Bridget was already driving when anxiety set in.

Beside her sat a container of gochujang orecchiette topped with little pieces of burrata, crisped pancetta and furikake pangrattato. she was so focused on preparing the dish she hadn’t thought about what would come next. “I was like, ‘Oh cool, I get to cook, I get to share food, ohhh hang on’,” she says.”I hadn’t actually thought about the social element.”

Bridget is a first timer at Cookbook Club Naarm, a monthly event where strangers carefully prepare a recipe from the same cookbook then come together to feast. 

Today’s cookbook is Lucky Dragon Supper Club by Sydney-based Stephanie Feher,a self-proclaimed “home cook” and “dinner party enthusiast”.

On a warm Sunday evening, Bridget is milling about a long trestle table crammed with food in an industrial-style bakery in Collingwood, Melbourne. She has just met Saloni, who’s prepared a shredded potato stir-fry. Saloni jokes that cookbook club is an “introverts dream”. 

“You’ve got a conversation starter: ‘What did you bring?'” Abby, (XO egg fried rice), chimes in.But cookbook Club Naarm is more than an affordable foodie get-together: it’s a reminder that food tastes best when it’s shared and made with love.

Founders Joan Tran and Dominique Lonsdale were losing touch with each other when Cookbook Club Naarm was born in July 2024. Joan “was feeling a bit lonely” after living interstate and Dom was searching for people who would

Kon Karapanagiotidis shares family story through food and advocates for welcome

Kon Karapanagiotidis, founder of the asylum Seeker Resource Center, recently spoke to the Melbourne Greek Club about his new book, a vegetarian reimagining of Greek classics. He was the first author to attend.

“The title of the book in Greek means to welcome a stranger, it means love for the stranger,” Kon told the club.

Kon’s book is a way to preserve his family’s story, he says: “My grandparents on my father’s side were refugees fleeing a genocide; my mum and dad came to this country as migrants, leaving a life of poverty. I was the first to even go to high school in my family, and I understood just how fragile freedom and safety is, that in reality we simply win the lottery of time and place.”

Kon’s message is simple: “All of us deserve a seat at the table, to be loved, to be seen and to be welcome.”

“For every migrant and refugee that comes to this country,food is the way in which we have our social armour,it’s our invitation to people to be curious about our cultures,to connect. It’s how we get seen, as much as it shouldn’t take that, it’s how we find a place to be safe. and I wanted to tell a story through food about the importance of welcome and about community and about compassion and about love.”