Cookbook Club celebrates new cuisine,
connections and community
By Kendra Walker / photo by Robby Lloyd
The Center for the Arts’ Cookbook Club is a collaborative, potluck-style event that brings friends, neighbors and strangers together to celebrate culinary creativity and friendly connection. Each month features a new cookbook, and participants pick a recipe from the book to make, bring the dish to share and enjoy together over a meal.
“It’s a communal dinner party. People show up with their dishes, we pour the wine and we all dig in buffet-style. It’s so lovely,” says Center for the Arts program director Natalie Pfister Riha.
The club began in the fall of 2024 as an opportunity to bring community members together for a meal. “The biggest reason we started it is because it allows for community connection,” says Pfister Riha. The Center offers a variety of foodie events and meals during its annual summer Wine and Food Festival, but Pfister Riha quickly realized that people were eager for similar offerings all throughout the year. “They’re really looking for more culinary opportunities that include that community connection point,” she says.
The concept of Cookbook Club is simple – each month features a different cookbook, everyone signs up for a recipe to make ahead of time and brings it to the club for one big collaborative potluck meal. The cookbook is always available at Townie Books for purchase, and the Center also has a copy on hand for participants to look through prior to the monthly meetup. The club typically takes place at the Center, but has also been held at Townie Books and RMBL 365. Pfister Riha says she hopes to build on those community partnerships and host the club at different spaces throughout the year.
Pfister Riha explains that the format allows for people to drop in on a month-to-month basis. “It’s easy access, low-risk, high-reward,” she says. “I wanted to create that community but also allow people to come as much or as little as they are able.”
Pfister Riha often selects each month’s book based on a theme, such as highlighting a black chef for Black History Month, or a book on ski snacks and après treats for a winter month. Pfister Riha also takes suggestions from participants when selecting the next round of books. “I try to make it a little bit of a communal process in selecting books for the year.”
She also looks to vary the books between newly published works, easy go-to recipes and challenges that might take participants a bit out of their comfort zone.
“I try to balance the selections between things we’ll want to do all the time and things that push us outside our box. These cookbooks help stretch us, and look at a different perspective or culture that isn’t our go-to cuisine. Part of coming to the club is having that challenge presented to them.”
Pfister Riha reflects on a past cookbook with very complicated recipes and challenging ingredients. “Some of the ingredients are impossible to get here. I remember one of our regulars was so committed to his recipe and drove all the way to Grand Junction to procure goat for the meal!”
Participants range from full-time locals, to part-timers, to visitors here for an extended stay. “We have our strong group of die-hard regulars who literally come to every single one. It’s really become this space for friends new and old to gather together,” says Pfister Riha. “And then we always have new people. It’s fun when new community members utilize it as a way to meet people in the valley.”
The community connection is instantly apparent at each Cookbook Club gathering – participants have formed friendships beyond the monthly meetups, organizing ski or hiking dates, and regulars offer warm welcome to newcomers. Conversations flow around their experiences (or sometimes cooking mishaps) trying the new recipes, favorite family meals and excitement for the next month’s featured book. Folks even offer to gather hard-to-find spices or ingredients for others when they know they’re passing through a larger city before the next meetup.
And even if a recipe doesn’t quite work out, everyone agrees on the shared learning experience, takes time to appreciate the cookbook author’s intentions, enjoys the meal together anyway and divvies up the leftovers. Everyone goes home with bellies full, satisfied and smiling.
“At the end of the day, everybody just wants to make a meal and share it together,” says Pfister Riha. “We all need that now more than ever. We often get into our own routines and don’t always have that chance to spend time with others. Sure, you can meet someone on a chairlift or talk with people at a bar, but gathering around a meal is just a different point of connection. Cookbook Club has acted as this really lovely gathering space.”
To learn more about the next Cookbook Club event, visit crestedbuttearts.org.
