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Austintown library hosts Literary Eats Book Club
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Austintown library adult services librarian Lindsay Platt said the Literary Eats Book Club has been meeting since the spring. It deals with cookbooks and attendees bring food to each meeting.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.There were plenty of books dealing with cooking and baking that were available to be checked out of the Austintown library during the Literary Eats Book Club meeting.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Adult services librarian Lindsay Platt (foreground) and the four attendees of the Literary Eats Book Club began their meeting at the Austintown library.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Janice Vitullo of Austintown looked at a book of Civil War recipes during the Literary Eats Book Club meeting at the Austintown library.
By TIM CLEVELAND
Once a month since spring, the Austintown library has hosted a Literary Eats Book Club, where area residents can come and talk about cookbooks. The most recent meeting was on Nov. 20.
“We were looking for different book club ideas and I like to read cookbooks and try different recipes and a lot of other people do too, so we thought we’d try it out,” Austintown library adult services librarian Lindsay Platt said.
Each meeting lasts about one hour. Attendees can also bring food that they’ve been working on to the meetings.
“We talk about different recipes, cookbooks that we may like, things like that,” Platt said. “We bring food, but you have to sign a waiver if you want to be in the room with it just because we can’t be liable for anybody getting sick.”
Platt said the meetings usually attract five or six people. The Nov. 20 meeting had four attendees.
“Hopefully we’ll get more. We’d like to get more,” she said.
One of the attendees was Janice Vitullo of Austintown. She said coming to the meetings is a good way to meet new people and learn new recipes.
“We’re looking forward to sharing recipes and things tonight,” she said. “It’s nice to have different perspectives on who cooks what and how.
“You get a lot of different ideas on what you can cook. Some people have favorite recipes that they’re going to be sharing and techniques. It’s nice camaraderie to talk to people who are in different employment and just to sit down and share.”
“Just being able to socialize with other people who have similar interests,” Platt said in agreement.
Coming to the meetings is also a chance to check out cookbooks from the library. Platt had several cookbooks on display during the meeting.
“I got one on Civil War cooking because I was interested in seeing how people cooked during the Civil War,” Vitullo said. “I’ll be looking for some World War II recipes as well to see what women did when there was a shortage of eggs and sugar, how they managed to cook good meals and make sweet goods for their families.”