JOIN THE CLUB

What started as a small group of Kenilworth neighbors sharing food prepared from the same cookbook has turned into a national movement.

BY MITCH HURST THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

When Allison McEntee moved to the North Shore in 2018, she was looking for a way to make friends and connect with her neighbors. She soon found a small group of women and wanted a way to regularly meet socially to connect and share conversation.

Having worked in food media and marketing her whole career, McEntee is keenly familiar with how food can bring people together. After some brainstorming, the Winnetka resident came up with the idea of the Kenilworth Cookbook Club—a group of women who meet regularly and share dishes made from the same cookbook.

“I don't really have time to read novels so a book club was not something I wanted to do, but a cookbook club where you're cooking dishes from a cookbook and you can enjoy a meal together that seemed very purposeful,” McEntee says. “I wanted to have some sort of purpose.”

After another woman offered to host the club, the group took flight. Hundreds of women now participate in club events and McEntee regularly advises other clubs through the Kenilworth Cookbook Club Ambassadors Program.

Cookbook clubs have suddenly become a popular idea.

“Everyone just started volunteering to host, inviting people into their homes, and it's just gotten to be really huge from the eight people we started with,” says McEntee. “We always get together once a month. I've got someone who's going to be hosting in Glencoe next year so it's really a North Shore thing.”

The club also hosts a big holiday event in December that raises funds for a Kenilworth charity. McEntee says what started as way to connect with others in the community has bloomed into a full-fledged enterprise.

“It's evolved for me over time. In the beginning it was for me to make friendships; that's why I started it. But what has been amazing to watch is the new people that moved to this community, and we've seen a huge boom since COVID,” she says. “People coming here and connecting to their future friends has been really wonderful for me personally. Being that connective tissue has been a really lovely thing for me.”

McEntee also learned something North Shore home tour organizers have known for decades—everyone is secretly dying to peek inside their neighbor’s beautiful houses.

“A part of it that I did not expect was people really do love seeing inside the homes of others, and that’s beautiful and wonderful to see,” says McEntee. “Someone down on Melrose has a gorgeous home and no one's been able to see it and she's hosting, there will probably be some people that would be interested just stepping in the door.”

Responsibilities of the hosts include selecting the cookbook or culinary theme, opening up their home or preferred venue, and providing tableware, beverages, and music. Guests are asked to bring a prepared dish and to be daring in doing so. The club says, “We’re inclusive of all successes and failures in the kitchen.” And guests don’t need to bring enough to feed the whole crowd; they just need to follow the recipe for whatever sized dish the recipe calls for.

“Some of the hosts enjoy entertaining and showing off their homes and are very proud of their homes,” McEntee says. “We have events sometimes that are on the low end, like 15 to 20 depending on the time of the year. In summertime people are traveling. Then we've had events that are in the hundreds.”

Guests prepare their culinary offering with care, McEntee says, and take the time to contribute dishes that are unique and creative. An Indian cookbook once presented some challenges, but the event came off well.

“The people that came, they really did an amazing job culinary wise. It was a wonderful thing to see,” she says. “We had a Spanish-themed event this summer and someone brought something that was just so very impressive.”

McEntee says at this point the Kenilworth Cookbook Club is almost too large and may need to recalibrate into individual clubs on the North Shore. And the idea has become infectious, spreading to other parts of the country.

“We've branched out to other markets. We have Kenilworth Cookbook Club Ambassadors in other areas of the country that have started their own cookbook clubs,” McEntee says. “They apply to be one and we give them kind of the playbook on how to structure it in their own community.”

Through all the growth and success, McEntee says the club hasn’t moved away her original vision for it.

“I just feel like people want to connect and be together and they want to find their people and food does that,” she says. “Food is such a common denominator among all of us no matter where you live.”

For more information visit kenilworthcookbookclub.com.