Cookbook Club

Register and learn more: https://berlinpeck.org/events/cookbook-club-2026-03-23/

Do you enjoy flipping through cookbooks to decide what to make?
Do you search through recipes for inspiration?
Come join our monthly book club, featuring cookbooks! Just register, pick a recipe from the specified cookbook, make the dish on your own, and then gather for a feast. While you eat, you can discuss the cookbook, its recipes and the process of choosing what to make and how to make it. We will aim to evenly distribute the recipes among starters and sides, main courses, and desserts.
You do not need to be an experienced cook, just an enthusiastic one!

How Do I Participate?
Register for the program.
Visit the Adult Reference Desk to view the cookbook and pick a recipe. Some copies are available to borrow.
Let us know which recipe you picked. You can call, email, or visit in person.
Then bring in your dish for a fun potluck!

About the Book
This month’s cookbook is Mostly Plants: 101 Delicious Flexitarian Recipes from the Pollan Family by Tracy, Dana, Lori, and Corky Pollan, with a foreword by The Omnivore’s Dilemma author Michael Pollan.
“Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” With these seven words, Michael Pollan—brother of Lori, Dana, and Tracy Pollan, and son of Corky—started a national conversation about how to eat for optimal health. A decade later, the value of a plant-based diet is widely accepted—and yet for many people, easier said than done.
So what does choosing “mostly plants” look like in real life? In families where not everyone is on the same vegetarian page the word “mostly” is key. The point isn’t necessarily to give up meat entirely but to build a diet that shifts the ratio of animal to plants to create delicious—and nutritious—meals sure to appeal to everyone.
There has never been a better time to cook with vegetables—and to move plants to the center of the American plate. Even if plants weren’t the better choice for your health, they make the case for themselves purely on the basis of deliciousness.
This approach to eating—also known as a flexitarian diet—strikes the best balance on our plates between flavor and pleasure, and nutrition and sustainability. In Mostly Plants, readers will find inventive and unexpected ways to focus on cooking with vegetables—dishes such as Crispy Kale and Potato Hash with Fried Eggs; Tandoori Chicken and Vegetable Sheet Pan Supper; Salmon Farro Bowl; and Roasted Tomato Soup with Gruyere Chickpea “Croutons”. Here are recipes that keep the spotlight on the vegetables, at a time when the quality of fresh produce has never been better.
In Mostly Plants readers will find recipes that satisfy or can be adapted to almost all dietary needs; vegetarian, vegan, gluten free, and dairy free. And the best part: many of these dishes can be on the table in 35 minutes or less! With skillet-to-oven recipes, sheet pan suppers, one-pot meals and more, this is real cooking for real life: meals that are wholesome, delectable—and mostly plants.