Cozy night
Mediterranean All The WayBook club questions, food & host guide
Ayesha Nurdjaja with Casey Elsass
#7 New York Times Bestseller
1 week on the list
A cozy book club night for Mediterranean All The Way by Ayesha Nurdjaja with Casey Elsass. Includes 8 spoiler-free discussion questions, food and drink pairings, a playlist, and a host guide, ready to print and share.
A club that cooks together, talks with its mouth full, and treats dinner as the discussion
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Ayesha Nurdjaja's debut cookbook is a sun-soaked tour of the Mediterranean through one chef's layered heritage, where spice, citrus, and char do the talking. It reads like a friend handing you her kitchen notebook, which makes it a dream for a club that likes to cook and linger.
Why it works for clubs
- Every recipe carries a story, so the table talk writes itself
- The Mediterranean here is wide (North Africa, the Levant, Italy, Spain), which invites comparison of family food traditions
- Heritage and identity thread through the cooking, not just the headnotes
- Easy to divide up: each member claims a recipe and the club eats its way through the book
Themes & mood
Browse all themes →Reading level
Easy
Warm-up questions
- 1 Flip to the recipe you dog-eared first. What made you stop on that page, and have you actually made it yet?
- 2 Which smell from this book do you most want in your house on a cold evening: toasting spices, warm bread, garlic in olive oil, or citrus peel?
Digging in
- 1 Nurdjaja draws on a mixed heritage and a wide Mediterranean. Did reading her move you to think about the mixed food map in your own family, and what lives on it?
- 2 This book is unembarrassed about olive oil, salt, lemon, and char. Which of those did you feel permission to use more freely after reading, and did that feel freeing or a little reckless?
- 3 Some recipes here are built for feeding a crowd. Who did you picture at your table while reading, and what did that daydream feel like?
- 4 The headnotes carry a chef's voice: direct, warm, a little bossy. Did having someone speak to you that way in the kitchen comfort you or make you nervous?
Going deep
- 1 Cookbooks like this ask you to trust a stranger with your dinner. Where in the book did you feel most trusted as a cook, and where did you feel most out of your depth, and what did each do to your confidence?
- 2 By the last pages, had your sense of what Mediterranean cooking means shifted or widened? Sit with where it landed, and what you want to carry into your own kitchen from here.
On the table
A warm spread board: labneh or whipped feta, good olive oil, za'atar, and pita blistered in a dry pan
Dips and warm bread are the heart of this book's hospitality, and it is almost no work: let people tear and dunk while they settle in.
A big baked pasta or slow-roasted chickpeas with tomato, cumin, and preserved lemon
Comfort-food heft with the book's spice-and-citrus backbone. One pan, one spoon, feeds everyone, nobody has to plate anything.
Orange and olive oil cake with honeyed yogurt
Mediterranean sweetness done gently, and it is even better made the day before, which is the whole point of a cozy night.
To sip
Mint tea poured tall and sweet
No alcohol
The classic North African welcome and the warmest thing you can hand someone at the door. Fully non-alcoholic and endlessly refillable.
Hot spiced orange and cinnamon infusion (lemon wedge optional)
No alcohol
Citrus peel and warm spice, the two notes that run through the whole book, in a mug you can hold with both hands.
A chilled coastal white or rose, poured generously
Crisp, saline, a touch of lemon. Keep the bottle on the table so nobody has to ask.
Low-lit and lamp-warm: oud and nylon strings, soft percussion, voices that sound like someone cooking in the next room.
- 01 Hal Asmar Ellon - Fairuz
- 02 Fiyya - Souad Massi
- 04 Mediterranean Sundance - Al Di Meola and Paco de Lucia
- 05 Lili Twil - Bachar Mar-Khalife
- 06 Tam Tam - Mashrou' Leila
- 08 Dina - Rodrigo Leao
Tap a track to play it. Full songs play when you're signed into Spotify.
Run of show
6:45
Door, tea, slippers off
Mint tea in hand before anyone takes a coat off. Spread board already out so there is no hovering.
7:00
Dog-ear show and tell
Everyone opens to the page they marked and says one sentence about why. Easiest possible warm-up and it maps the room.
7:20
Everyone eats
Serve the baked main family-style. Talk happens over plates, not across a table of empty hands.
7:50
Heritage kitchen round
Run the theme questions here, slowly. Let tangents about grandmothers and burnt first attempts go long.
8:25
Cake, honey, and the deep two
Dessert and the two closing questions together. Lower the lights a notch, top up the tea.
8:50
Pick next month's recipe
Each person claims a recipe from the book to actually cook before next time. Scorecards and bookmarks go home with them.
Host tips
- Cook one thing from the book yourself and let the rest be store-bought or potluck. The point is the table, not a test.
- Keep the book open on the counter and let people wander over to it mid-conversation. A cookbook club works better standing up than seated in a circle.
- Have a spoon and small bowls out for tasting. People talk more honestly about food they are actively eating.
You're invited
Come Eat Your Way Across the Mediterranean (Socks Encouraged)
We are reading Ayesha Nurdjaja's Mediterranean All The Way and taking it seriously enough to cook from it. Bring your dog-eared pages, your appetite, and nothing else.
Trivia
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1
Who is Ayesha Nurdjaja's co-writer on this cookbook?Answer: Casey Elsass.
-
2
Which New York City restaurant is Nurdjaja best known as the chef of?Answer: Shuka, in SoHo.
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3
Is this Nurdjaja's first cookbook?Answer: Yes, it is her debut.
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4
The book's Mediterranean stretches well beyond one country. Name two regions its cooking draws on.Answer: Any two of: North Africa, the Levant, Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey.
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5
Za'atar, used widely in this style of cooking, is a blend typically built around which three elements?Answer: Dried wild thyme or oregano, sesame seeds, and sumac (plus salt).
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6
What does the spice sumac contribute to a dish?Answer: A bright, tart, lemony sourness.
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7
Harissa, a staple of North African cooking, originates primarily from which country?Answer: Tunisia.
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8
What is labneh?Answer: Strained yogurt, thick enough to spread or scoop like a soft cheese.
Bookmarks
Cozy night
Lamp-lit calm
Warm bread, cold night, nowhere else to be.
Mediterranean All The Way
Cozy night
Simple generosity
Olive oil, lemon, salt. The rest is company.
Mediterranean All The Way
Cozy night
Kitchen comfort
Toast the spices. Let the whole house know.
Mediterranean All The Way
Rate the book
Coziness factor
Recipes I will actually make
Stories in the headnotes
Spice and warmth
Made me want to feed someone
One word for this book:
The recipe I am making first:
A smell this book put in my head:
Print pack
- Question cards on kraft stock, one per index card, for passing around the table
- Recipe claim slips so each member signs up for a dish to cook next time
- Tent-fold place cards with a spice name instead of a seat number
- Printable bookmarks, three per sheet, to send home in everyone's copy
- A one-page scorecard with a tea-ring stain border
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