By Rachael Thatcher Daily News Staff writer

Monday

Mar 18, 2019 at 11:10 AM

TIVERTON — If you see groups of people marching towards a town library fumbling with crockpots, dishes, books and utensils with smiles on their faces it can only mean one thing: it’s cookbook club night.

Tiverton Public Library has been operating its cookbook club for nearly two years now, meeting monthly on the second Wednesday. Emily Goodman, the former adult services librarian started the club and has since passed the torch to Debbie Estrella, who has taken her position. In the interim, Catherine Damiani, Tiverton Library director, gladly filled in.

Estrella, who came to Tiverton from Saunderstown’s Willett Free Library, said that she was glad to see Tiverton already had a cookbook club, because if they hadn’t she quickly would have implemented it.

“The first couple of times I led one I came with discussion questions in case conversation lagged but it never does. You just end up eating and talking about the food and everyone stays on topic because they’re all interested,” Estrella said.

Get cooking at the local library

The way it works is the group picks a cookbook to read each month and group members send in what dish they’re interested in making. The organizer records them and sends out a menu ahead of time to get a headcount and avoid having multiples of the same dish.

“It’s great for people who want to be a member of a book club but don’t have time or aren’t inclined to read a whole book,” Estrella said, “I had one member in another group who, she loved to cook and experiment, but her family was so picky she couldn’t cook anything for them. So it was the one time she could cook what she wanted and have other people eat it.”

It’s also a great community builder, she added.

It’s free to join, aside from the dish members are expected to bring and share. The library ensures they always choose a book that’s widely used in the library system so there are enough for everyone and the same people tend to come back month after month, but they are always welcoming new members.

Prior cooking experience isn’t necessary, some of the group members recounted the trials and tribulations of putting together their dishes, laughing along the way.

This month’s choice was the “How to Cook Everything” series by Mark Bittman.

“We try to vary it and toss things up a little bit so we can make sure we’re touching all the bases. So for example if we do a vegetarian one one month we’ll make sure to include meat the next month. We did pies in February, January was hors d’oeuvres and party food. So in March we decided to just do it all,” Damiani said.

Next on the docket is the popular “Magnolia Table: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering” by Joanna Gaines, though when asked what the favorite books were the group largely agreed on Ina Garten’s books.

Another highlight they touched upon was last February’s meeting, where they focused on Garten’s book, “Cooking for Jeffrey,” which features her husband. For that special occasion, cookbook club members brought their significant others to the meeting and celebrated on Valentine’s Day.

The 14 dishes at Wednesday’s meeting included warm kale salad with pine nuts and balsamic raisins; potato and leek soup; sausage, cannellini and kale soup; risotto-style orzo; braised tofu and peas in curried coconut milk; lentil samosas; cold ginger noodles; singapore noodles with chicken peppers and basil; pizza two ways; herb-roasted chicken cutlets; cream puffs; almond-cherry scones and individual tiramisu.

The members discussed each dish, taking notes on what each respective home chef might recommend as far as alterations to the recipe, and kindly commended each other on their efforts, raving about flavors and textures.

All members in attendance were from Tiverton, with the exception being Nancy Swanson who hails from Dartmouth, Massachusetts. She was there to do cookbook club research to bring back to her library in Dartmouth, where they are looking to implement one.

At this meeting, the group discussed doing events with the other library’s cookbook clubs, inviting them to their meetings to cook for them and vice versa.

That may work out in the near future, as Newport Public Library recently jumped on the cookbook club train after being inspired by other Rhode Island libraries.

There was also patron interest, which encouraged Ann Amaral, head of reference and adult services, to start the club last month.

Similarly to the Tiverton Library’s club, “We talk about the experience of cooking that particular recipe and anything else about the cookbooks,” Amaral said. It’s free, open to the public and the cookbook or theme rotates each month.

The Newport Library’s second meeting will be based off “Simply Ming” by Ming Tsai. As of Thursday, six people were registered for Tuesday’s meeting.

Little Compton’s Brownell Library also has a cookbook club which meets at 5:30 p.m. on the first Wednesday of each month.

To get involved, those interested should call or stop by their local library, check out the cookbook, register for the next meeting and get cooking. And don’t forget to bring your own plates and utensils.

Wake up to the day’s top news, delivered to your inbox

Cookbook clubs build community - and tasty menus - at Tiverton library

Monday