Monday Morning Cooking Club is back with a book for the next generation

The Monday Morning Cooking Club did not set out to build a publishing brand. It set out to save recipes. The project began in 2006 when six women from Sydney’s Jewish community came together to write a cookbook for charity.

Over time, the group has evolved into the trio of Lisa Goldberg, Merelyn Frank Chalmers and Natanya Eskin, but the founding impulse remained the same: to collect, test, curate and preserve treasured recipes for the future.

On 6 March this year, they mark the 20th anniversary of that first gathering.

“I feel like 20 years, it’s just gone like that,” Goldberg told JWire.

Over those two decades, four books followed, more than 100,000 copies were sold, international awards were won and charities were supported to the tune of around three quarters of a million dollars.

The books earned high praise early on, with Nigella Lawson describing the first as “pure cosy joy” and the late Bill Granger saying, “Food from home is my ultimate, especially when it has been tried, tested and loved by the Monday Morning Cooking Club.”

Now comes ‘A Year of Jewish Cooking’, their fifth book and first since 2020, a volume they describe as their essential collection, which is released this week.

The book carries the subheading “Recipes we can’t live without”, a fitting description of a collection that distils two decades of cooking into the dishes the authors consider truly essential.

The seed for this fifth book was planted during Covid. The three met at Lyne Park in Rose Bay, sitting outdoors because Covid restrictions demanded it. Their children were leaving home or getting married. Their earlier titles were slipping out of print.

“We started talking about what happens when our books are out of print and what happens when our kids want to create Jewish food for themselves,” Chalmers said.

Goldberg was not ready to close the chapter. “I was not ready to let Monday Morning Cooking Club go at all.”

‘A Year of Jewish Cooking’ journeys through the major Jewish festivals and moments of the year, from Shabbat to the High Holy Days, offering recipes that range from schnitzel and latkes to chocolate chiffon cake and cinnamon babka.

It also explains the traditions behind the food, addressing questions such as the significance of matzo, why honey is eaten on Rosh Hashanah and what Shabbat dinner is all about.

In the early days, they reproduced recipes exactly as they were given, even if technically imperfect.

“It was very important to us that we respected the recipe as it came to us,” Lisa reflects. “Even if I knew that wasn’t really the ‘correct’ way to make a cake.”

Two decades on, they treat those originals as inspiration rather than untouchable artefacts. The trio describe themselves as good at one thing in particular: debate.

“There are three of us, and one thing we do really well is debate,” Goldberg said.

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As we approach Purim, the Monday Morning Cooking Club has shared this special video featuring their ultimate Hamantaschen recipe.

Click here for the full Hamantaschen recipe. 

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Throughout the conversation with JWire, it is clear the three women know each other well and enjoy each other’s company, finishing each other’s sentences, correcting details mid-thought and slipping easily between friendly disagreement and laughter.

They prepared a spreadsheet containing all the recipes, and they each nominated their favourite recipes from earlier books. Each had to let go of some. It was, by their own admission, painful. But the aim was clear: this book had to represent the best version of each dish, not just the most nostalgic.

The traditional apple cake became emblematic of that approach. The Jewish community, they discovered long ago, has strong feelings about apple cake. For this edition, they spent close to a year testing variations in search of the “perfect combination”.

“We wanted to taste the butter and the apple. We wanted the crumb just right,” Goldberg said.

Cakes were baked, delivered across suburbs, critiqued and rejected. At one point, one would declare triumph only for another to disagree. Eventually, they reached what Goldberg calls a “scientific consensus”. The final recipe, she insists, is the best of its kind she has tasted.

The changes are not only about flavour. They reflect social shifts. Earlier books assumed large Friday night tables and generous quantities. This time, recipes have been scaled back for the next generation.

“We were cooking happily for 20 or 30 people,” Eskin said. “Now we realise they’ll cook for four or six.”

Cake tins have shrunk from 26 centimetres to 20. Methods are streamlined. The target reader includes young adults leaving home with limited equipment and limited confidence.

“It’s aimed at the younger generation who are moving out of home,” Chalmers said. “They don’t have every gadget. We try to make it as easy as possible for them to connect with Jewish food, and therefore Jewish tradition.”

That connection is deliberate. Each chapter opens with a concise explanation of the festival or Shabbat context. The authors debated how much detail to include and ultimately chose clarity over complexity.

“We decided to keep it simple,” Goldberg said. “It’s enough to pique curiosity.”

In researching the festival introductions, they discovered gaps in their own understanding. Goldberg admitted she had long misunderstood a key detail of the Chanukah story, confusing destruction with desecration of the Second Temple.

The correction was incorporated into the book. It is a small example of the seriousness with which they approached even the narrative sections.

The cuisine reflects who they are. All three come from largely Ashkenazi backgrounds. There are Sephardi influences and acknowledgements of the broader community that enriched their kitchens, but they make no claim to produce a global encyclopaedia.

“We can’t say this covers everything Jewish,” Chalmers said. “What we can say is this is essential for the three of us.”

Dietary realities have also shaped the volume. An expanded online index categorises dishes as gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian, vegan and kosher for Passover and many recipes are adaptable. A new hamantaschen recipe, notably, is pareve, as an alternative to an earlier sour cream version in an earlier book.

“We had to appeal to a much wider table than we ever had before,” Eskin said.

The book also solves a practical problem. With four previous titles, readers frequently asked which book, and which page held a particular recipe. This volume condenses favourites and new material into one reference point.

Asked why someone who already owns the earlier books should buy this one, Goldberg did not hesitate.

“This is bloody fantastic. That’s why.”

Beyond sales, the charitable ethos remains central. The MMCC operates as a not-for-profit project, with 100 percent of all profits from book sales going to community, medical and women’s charities.

Beneficiaries have included Two Good Co, WIZO, Cure Brain Cancer Foundation and OzHarvest in Sydney. From school fetes to high-end degustation events, the group has enabled charities to raise substantial sums.

As for what comes next, there is no grand strategy.

“The beauty of Monday Morning Cooking Club is that we haven’t really planned that far ahead,” Goldberg said.

She has, she concedes, a folder labelled “recipes for book 6”. For now, though, ‘A Year of Jewish Cooking’ stands as both a consolidation and a statement of intent: that food remains one of the most powerful carriers of memory, identity and continuity.

“It’s about continuity,” Eskin explains. “Arming the next generation with the skills to make the food and keep those traditions alive.”

‘A Year of Jewish Cooking’ will be available through major Australian bookstores, online retailers and directly via the Simon & Schuster Australia website.