Book Club Night Kit

Mediterranean All The Way

Ayesha Nurdjaja with Casey Elsass

Cozy night

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.

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.

Reading level: Easy

Best for: A club that cooks together, talks with its mouth full, and treats dinner as the discussion

Discussion

Warm-up

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 & to sip

To eat

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.