A short solo episode this week to tell you about two things I’ve done with friends that you might want to tweak, steal, borrow, or try.

1) Cookbook club

On one Sunday a month, I would get together with a group of other women to cook, eat, and chat. We did that together for six years.

It all started when Maree put a group up on Meetup.com called Too Many Cooks. She said in the group blurb that she wanted to do more cooking and eating with other people. In February 2016 we had our first meetup in a bar in a (very) Melbourne laneway, where those of us who turned up nutted out how the monthly meetups would work. This group became the founding group.

Each month someone from our group would offer to be the host, and they would pick that month’s cookbook. Everyone would cook at least one recipe from that book and we’d bring it to the host’s house ready for the Sunday lunch.

A few logistics…

• Yes, there was always some reheating/final cooking or assembly that had to be done at the host’s house, so oven space, timings, and saucepan allocation was some fun negotiation that often had to happen!

• If not everyone had a copy of the cookbook (which was usually the case), people would source it from the library, or swap copies with each other beforehand (a lot of books were purchased off the back of these meetups)

• The next event was always set at the previous event (because it’s easier to work out diaries when everyone’s together)

• We chose Sundays because it gave everyone Saturday to do the shopping, planning, and cooking, plus a group lunch on Sundays had a nice nostalgic feeling about it

• Everyone was allowed a leave pass where if they just couldn’t do the cooking for that month, they could just come and eat and hang out with no judgement

• Bringing Tupperware to take the leftovers home was non-negotiable, there were always leftovers

• Hosting happened in small apartments huddled around tables and squished onto sofas or makeshift tables, to family homes full of kids’ toys and cat or dog hair. I loved how relaxed everyone was for hosting other people, who for those first few meetups were total strangers

• On that, people’s addresses weren’t published on the meetup group page, we moved all the communication to a private facebook messenger group that only regular members could see

A couple of mini-rituals evolved over the years…

• Every March (the anniversary month) we’d do a ‘best of’ the previous year, where we’d revisit favourite books (usually Ottolenghi books) and/or recipes

• Every December we’d go out for a group dinner somewhere nice and have someone cook for us for a change

As with most things, all of this carried on because we found a rhythm and routine that worked for us, and kept doing it. It mostly faded to a close because of covid lockdowns keeping us apart combined with people moving further away, and/or people having babies. By the end, all but one of the core group had been members since the very beginning. There were members who we’d only see maybe once or twice a year, and others that drifted over the years due to moving away, work changes, or just other commitments.

This group is how I met my good friend Emily, who I now do all kinds of fun camping, hiking, and other active adventures with. We ended up living in each others’ 5km ‘bubbles’ during covid so started hanging out outside of the Too Many Cooks meetups that were more sporadic during 2020/21, and realised we liked hanging out more often than just one Sunday a month.

Four years on and I still think really fondly of the time with this group of women, and how successful it was. I love that we did it for so long, even though it didn’t last forever (it doesn’t need to last forever to be a success of course), and that we got to share so much food and fun conversation. It’s a great blueprint and whenever I mention it to other people, it’s always something they love the idea of.

2) Annual bingo

A couple of years ago I made a bingo card for the year which included a selection of fun things I wanted to do during the year. There were things like ride a horse, play pool, make smores over a fire, go to 8 new gelato shops, and more…

Super simple, pretty fun to create and to do. The thing I liked the most about it was that during the year friends would ask to do something from the card, or ask what was left on the card to use that as a way of catching up. Unsurprisingly, the item of trying multiple new gelato shops was a particularly popular request (and one that a few friends’ kids took equally as seriously).

The point wasn’t necessarily to complete the card (although that would have been cool), but more use it to mix up ways of catching up with friends.

Interestingly I did one this year, but felt less inclined to share or complete the items on it (I’ve actually just dug it out as I couldn’t remember anything on there!). You could do a themed ones of these, I saw Danielle Taschereau Mamers on LinkedIn post about having a summer bingo card, which I thought was a nice idea because it contains the activities into a shorter period, which might help them have momentum with friends, which could also encourage you all to make it more of a collective bingo card for a summer.

I’d love to know if there’s anything you’ll be experimenting with from this episode. Let me know by replying to this from your inbox, or commenting in Substack: https://howtofriend.substack.com/