COOKBOOK CLUB at home

Angela Clutton

The Borough Market Cookbook Club is breaking out of the Market gates and into members’ homes.

Since March 2016, we have been gathering together at the Market to share a love of good food, good cookbooks and good company. Friendships have been forged, shopping and cooking tips swapped, and encouragement given over literally thousands of dishes that Cookbook Club members have cooked at home and brought along to share with others.

Those events, which it’s been my absolute privilege to host, have been special for the strong sense of community that runs through their very core. But, we know that not everyone is able to come along. And so as members, you now have the opportunity to create your own Borough Market Cookbook Club events at home, and in your own communities.

As with the Market events, I will choose a cookbook to be the focus of each month’s Borough Market Cookbook Club at Home gatherings. These will be a mix of new books and old faithfuls; ones you know well, and amazing discoveries yet to be made. Each month’s online pack will include a simple guide to hosting, a synopsis of the book and its author, and (where possible) a couple of recipes.

One of the many exciting aspects of doing this is that every single event, wherever it takes place, will have its own distinct personality. We don’t want anyone to feel the need to emulate the Cookbook Club events you might have been to at the Market, but we also hope that some of their core features will apply: that people will bring along food to share from the chosen cookbook, and that the emphasis will be on exchanging thoughts, experiences and opinions on cooking from the book. The Cookbook Club has always been about the joy of cooking and sharing – it has never been a cooking competition!

That sense of exchange will happen with the wider Borough Market Cookbook Club, too. We want you to share on social media the build-up to your event and what happens at it. Your Cookbook Club at Home stories, photos, videos, tips, culinary triumphs (or even disasters..!) – we want them all.

The Borough Market Cookbook Club at Home is a great way to gather together friends and family. Whether they’re experienced cooks or novices, all they need in common is a love of food. New friends will be made as food does what food always does, and the Borough Market Cookbook Club does what it always has: brings people together.

Read on for a guide to how these events might run, whether you’re hosting or attending.