divides in this country, there is an inherent communal feeling that comes from cooking and eating a meal together.
Read. Cook. Eat. Discuss.
In collaboration with, and taking place at, downtown St. Paul’s one-and-only Subtext Bookstore, the club will meet on the fourth Sunday of each month, at 6pm, starting this January, 2018.
The first book will be local chef and tastemaker Sean Sherman’s The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, which celebrates unlike almost any other the foods native to Minnesota’s fertile lands, and the things that grew here long before Europeans arrived.
Members will then vote on subsequent cookbooks.
Hosted by licensed dietitian nutritionist and chef Ranelle Kirchner (www.ranellekirchner.com), gatherings will explore not only new and innovative ways to make food, but also new and innovative ways to view and discuss food at any/every stage of preparation.
For more information, and to sign up, email Ranelle at ranellek@gmail.com, or Sue Zumberge at subtextinfo@gmail.com.
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