{"id":22946,"date":"2015-09-07T07:30:22","date_gmt":"2015-09-07T12:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ou.org\/life\/?p=22946"},"modified":"2016-12-05T03:55:35","modified_gmt":"2016-12-05T08:55:35","slug":"judy_bart_kancigor_summer_reading_summer_eating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/food\/cooking\/judy_bart_kancigor_summer_reading_summer_eating\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer Reading, Summer Eating"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"float: left; padding-right: 5px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/ou-images\/content\/judy_bookclub_sandwich200.jpg\" alt=\"image\" width=\"170\" height=\"236\" border=\"0\" \/><\/div>\n<p>They call it summer reading, but if you&#8217;re like me, you don&#8217;t need a season to open a book. Some credit Oprah with starting the phenomenon, but, according to Rachel Jacobsohn, author of \u201cThe Reading Group Handbook,\u201d there are approximately 500,000 book clubs in the United States, double the number since 1994. And those that combine great books with great dining come away doubly nourished by sharing ideas as they break bread together.<\/p>\n<p>Enter \u201cThe Book Club Cookbook\u201d (Penguin, $15.95), which pairs 100 popular book club selections with the recipes they inspire. Authors Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp sent thousands of surveys to book clubs across the nation to find out what they are reading and how they dine, and the response was overwhelming.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we started hearing the same book titles over and over from many different clubs, we knew those titles would make our list,\u201d said Krupp. \u201cWe also tried to balance the list by genre. We included fiction, non-fiction, history, memoir, even short stories. We included books highly recommended by African-American book clubs not found on other lists. Some L.A. Asian professionals read only books with Asian themes. Women of the West in Boulder, Colorado, read only books with an American Western woman protagonist or author.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The books are arranged alphabetically, and each section includes a brief synopsis \u2013 just enough to whet your appetite but not give away the story \u2013 a profile of a book club reading that book, and a recipe to pair with the selection: Greek Rice Pudding and Tzatziki for \u201cMiddlesex,\u201d Death by Chocolate for \u201cThe Da Vinci Code,\u201d Honey Cake for \u201cThe Secret Life of Bees.\u201d In many cases the book\u2019s author contributes a recipe or comment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe most elaborate and elegant dinner we heard about was served by The Dallas Gourmet Book Club for their discussion of \u2018Personal History\u2019 by Katherine Graham,\u201d noted Gelman. \u201cIt included champagne, wine, and Caviar Pie. The group even printed a menu to look like headline news in <i>The Washington Post<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The oldest club Gelman and Krupp found, the Wednesday Club of Fort Smith, Arkansas, has been meeting for 106 years! \u201cIt started as a literary society dedicated to self-improvement of the members,\u201d said Krupp. \u201cJust recently the women decided to stop referring to each other as \u2018Mrs.\u2019 and to start using first names. They read only nonfiction and serve dessert and coffee or tea with silver and linen napkins.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The cookbook\u2019s web site (www.bookclubcookbook.com) is an invaluable resource for readers. Want to speak personally to an author to ask those burning questions that only the author could answer? The &#8220;Invite an Author&#8221; page enables you to contact such luminaries as Chris Bohjalian, Jackie Mitchard and Kathryn Harrison for a phone discussion during your meeting. And sign up for their newsletter \u201cBook Bytes\u201d for reading suggestions and coordinating menu ideas. You\u2019ll get monthly invitations to enter drawings for free books as well.<\/p>\n<p>The book club I belong to meets every month for dinner and discussion, with the menu inspired by the book we have read. I have to admit that on more than one occasion we have selected a book based on the cuisine involved. Our group has certainly had our thirty minutes of fame: fifteen when <i>Cooking Pleasures<\/i> magazine visited and featured us in their February 2004 issue, and another fifteen when we landed in \u201cThe Book Club Cookbook\u201d with a recipe for Chicken Biryani, which we enjoyed while discussing <i>A Fine Balance<\/i> by Rohinton Mistry. I even included a version of the recipe in my family cookbook, \u201cCooking Jewish.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>My cousin, Marylyn Lamstein, belongs to a book club that has been meeting for 13 years. \u201cWe usually have a light brunch, but every June we invite the husbands for a full-blown lunch. It\u2019s always at my house because I have the room for it, and I never make the same thing twice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Last month the menu included Green Bean and Beet Salad, Three-Cheese Baked Penne with Broccoli, Mushroom Rollups Florentine with B\u00e9chamel Sauce and Asparagus Mushroom Pudding, an intriguing savory take on the classic bread pudding (recipe below). Marylyn also made a Chocolate Turtle Pie for dessert.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI do allow the others to bring desserts too,\u201d she noted. \u201cOne man makes baklava \u2013 that\u2019s his admission ticket!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The yearly event used to be a potluck, but now that her children are grown with families of their own, they\u2019ve taken over the family entertaining and Marylyn doesn\u2019t get to do it as much as she used to. \u201cI used to do the Jewish holidays, Mother\u2019s Day, etc.,\u201d she said, \u201cbut now most of the holidays have been taken away from me, so I love doing the June book club lunch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to finding new recipes, Marylyn is never at a loss, because her son and daughter-in-law are acclaimed New York kosher caterers. \u201cI baby-sit for them on weekends when they\u2019re working,\u201d she said, \u201cand after the kids go to sleep I like to look through their vast collection of recipes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jonathan and Jill Lamstein (more about them in a future column) own and operate three catering companies. \u201cJosh\u2019s Place (www.joshsplace.com) does low-key parties at home or at a synagogue,\u201d Marylyn told me. \u201cAbove and Beyond does high-end charity events as well as weddings and bar mitzvahs, and their new operation is Flavors, which caters to reform and conservative synagogues.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<div style=\"float: left; padding-right: 5px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/ou-images\/content\/judycookingjewishcover125.jpg\" alt=\"image\" width=\"125\" height=\"149\" border=\"0\" \/><\/div>\n<p><i><b>Judy Bart Kancigor<\/b> is the author of \u201cCooking Jewish: 532 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family\u201d and can be found on the web at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cookingjewish.com\">www.cookingjewish.com<\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They call it summer reading, but if you&#8217;re like me, you don&#8217;t need a season to open a book. Some credit Oprah with starting the phenomenon, but, according to Rachel Jacobsohn, author of \u201cThe Reading Group Handbook,\u201d there are approximately 500,000 book clubs in the United States, double the number since 1994. And those that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":219,"featured_media":46474,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-media","category-cooking"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Summer Reading, Summer Eating - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"According to Rachel Jacobsohn there are 500,000 book clubs in the US. \u201cThe Book Club Cookbook\u201d pairs 100 book club selections with recipes they inspire\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/food\/cooking\/judy_bart_kancigor_summer_reading_summer_eating\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Summer Reading, Summer Eating - 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