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Credit: Joe Lingeman/Kitchn; Prop Stylist: Stephanie Yeh/Kitchn

Join the Kitchn Cookbook Club! Our First Pick Is Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat

updated Sep 6, 2019
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When I tell friends that I’m a part of a monthly cookbook club, invariably their heads turn. “What is that,” they ask. “And how can I join?” A cookbook club is just the simplest thing: a gathering of people who want to cook out of a cookbook and share food and learnings around a common table. Being part of a cookbook club has, for me, been an important way to make friends, try new recipes, and better myself as a cook. And most importantly, it’s so much fun.

For years I’ve wanted to bring a cookbook club with that sense of a big table and monthly motivation to cook something new to all of you lovely readers and followers of Kitchn. So we’re doing it! Want to join? You’re invited! We are shaping up a cookbook club that we think is pretty special and that has some extra-fun bells and whistles to make it really feel like we’re all sitting together, talking about what we loved and learned from a book.

Credit: Faith Durand
A shot from one of the last gatherings of the local cookbook club I go to.

How a Cookbook Club Works (in the Real World)

The whole point of a good cookbook club is, in my opinion, the motivation to cook something new, and then to get to eat many different things from one book.

When my friends and I do cookbook club, we pick a book, then everyone signs up for a dish, to make sure there isn’t any overlap. Then one night a month we gather for dinner to share our dishes and to discuss what we liked (and didn’t like!) about the book. Then pick another book and start over.

Obviously (and sadly) all 20 million of us can’t gather around one big table and taste one another’s food. But we can at least see and hear what the others cook, and share learnings. To do that, here is how we are inviting you to participate in our Kitchn Cookbook Club.

How to Join the Kitchn Cookbook Club

  1. Get the book! You can buy the book here or look for it at your local library.
  2. Join Kitchn Cookbook Club Facebook group. This is our private space for all of you to talk about the book, ask questions, and chat about what you’re cooking. Click here to join!
  3. Share a recipe review on Instagram and tag with #kitchncookbookclub by MONDAY SEPTEMBER 23. Make a recipe from Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Post a photo of your dish on Instagram, with a short review of the recipe in the caption. Use our #kitchncookbookclub hashtag by Monday, September 23 for inclusion on our big cookbook club page.
  4. See what everyone else cooked (and what they thought about it!) on our Cookbook Club page. We’ll pull in as many Instagram recipe reviews as we can on our big Cookbook Club page. On September 24 we’ll share our own IRL cookbook club.

IRL Bonus! But of course it’s even MORE fun if you can join up with others locally and hold your own cookbook club. If you do this, take a picture of your crew and what they cooked! Tag it with #kitchncookbookclubirl and we’ll feature at the top of our Cookbook Club page, and on Instagram.

To participate in Kitchn Cookbook Club, post a photo of the recipe you make by September 23. Don’t forget the hashtag! #kitchncookbookclub

Credit: Joe Lingeman/Kitchn; Prop Stylist: Stephanie Yeh/Kitchn

Why Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat Is Our First Cookbook Club Book Pick

All of us here at Kitchn have been fans of Samin Nosrat for a long, long time. We got her advice on <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="the%20best%20knife%20to%20buy,%20and%20we%20<a%20href=" https: target="_blank">cheered her show when it launched to huge popularity on Netflix. We even visited her home kitchen all the way back in 2012.

In the meantime, her book, an exploration of the fundamentals of cooking, has become a huge and rather unlikely hit. It’s an in-depth cookbook, focused on technique and learning, and — get this — there are no photos! Just beautiful, romantic illustrations by Wendy MacNaughton that illustrate, evocatively, everything from onions to flavors to knife skills.

The goal of cookbook club is to get you exploring something new, and we thought it would be best to start with a book that doesn’t just present new recipes but also spends a lot of time teaching the dynamics of cooking. It’s also a book that is super popular — you may already have a copy! But have you cooked out of it? This will push you to do so.

Last but not least, there are no photos in the book, so it will be extra-fun to see your photos of what you cook! So, are you in?

Get the Book

Ready to start? Join our Facebook group here, start chatting about this book, and pick out the recipe you’re going to make! I’m looking forward to cooking through this book with all of you. Visit our Cookbook Club hub page here to see what everyone is cooking.

xx
Faith, Kitchn Editor-in-Chief