Bridget was already driving when anxiety set in.
Beside her sat a container of gochujang orecchiette topped with little pieces of burrata, crisped pancetta and furikake pangrattato. She was so focused on preparing the dish she hadn’t thought about what would come next. “I was like, ‘Oh cool, I get to cook, I get to share food, ohhh hang on’,” she says. “I hadn’t actually thought about the social element.”
Bridget is a first timer at Cookbook Club Naarm, a monthly event where strangers carefully prepare a recipe from the same cookbook then come together to feast.
Today’s cookbook is Lucky Dragon Supper Club by Sydney-based Stephanie Feher, a self-proclaimed “home cook” and “dinner party enthusiast”.
On a warm Sunday evening, Bridget is milling about a long trestle table crammed with food in an industrial-style bakery in Collingwood, Melbourne. She has just met Saloni, who’s prepared a shredded potato stir-fry. Saloni jokes that cookbook club is an “introverts dream”.
“You’ve got a conversation starter: ‘What did you bring?'” Abby, (XO egg fried rice), chimes in.
But Cookbook Club Naarm is more than an affordable foodie get-together: it’s a reminder that food tastes best when it’s shared and made with love.
Joan Tran and Dominique Lonsdale founded Cookbook Club Naarm in July 2024. (ABC News: Rhiannon Stevens)
Like trying to get tickets to Taylor Swift
Founders Joan Tran and Dominique Lonsdale were losing touch with each other when Cookbook Club Naarm was born in July 2024. Joan “was feeling a bit lonely” after living interstate and Dom was searching for people who would “expand her horizons and teach her new things”.
A cookbook club, the two 27-year-old friends decided, would be the ideal way to meet new people.
Supper clubs — paying to dine with strangers in odd locations — have been trending for a few years. But unlike a supper club, their club would be affordable so people could make a habit of it. The $8 tickets sell out in minutes. Cindy (smashed cucumber salad) says it’s like trying to get tickets to Taylor Swift.
Each month Joan and Dom find a different venue willing to host them for free. They create a spreadsheet where the 50 or so ticket holders can mark down which recipe they’ll cook. They even include information about the cost of ingredients for each recipe to help people decide what will work for them.
“We just thought that cooking is something that everyone’s able to do, especially when it’s following a recipe. So, no one’s getting aged out, no one’s getting priced out and no one’s getting skilled out,” Dom says.
Cookbook Club Naarm has spawned a network of food-loving friends. (ABC News: Rhiannon Stevens)
‘Community, compassion, love’
The club usually features an Australian cookbook, and where possible Joan and Dom invite the author along. Kon Karapanagiotidis, who wrote best-seller Philoxenia: A Seat at My Table with his mother Sia, was the first author to attend.
“The title of the book in Greek means to welcome a stranger, it means love for the stranger,” Kon, the founder of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, told the club.
Kon’s book of Greek classics turned vegetarian is a way to preserve his family’s story, he says: “My grandparents on my father’s side were refugees fleeing a genocide; my mum and dad came to this country as migrants, leaving a life of poverty. I was the first to even go to high school in my family, and I understood just how fragile freedom and safety is, that in reality we simply win the lottery of time and place.”
Kon’s message is a simple one: “All of us deserve a seat at the table, to be loved, to be seen and to be welcome.
“For every migrant and refugee that comes to this country, food is the way in which we have our social armour, it’s our invitation to people to be curious about our cultures, to connect. It’s how we get seen, as much as it shouldn’t take that, it’s how we find a place to be safe. And I wanted to tell a story through food about the importance of welcome and about community and about compassion and about love.”
Cookbook clubbers have the opportunity to taste almost every recipe from that month’s chosen cookbook. (Supplied: Thao Nong)
Joan and Dom are tethered by history and culture to opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean. But both are the children of refugees and migrants who started new lives in Australia. Joan’s family fled the Vietnam War and Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge. Dom’s mother fled Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile.
Cookbook club is for everyone
In the year since Kon’s speech, Dom and Joan have resisted invitations to partner with brands and turn Cookbook Club Naarm into a money-making venture.
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Their friend Hamish (who brought Chinese wine) is attending cookbook club for the second time. He says he’s not the only friend to tell them to monetise the club but says they always ignore the advice: “I really find that admirable because I think in this day and age especially, a lot of people can’t really have hobbies without having to think about how you can make money off of it.”
Instead, they’ve gained a new network of food-loving friends. Mostly young professionals like them, but they insist cookbook club is for everyone.
Multiple people at cookbook club mention a father and daughter who attended a previous meet-up featuring Thi Le’s cookbook Việt Kiều. The daughter brought along her father hoping to reignite his love of cooking, as well as give them an experience to share, Joan says. Together they prepared bánh cuốn, a delicate north Vietnamese dish made from fermented rice batter. The whole room celebrated when chef Thi Lee complemented the dish.
“Some people mention that when they go to supper clubs or other social events there’s a lot of anxiety about people asking what you do for a living and trying to sort of figure you out,” Dom says. “But when you just talk about cooking, there’s a plethora of things you can speak about.”