For the women behind the Monday Morning Cooking Club, all four of their books have led to this moment: releasing A Year of Jewish Cooking, the ultimate how-to guide for the next generation of Jewish homes. It’s also the most perfect example of what being Jewish is all about – community, family, connection and of course, our love language, food.
Co-founders Lisa Goldberg and Merelyn Chalmers found the idea for a single, all-encompassing volume began quietly, and well before the current climate.
“This kind of started as an embryo during COVID,” Chalmers told The AJN ahead of the official launch of the book. “We were just getting to the age where our kids were either getting married or moving out, and we realised that we needed one volume of the book that people could just grab. We nicknamed the book ‘the recipes they phone home for’.”
It was, she said, about a generational handover.
“Kids are moving out of home. How are they going to stay connected? Probably through their taste buds.”
That deceptively simple idea now anchors a book that moves through the Jewish year, from Shabbat to festivals, from moments of celebration to times of comfort and loss.
“It says Jewish on the front cover. It’s got challah on the front cover. It couldn’t be more clearly a Jewish book. And I’m really proud of that…” Lisa Goldberg
For Goldberg, that structure was not just a creative decision, but also a reflection of real life.
“We always have things for the festivals now, always,” she said. “They’re a huge part of the Jewish kitchen. They’re a huge part of how we live our lives.”
Importantly, A Year of Jewish Cooking does not limit itself to joy alone. Alongside festive tables and family gatherings sits a chapter devoted to mourning and the shiva period.
Goldberg speaks poignantly about the shiva period.
“We’ve talked a lot over the years about the tables at minyans, and how they’re always groaning with food, and people bring their best. And it’s an amazing reflection of our community showing love through food,” she said.
The essence of this is the essence of the book. Jewish cooking is not just about the food, but it’s about the table.
“The other first four books have led to this just organically,” Goldberg said. “We’ve spoken a lot over the years about the importance of the Jewish kitchen, but more importantly, the table. The table where we gather with our family, with our friends, where we feed people. Not just Jewish friends, but everybody. We open it up.
“Food is our language of love. It really is. And I think our books have shown that this is how we do it. This book really is just sharing the essence of our soul in a way.”
At its heart, this is a guide for the next generation, shaped by a conscious editorial decision to place the stories of the festivals at the start of each chapter.
Goldberg explained that including this rounds out how the next generation, and anyone flicking through the pages, will understand the food and its relation to the Jewish year.
“It’s an all-in-one,” she said. “I’m not saying it’s going to suit the most religious or Orthodox person or someone who doesn’t care at all, but it just gives you enough of a taste of the story of that festival that you can then go and explore it if you want, or just leave it at that. It’s a beautiful collection of not just the recipes, but the traditions and where they came from.”
“Kids are moving out of home. How are they going to stay connected? Probably through their taste buds…” Merelyn Chalmers
The book also reflects a shift in the way Jewish households now cook and gather. Smaller tables, midweek meals, flexible traditions and modern family rhythms sit comfortably beside classic dishes and ritual cooking.
But one tradition remains firm – Shabbat.
“Friday night dinner, for me, is the cornerstone of being Jewish,” Goldberg explained. “It’s where it all starts.”
For Chalmers, the emotional centre of the book lives not in the printed page but in the sensory memory it hopes to recreate.
“I want them to find Jewish joy. That’s it,” she said when asked what she hopes the book brings to the community. “I want the house to smell like my mum’s kitchen. That’s it. And for my kids and grandkids to have that transference through generations of feeling Jewish.”
“I think this book is a vehicle in a way of connecting, either with the past or with the current generation, or whether you use it to invite people around and sit and eat,” Goldberg said, agreeing with Chalmers. “It’s a book that’s going to enable connection and to build. And that will eventually build a stronger community and a stronger unity.”
It is also, quite deliberately, unapologetically Jewish.
“It’s so Jewish,” Goldberg smiled. “That’s what I’m most excited about. It says Jewish on the front cover. It’s got challah on the front cover. It couldn’t be more clearly a Jewish book. And I’m really proud of that.”
That visibility carries a different weight in what both women repeatedly describe as a post-October 7 and post-December 14 world. “We are standing tall and proud and producing and creating,” Goldberg said. “And this is just a beautiful reflection of our community in all its glory.”
Chalmers sees the book as something quietly defiant. “I think that our community has taken its trauma with the greatest amount of dignity that a community possibly could. And this book is a snapshot of who we are.”
When people ask what it really means to be Jewish, they both believe the answer is often found at the table. Feeding through food, but also through love, emotion, connection and conversation.
Ultimately, their wish is that every Jewish person is handed a copy of A Year of Jewish Cooking.
It’s not a definitive encyclopaedia of Jewish food. But it is designed to keep Jewish life visible. One meal at a time.
A Year of Jewish Cooking is published by Simon & Schuster, $59.99 rrp
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