While some traipse around town trying new bistros or cafés, with a splotchy hit-or-miss record of likes or disappointments, some young Malaysians have been quietly carrying on a foodie club of gastronomic exploration – with both delicious and hilarious results but also unexpected benefits.

If experience is anything to go by, regular Malaysian potluck parties often produce muted affairs of five people bringing potato salad, while one adventurous soul brings the roast beef (which is finished in minutes), and many resignedly fill up on crisps and punch or shandy.

But that’s not the case for the Cookbook Club, which ups the ante when it comes to said potluck parties.

“I’m really surprised more Malaysians are not doing cookbook clubs because the potluck culture here is the norm,” says Sammi Lim, 33.

“I don’t know anyone else doing a cookbook club, but I also can’t take credit for it – it was my ex-colleague Karin Chan who proposed it five years ago.”

Chan had said to her: “You look like the kind of person who would try something new but let’s try this only if we gather enough people”, and Lim didn’t hesitate.

“I was very excited by it. It just so happened that my New Year’s resolution that year was to cook more.

“I do cafe-hop but there is something very cosy about cooking and dining with friends in a home.”

The idea is simple, wonderful and perhaps mildly terrifying to some but also exciting to many home cooks who relish a challenge.

Usually, Lim and Chan choose a cookbook, assign a recipe to club members – it could be anyone, a friend or even a friend of a friend – and members cook the dish and gather at either Lim’s or Chan’s home, and chow down.

“Our ‘makan’ sessions usually end with us playing board or card games – it’s all good innocent fun,” chuckles Lim.

It’s not all fun and games, though.

“Every single one of us has had at least one bad day at Cookbook Club, where our recipe just did not turn out the way we wanted,” she laughs.

“But they are such a sweet and supportive group of people, to the point where even if something is bad, no one will say that it’s bad.”

Lim adds that the members will just say something along the lines of “oh, maybe you could have done it differently”, and relates the time her boyfriend made blue macaroni and cheese, which remained untouched.

Lim recalls her own experience of making mochi (a Japanese rice cake made of mochigome, a short-grain japonica glutinous rice), which requires a lot of pounding.

She only realised how much pounding was required to break down the fibers – as demonstrated by the Japanese masters – after her kitchen was littered with remnants of failed mochi, which was supposed to be wonderfully chewy yet was anything but.

“The only saving grace was that the core of the mochi was Nutella, but Karin’s mum popped one of my mochis in her mouth and made a face,” she laughs.

“Everyone else was so polite but Auntie’s face was honest.”

She would like to think that she has improved her cooking skills but so have others, she says generously.

Cooking skills were not the only thing that saw growth, as the little club continues to expand – slowly but surely.

The club, which started off with less than a dozen numbers who tried out Jamie Oliver’s recipe books as well as Nigella Lawson’s five years ago, now has as many as 15 people in one cooking-and-dining session.

She relates the story of a computer programmer who, against all assumptions, turned out to be a very passionate member of the Cookbook Club.

And in case one might think that it’s just the ladies who do this, Lim quickly dispels all preconceived notions.

“Oh, yes, there are guys who are eager to join! And we welcome anyone to be part of the group,” she says.

Despite the fact that the Cookbook Club’s last session took place in 2020, before the Movement Control Order (MCO), Lim is not going to close the lid on this club.

She and Chan are already planning another session for when it is safe to do so. After all, there are many unexpected benefits to the club.

Aside from members consciously practising sustainability by bringing their own crockery and cutlery, as well as the support and camaraderie of like-minded enthusiasts, Lim reveals one of the most important takeaway – quite literally.

“There is always enough food left over each session for all of us to ‘tapau’ for two more meals at home!”