Cooking by the Book

Next Event on March 3, 2009

Last year I was fortunate to receive an invitation to one of the Cooking by the Book fundraisers for the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University (CDCCU). It ain't cheap, but it's definitely worth consideration if the $220 tab is within your budget. (A portion goes to the CDCCU.)

Cooking by the Book is a cooking event held at an unusual apartment downtown. I was especially impressed by the large professional kitchen and, uh, the shower, but here you'll have to settle for a picture of a bookshelf that includes Celiac Disease: A Hidden Epidemic by Dr. Peter Green and Rory Jones.



















But we weren't at this event to read. Before the cooking began, we were able to get to know each other over drinks, which explains the presence of the bottle to the right of the bookcase. Then we split up into teams to prepare different parts of a meal.

The theme to our feast had to do with twos. I shared quinoa duty, which involved getting some scallion-cutting practice and learning different ways to pack two colors of quinoa into a "mold" so they could be presented as one. Here you can see the packed quinoa.



















And here, on a finished plate, you can see the quinoa arranged into a kind of Oreo—oh, I mean Mi-Del chocolate sandwich cookie—formation.



















And here's the yin-yangy soup! (There were no googly eyes, but it was still yummy.)



















This event isn't just about the food—it's also about the schmooze. I enjoyed meeting other gluten-free people and those who love and support them. Some of us even reunited for lunch at Lilli and Loo!

The next Cooking by the Book is scheduled for 6:30pm on Tuesday, March 3, 2009. To find out more about attending, contact Cynthia Beckman by Monday, February 23, 2009.

EXTRA Here is Sloane "Allergic Girl" Miller's description of a 2007 Cooking by the Book event.

Photo: David Marc Fischer