A group of BYU students host a monthly dinner club where they learn new recipes each month.
The idea sparked when a new semester started and friend group dynamics were changing, mixed with the urge to try something new. The friend group of five has now extended to 20 girls who get together monthly with a themed dinner to catch up and experiment with new recipes.
Aubrey Bourne, Texas native and junior in the marketing program, started hosting a monthly dinner club at her home near the BYU campus where she invites friends to come and share a meal of new homemade recipes together.
“I had been making new friends and thought it would be a fun way to bring them all together and have an excuse to cook and eat," Bourne said. "I’m also obsessed with our backyard, the twinkle lights and the table and it felt wrong to not use the setting.”
The group all got together and this month's theme was breakfast. Bourne assigned everyone to either bring something savory or sweet. In the past they've done everything from Mexican to Mediterranean food, where each club member gets to experiment making a new food.
“I feel like as college students we always want to try new recipes and new ideas but we don’t have much time so we don’t prioritize it," Bourne said. "So it’s been fun to try something new each month and exciting to see what everyone else comes up with too.”
Every club member leads busy lives balancing school, work, family, friends and other clubs as well. The monthly meeting and assignment has been a way for all of the girls to reconnect with each other and with the skills they want to develop.
Hallie Baird, a recent BYU graduate who works as a program coordinator for the Center for the Improvement of Teacher Education and Schooling at BYU, has been a member of the club for more than three months and said she sees the opportunity as a highlight of her month.
“It’s been fun to try new foods, make new foods and get together with friends," Baird said. "I look forward to it every month and love that we have a cute backyard to eat in.”
According to an academic article by the National Library of Medicine, gathering and cooking is beneficial in more ways than just nutrition.
If psychosocial benefits of cooking interventions exist and are not because of a food's nutritional value alone, then "there may be clinical applications of cooking interventions that extend beyond using cooking as a tool to assess cognitive and physical function or to improve nutritional status.”
The dinner club has been a way for these BYU students to get together, learn something new and connect with each other.