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By Joe GrayChicago Tribune

If you like the idea of joining a book club but would really rather not debate pacing and charac-ter development in the lat-est best-selling novel over overly garlicky spinach dip, there’s another option: a cookbook club.

In a cookbook club, you still get to see friends while gathering to commune over and discuss a book. But the food is better. And you don’t have to read that 350-pager (that no one ever gets through). If you’re doing it right, you are read-ing the book, but it’s faster. And it’s still a joy if the au-thor has a story to tell, like my group’s first choice, the wonderful “Taste of Persia” by Naomi Duguid.

Participating in such a club also forces you to cook from the cookbooks you buy. How many have you bought and never got-ten around to trying? See? And you get to have a din-ner party at a table full to groaning, but you only made one dish.

You’ll try books you may not have considered pick-ing up. Along with the title above, my group of six friends has cooked: “Ad Hoc at Home,” Thomas Keller’s supposedly more approachable effort but still highly chef-y; “Vietnamese Home Cooking,” the second cookbook by Slanted Door chef/owner Charles Phan; and “Smitten Kitchen Ev-ery Day” by Deb Perelman. Dorie Greenspan’s just-released “Everyday Dorie: The Way I Cook” is next.

Books from this season I would nominate for future club dinners include: “Carla Hall’s Soul Food” by former “The Chew” co-host Carla Hall; the widely praised “Season” by Nik Sharma; my friend Chandra Ram’s upcoming “The Complete Indian Instant Pot Cook-book” (OK, not all of us have an Instant Pot, so that might get vetoed); and “Zahav” au-thor Michael Solomonov’s latest “Israeli Soul.”

To get you started, here are some things we’ve learned along the way:

• How to communi-cate: We use email. The string can get long, but we manage. But, if you’re the super-organized type, cre-ate an online Google doc.

• Keep it small: I laughed when I read advice to make cookbook groups 25 members. What an or-ganizational nightmare. Limit your group to six to eight people: It’s large enough to try a number of dishes in a book but small enough to manage the din-ner party.

• Not a potluck: You’ll consult one another and pick a range of dishes across appetizers, entree, sides and desserts. A pot-luck means you end up with the luck of the draw. This is not that.

• Challenge your-self: A member of another cookbook club told me her fellow cook-the-bookers all avoid harder dishes. I don’t get it. This is the time to at-tempt something tricky or a new technique. You’re not cooking the entire menu, so you have more time, and should the dish fail, you have friends with whom to commiserate — and maybe curse the author.

• Knock down bar-riers: Make it easy to get together. Be reasonable about how often you’ll meet. Monthly sounds like a death knell. How about bimonthly? Or quarterly?

• Where to meet: We take turns hosting at one another’s condos and houses. No one cares if it’s a tight squeeze or if we eat standing around the kitch-en counter.

• Choosing the book: Let the host choose. As-suming all of you have similar goals, no one is going to pick something wild like Rene Redzepi’s moss-dominant “Noma.” Also, the choice should be about discovery for every member. I would love to have our group cook from my friend Robin Mather’s “The Feast Nearby,” but I

know that book already.• Getting the book: We

all want to support cook-book authors, but buying several books a year might be too steep a price for some members. Plus, what if it turns out you don’t like the book? Share. Pick your dish then pass the book along. Pick up a copy at the library, or use e-books.

• Hosting: I’ve seen ad-vice on picking the right plates, neutral colors to act as the canvas for the food. Are you kidding me? Just use your everyday dishes. Don’t sweat it. You want some flowers on the table? Yes, nice. But this is not the time to go all Martha Stew-art. Except …

• No paper plates: C’mon. These are your friends. You can wash a few dishes. Besides, if your group is large enough, you are hosting only once or twice a year.

• Be mindful of sit-ting time: Are you cours-ing the dishes (we do) or throwing everything on the table at once? The an-swer will affect your dish. My “Taste of Persia” dish sat too long, and the tex-ture was compromised.

• Oven privileges: Ask the host before you assume you’ll be able to throw your dish in the oven for 15 min-utes to melt the cheese top-ping. What if she’s finishing her roast at 475 degrees?

• Get equipped: Ex-pecting the host to have a stand mixer to whip cream for your pie at the last min-ute? Check ahead. What-ever your recipe requires on site, make sure the host has it, or plan to bring it yourself.

• Indulge in dessert: Have more than one des-sert. I mean, c’mon.

• Finally: Post about it. Take photos of your dishes, then post them on social media and tag the author. It’s a thrill when they re-spond! Even jaded food people (my group is mostly trained chefs) get geeked. Deb Perelman’s shout-out about how our dishes were so beautiful was sweet.

How to start a cookbook club and why you’ll want to

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The only biscuit recipe you’ll ever need requires just two ingredientsBy LiGaya FiGuerasThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Biscuits are one of my guilty pleasures. I sim-ply cannot pass up one of these heavenly, flaky, but-tery rounds.

I don’t bake biscuits of-ten because others make them far better than me. I’ve been treated to fresh biscuits from Chadwick Boyd, a food and lifestyle personality, part-time Atlanta resident and bis-cuit aficionado. He makes moist, poufy biscuits look like a cake walk while I walk the road toward dry and crumbly.

Not that I haven’t tried to improve. A few years ago, I worked the line at Bojangles’. That fast-food chain has got biscuit-making down to a science — in 48 steps. That’s at least 45 steps too many for me.

Plus, why compete with perfection?

I’ve since gotten ahold of a keeper of a biscuit recipe. It calls for just two ingredients: White Lily self-rising flour and heavy cream. Perhaps you know of it.

It’s called Jolene Black’s Cream Biscuits.

Originally published in the Times-Picayune in April 2005, it is a reader recipe. It has since been reprinted in “Cooking Up a Storm — 10th Anniver-sary: Recipes Lost and Found From the Times-

Picayune of New Orleans.”As the Times-Picayune

editors note, success comes from sticking with these two ingredients.

“The trick is to use these exact ingredients. The biscuits won’t be as light if you use any other kind of self-rising flour. The fat in the heavy cream replaces the shortening or butter in comparable recipes.”

The first time I made these biscuits, I probably should have recorded my

oohs and aahs. I was alone in my

kitchen, talking to no one about my wonderment and delight at the divine smell, the sky-high rise of the bread, and the brev-ity of the baking project — it’s not a project; start to finish, making these biscuits is faster than washing dishes by hand. I marveled at the perfec-tion of the liquid-to-dry ratio. And that we don’t even need to add salt.

JoLeNe BLaCK’s CreaM BisCuiTs

21⁄2 cups White Lily self-rising flour

11⁄2 cups heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 450 F. Lightly grease a baking sheet.

Put the flour in a medium mixing bowl and add the cream. Stir until a soft, sticky ball forms. (The dough will seem wet at first.)

On a very lightly floured surface, knead lightly with your well-floured hands about 3 times, just until the dough comes together.

Pat the dough to about 1⁄2-inch thickness. Cut out biscuits with a 21⁄2-inch round cutter.

Bake on the prepared bak-ing sheet for 10 to 12 minutes, until the biscuits are golden brown.

Jolene Black’s Cream Biscuits calls for only White Lily self-rising flour and heavy cream. | Photo by Ligaya Figueras/TNS

MORE RECIPES continue on PAGES 1C, 2C

Petco responds to demand for natural pet foodBy Dee-aNN DurBiN AP Business Writer

Petco announced Nov. 13 it will stop selling dog and cat food and treats with artificial colors, fla-vors and preservatives, both online and at its near-ly 1,500 stores in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

“We are making sure we are always taking the nutritional high ground,” Petco CEO Ron Coughlin said.

Petco’s move, the first of its kind among major pet stores, comes at a time when sales of natural pet foods are steadily rising.

Natural pet products still account for a small portion of the U.S. mar-ket share but growth has more than doubled to 6.5 percent between 2013 and 2017, according to Nielsen, a data company.

Pet food has long mim-icked human food, said John Owen, a senior food analyst for Mintel. In 1959, for example, Gravy Train dog food was introduced so dogs could enjoy gravy, too.