Cook with Us: Arthur's Market Cookbook Club

Bread Is Magic

The only thing more fulfilling than cooking itself is sharing what you’ve made. That is why Arthur’s Market—a historic café and grocery in Schenectady’s Stockade District—launched their Cookbook Club. Each season, the club gathers together for a potluck party, cooking and sharing dishes from four different cookbooks.

While the club membership is filled for the year, you, too, can cook with us! Below, you’ll find stories from our most recent club gathering and a couple of recipes that we found particularly delicious. Hopefully, you, too, will find joy in great food, learning in the kitchen and coming together with friends and family. Just don’t forget to invite your internet family to the table. Share photos with #ArthursCookbookClub, and tag @arthurs1795 and @ediblecapitaldistrict518 for a chance to be featured on our accounts.

Dappled sunlight filtered across the table catching on the edges of fresh bread loaves, bathing breaded chicken thighs in golden light and lending a radiant glow to the smiling faces all around. This was the Arthur’s Market Cookbook Club’s second gathering, and it felt like magic.

In partnership with Golden Garden Parties, we set the table for a glorious picnic featuring recipes from Niskayuna-resident Alexandra Stafford’s book, Bread Toast Crumbs. Laiken Herrlett and her team at Golden Garden Parties laid beautiful settings of gray and gold, arranged flowers loosely in vases and left plenty of room for all of the dishes our club members were bringing to the party. With the Mohawk River as a sparkling backdrop and the cottonwood trees swaying gently in the breeze overhead, this could have been the scene for a small wedding, a romantic comedy or a provincial tale; however, these gorgeous settings weren’t the only magic at play.

For this picnic, each club member cooked a recipe from Ali’s book, which centers around her mother’s famous Peasant Bread. It’s this recipe that is so powerful. With nothing more than flour, salt, water and yeast, Ali shows her reader that they can transform the simplest ingredients into something incredible…fresh bread! Ali writes, “This recipe inspired many who had deemed bread baking an impossibility to give it a try…” There it is—the magic of discovering that you, too, are capable.

In this way, Ali embodies the ethos of our club…discovering, learning and coming together through food. In cooking from Bread Toast Crumbs for our picnic, we discovered (or rediscovered) our own baking abilities, learned how to apply this kitchen prowess to delicious dishes and gathered to share in our own and each other’s successes. This party was spectacular, and we hope that you find cooking from Ali’s empowering book brings a bit of magic to you and your friends, too!

Here is Ali’s famous Peasant Bread recipe as well as two of our favorite recipes enjoyed at our picnic.

ArthursMarket.com
GoldenGardenParties.com
AlexandraCooks.com