Cookbook clubs are a tasty way to try new recipes -- and make new friends

PITTSBURGH — Eager to make friends and try new things when she moved back to Pittsburgh after retiring 19 years ago, Jan Haltigan turned to what's always been a welcoming space to connect: her local library.

Growing up in Pittsburgh, she spent countless hours reading books at the Carnegie Library on Fifth Street. So she was pretty sure when she walked through the doors of Shaler North Hills Library on Mt. Royal Boulevard, she'd find some kind of fun.

It turned out to be Food for Thought, the cookbook club that adult services librarian Marie Jackson started to bring together home cooks to swap recipes and share cooking experiences. Haltigan grew up cooking for her family and Jackson, despite not being much of a cook herself, could talk anyone into anything.

"So right from the get-go, it just felt right," Haltigan says of the group, which since 2006 has met on the second Wednesday of the month to explore food, cooking and cookbooks. She even convinced her sister, Judy Enz, who lives in Shaler, to become a member, too.

Nearly 20 years later, both women are still at it, trying their hands at cooking unfamiliar foods and celebrity recipes each month for a potluck lunch that's followed by a discussion on what they learned making the various recipes.

"It's just a fun thing," says Enz.

It's also a great way to add a little variety to your weekly menu if you get tired of eating the same thing several days in a row.

"And you really fall in love with everyone," she says with a smile. "It's the highlight of my month."

One tasty mashup

Book clubs have been around for decades and so has the tradition of the modern potluck dinner, which rose in popularity during the Great Depression to help struggling families pool resources. The cookbook club combines the two, allowing members to enjoy a meal together while also introducing them to new cuisines, techniques and flavors.

They can be held at libraries — there are more than a dozen active clubs in the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh system — but they're also popping up in bookstores. And some cookbook clubs meet in members' homes.

Every group does it a little different. Some choose a theme while others pick a particular cookbook, favorite chef or region of the country or world. The goal is always the same: to learn something new about food, nosh on a dish you might not otherwise try and above all, have some fun and great conversation.

Here's how it generally works in Shaler and at many other libraries:

Participants arrive with whatever dish they've made and set it out on a communal table. If it's from a cookbook, they bring that along, too.

After the potluck meal (often a buffet) and some socializing, attendees get down to the nuts and bolts of what they learned — where to find that one weird ingredient, how long a dish took to make, how many pots and pans ended up in the sink and perhaps most important: Would they ever make it again?

At Castle Shannon Public Library, for example, members generally cook from a title chosen by circulation desk manager Donelle Mayausky, often based on suggestions. Their choices have embraced a wide variety of cuisines, culinary traditions and famous cookbook authors.

Since they started five years ago, members have cooked from Snoop Dogg's "From Crook to Cook," Chrissy Teigen's "Cravings" and food blogger/social media influencer Tieghan Gerard's "Half Bake Harvest" cookbooks.

To make it easier to join in, Mayausky typically reserves cookbooks from the library's catalog to have on hand. Participation has grown from just a handful of attendees in the beginning to upwards of 25 participants at the potluck dinners, depending on the topic.

Members of the 2 1/2 -year-old Cooks and Books group at Cooper-Siegel Community Library in Fox Chapel, which meets on the second Thursday of each month, also often cook out of a selected cookbook. They tackled "Nothing Fancy: Unfussy Food for Having People Over" by Alison Roman in January and will explore "Ever-green Vietnamese" by Andrea Quynhgiao in March. Attendees might also get to experiment with recipes from a particular cuisine, chef or seasonal ingredient.

Information services department head Kelley Beeson started the group in 2022 after enjoying great success with a similar group at Western Allegheny Community Library in Oakdale. The Fox Chapel club draws between 15 and 20 people every month — everyone from professional chefs to people simply cooking for their families.

"It's such a great way to bring people in," Beeson says.

Libraries, she notes, provide a great way for communities to connect. But cookbook clubs are extra special.

In Fox Chapel, as in other libraries, "it has grown to mean a lot to the people who come, with the friendships that have formed."

Make new friends

The opportunity to meet new people is what drew musicians/performers Andres Zara and Audrey Pernell, who moved from Philadelphia to Bloomfield in August, to the 2-year-old Squirrel Hill Cookbook Club at Riverstone Books.

"We love to cook and trying new recipes," says Zara, who is originally from Chile. "And we love to eat."

Which they did plenty of at the bookstore's Valentine's-themed event on Feb. 5. (It's free, but bookseller Abby Sewell likes to know how many will attend).

Asked to bring recipes they love, the cooks proved pretty creative. Garrett Lee, who lives in the South Side and works in accounting, brought ribs, while Tishanna Lewison of Rankin shared a sweet bread she grew up eating in Trinidad. The potluck also include crab palmiers, mango sticky rice, apple cake and roasted red pepper pasta.

Lewison's dish was a favorite of her late maternal aunt Cynthia, from what she calls the "bible" of Trinidadian food — "Naparima Girls' High School Cookbook," which was was