Simple Joys: Cooking Club in June

A few months ago I attended a women’s event with Marcia and her friends at Brookside Church. It was a fun event filled with lots of girl time and pretty decorations to see. At the event they had Shauna Niequist speak. She is an author and a very entertaining speaker. She talked about her newest book Bread and Wine. In the book she shares her personal stories of how God uses friendship around a dinner table to do His best work.

After the event I read the book and I loved every minute! It had amazing stories and actual recipes I could use. I had a hard time putting the book down. Shauna talked about how she started a cooking club with her friends and God did amazing work in their lives together. It was a book that went from my nightstand to my kitchen and into my heart. Everyone should read this book! Click here to see a video from Shauna on cooking clubs!

Once I finished the book I decided I wanted to start a cooking club. In the book Shauna talks about how we don’t need to be “perfect” in order to do start something new. This really helped inspire me because I have thought of doing something like this before but thought I don’t have everything “perfect” yet. My kitchen is too small, my house is a mess, we are all busy…. the list goes on and on. With the help from this book I threw those excuses out the window and I emailed my girlfriends. All of my friends were on board and they were all super excited about it!

Last month we met at a Paradise Café to figure out details and brainstorm ideas. On Tuesday we had our first official cooking club. I hosted and we had a summer sun theme and also it was Rachel’s birthday. Our menu included smoked salmon, stuffed mushrooms, strawberry spinach salad, fruit kabobs, rice, chocolate cover strawberries, lemon glazed angel food cake, and three very yummy wines. Needless to say we all rolled home!

Here are our pictures from the fun night!