Rules of Engagement
Everyone has lots of questions when they want to join this cookbook club. I thought I'd just put them down here so that they can be referred to whenever you want.
(no, I don’t particularly care for the show)
How often do you guys pick a book?
Once a month, we pick a book to cook out of.
How do you decide what book will be picked? Can I give my suggestions too?
Short answer: There are soooo many ways we’ve picked books in the past and we will continue to think up fun ways in the future too. So yes, you can definitely give your suggestions.
Loooooong answer: We prefer international cuisines (and publications) because we think regional Indian cuisine is better documented through blogs and videos and that regional Indian cookbooks often end up being a disappointment rather than a pleasure to cook out of. Happy to be proven wrong on this one.
That said, most of us on this group ARE of Indian origin and cook Indian food pretty much through the week, so a break from it + an interest in continuously learning something new in the kitchen is something that we greatly appreciate.
We've typically been picking books that are newly published. But there always is the slighter older publication that's oh-so-famous-we-cant-not-cook-out-of-it.
We've been trying different ways to pick a book.Until 2021, I used to suggest a book myself and that's what we'd go with. But as the number of people on the group started increasing, it seemed only fair to ask everyone's opinions.
In 2022, I'd ask for suggestions, but the decision would still be mine. In many cases, I wouldn't even get suggestions. Ouch.
In 2023, we thought it would be fun to pick authors/chefs instead of a single book. So we'd pick a person every month and do recipes from any of their books. David Lebovitz or Nigella Lawson, for instance. But it was overwhelming. Sometimes, we struggle to pick a recipe from a list of 75 from a single book. Now think of 5 books, haha.
In 2024, we realized we'd end up talking about a few books every few weeks. So we thought, why not make a poll with these books? And see how that works. So, that's what we did. We'd make a poll on WhatsApp with those books and everyone would vote. And the book with the highest votes would be our pick for the next month. We'd share epubs or images of selected content or snippets of interesting bits that would help us decide, in advance - so people could make an educated choice. But how often was it actually that? Enough to prompt us to think of another way to pick books.
2025, we quickly gathered a list of 12 people from the group for the year. And used a randomizer to assign a month to each of them. Now, that person gets to pick a book for the month. 5 months in, it seems to be going pretty well.
How often must one cook?
It would be nice to cook at least one thing from the book that has been picked for the month. Even though we're not trained chefs, we do take having picked a book quite seriously. The idea is to learn and to expand our repertoire (oooh, fancy word) beyond (regional) Indian cooking.
Also, if you’ve just newly joined the group, perhaps being the enthu cutlet who cooks in the first three months would help us understand whether you’re truly interested in being part of the group or joined just for some social capital (or whatever else).
All that said, you can cook as often as you want from the book that we've picked for the month (like, even several months afterwards, if there's a recipe you really liked, nothing stopping you from doing that. :) )
Do I need to buy the book every month?
Nope. One or more of us usually has a hard copy of the book. Several others purchase the book or e-book (a link is shared), if they want to. If we stay in the same building/neighbourhood or close by, we usually find a way to share the book. We have also exchanged screenshots/images over Whatsapp in the past. If you’re still unable to get access to the content, feel free to get in touch with one of us, and we’re usually more than happy to figure something out.
How do I share what I've cooked on social media?
We make sure what has been cooked makes it to our Instagram account one way or another:
you post it from your account and tag us and we repost it
or you do an "add as collaborator" post
or we post on behalf of you, full credit given, obviously.
Is this virtual? Or do you physically meet every month?
Folks on our group live in different cities (countries even!). So we cook for our own families. And meet over a potluck meal ONLY when we can (life events, schedule willing)
This used to be an in-person cookbook club until the pandemic. After the pandemic, we were geographically spread out so physically meeting up didn't make sense at all, of course. However, if you have like-minded people on the group who are in the same city as you are in, feel free to plan a 'potluck' lunch/dinner whenever you like. These meals are such a great way to get together and share our thoughts about how our experiences were, aren't they? There's enough banter (sometimes meaningful) on the group all the time anyway.
And you know what's the sweetest bit? A lot of us haven't even ever met each other. We've just connected over discussions around good food. And it's a very very joyous feeling.
Since many books picked are international cuisines, can we easily source ingredients? Or do we need to buy expensive stuff every month?
It’d be a shame to expect everyone to buy fancy ingredients every month. And it’s not a sustainable option at all.
We consciously pick books that people will be able to use best with things they already have in their pantries or can source from their local vegetable/fruit/meat vendor.
Else, we’re always game to find meaningful and economical substitutes. In many newer books, authors (themselves) mention substitutes and ways their recipes can be tweaked!
Lots of examples:
In January 2025, we cooked from a book about Thai food, all ingredients very easily available in India... In fact, all things we’re likely to have in our pantries already.
In February 2025, for The Gaza Kitchen, we noticed it has many ingredients that we normally use in Indian cooking. A couple of spices like za’atar or sumac, several of us did have from when we’ve travelled. But they ARE things that can be procured easily and inexpensively. Besides, there were plenty of recipes that didn’t use any fancy ingredients.
For March, we cooked from Mi Cocina - Mexican cuisine.
Basic ingredients are all things we’d get at our local vendors.
Some dishes featured a variety of red chillies. So, some of us bought some to try, out of our own interest - it was not compulsory at all.
Tortillas, tostadas and tamales also use masa. Some of us already had it handy. Som others wanted to know what the deal with masa tortillas was, so they bought some. But the book has recipes for yeasted flour tortillas and recipes that don’t need to be enjoyed with any form of masa at all - and folks who didn’t want to buy specialty ingredients for just one cook chose to do those. ANd trust me, they had PLENTY of options to pick from.
How active do I have to be in the group?
That's a difficult question, to be honest.
There are people who end up being there in conversations every day and cook as well.
There are people who aren't active/present in many of the things that end up being spoken about but show up every few days and DO end up talking. And also cook a lot.
There are some who don't cook very much and don't talk very much at all either.
And there are some who don't cook at all and don't talk at all either, which makes us wonder why they chose to join in the first place.
How active you want to be is up to you, to be honest. It's not like you (or anyone for that matter) can always be cooking and always be part of every single thing that is being talked about. Sometimes you may not even be near your phone, sometimes you'll see it and you'd rather just choose to stay quiet because you don't know anything.
As long as the intent is right, it shows in your actions and conversation. And that’s what matters.
Also, please see the question “How often must one cook?”
I’m vegetarian. Will I be able to cook from the books you pick?
Yes!
I don’t think we go out of our way to pick books with a specific food preference - vegetarian only, vegan only (shudder, but that’s just me, I guess… no offence to any vegans reading this).
I don’t think we’ve picked books that focus on any one particular cooking technique either - air fryer only, instant pot only - though we’re not averse to the idea of something like a book that helps us learn about grilling techniques or churrasco or noodle making - you DO see the difference, yeah?
But, coming back to the question at hand, yes, it’s totally okay to be vegetarian. And every book WILL have vegetarian fare that you can pick and choose to cook.
In fact, there have been times that a non-vegetarian recipe has felt interesting enough for vegetarian folk on the group to give their vegetarian spin to it - tender coconut instead of prawns for a ceviche, a Thai curry with mixed veg instead of meat/chicken… And don’t worry, if you’re confused and need a suggestion on how you can improvise a dish that uses meat as a vegetarian dish, just ask us on the group and someone or the other should jump in to help you out.
Anything else I need to be worried about?
While we don't pressure anybody to cook every single month, 5-6 months of being inactive in conversations and not cooking WILL result in you being removed from the group.
You can always follow us on Instagram or message one of us personally and we'll be happy to add you back. But if you've shown an interest in participation, it counts to participate, rather than just be a silent member (and oft times non-contributor).
If you have been removed from the group or have taken a break and want to get back, please message one of us personally or on Instagram and we’ll add you back. There have been several occasions when people have taken a break and come back to the group. And there have been times that people have been told they’re not doing very much to be a part of the group and have then panic-done the base minimum to stick around (it’s not something that is appreciated at all and is noted and, at the risk of being pricey about it, they are removed from the group, soon enough.)
It is very important to add that all of us have had personal setbacks, health reasons or otherwise or have not had the physical capacity or been in the right frame of mind to cook. And that's okay. All you need to do is message one of us that you will not be able to for a few months. And that's totally okay. No questions asked. Your time off is fully respected.
Also, most of us have day jobs. Cooking interesting and different cuisines DOES involve effort. Putting in that time over the weekend (just one day of the month) is an effort that would be greatly appreciated. If you are unsure of putting in the time/effort/commitment, you can rethink your interest levels for this and get back in touch in a few months.
Contributing positively to this space is something we respect tremendously. So, even if what you've read above seems harsh, please do understand we are doing it because we value the consistent interest shown by the people in the group.
If you’ve come to this page, read everything, are still not turned off by the idea, haven’t gotten in touch with us before and want to be part of our little group, just fill this form out and we’ll take things from there.
https://forms.gle/TpfmeBaGCRieeGVn7
(You might think it’s long but it’s one way of separating the wheat from the chaff.)