{"id":1882,"date":"2025-08-07T10:56:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T10:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baldheadedgirls.com\/?p=1882"},"modified":"2025-08-07T14:56:57","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T14:56:57","slug":"cooking-clubs-are-helping-us-make-friends-as-adults","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/baldheadedgirls.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/07\/cooking-clubs-are-helping-us-make-friends-as-adults\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooking Clubs Are Helping Us Make Friends As Adults"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In a park in London last month, over 200 people gathered<\/a> each with a homebaked cake in hand, ready to share their creation and feast on as many others as they possibly could. Cakes of all designs and flavours \u2014 matcha and black sesame, mango and raspberry, chocolate and coconut, caramel crunch, Indian rasmalai \u2014 lined long tables. All everyone had to do was add their cake, try as many as they could, then sit and socialize in the grass while tucking in. This is just one way people are using food as a means to make new social connections in a time where we\u2019re constantly on our phones<\/a>, and people are trying to combat loneliness<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What started out with Elisa Sunga, 35, from San Francisco, creating Cake Picnic<\/a> for 15 friends in April last year, turned into an event that tours and draws in hundreds of strangers. \u201cI\u2019ve loved seeing people come together around cake from all over the world,\u201d Sunga tells Refinery29. \u201cIt\u2019s such a fun and unique event where the focus of the event is cake, friendships, and new memories. We are all connected by our love for cakes and are intentionally choosing joy and whimsy. I think we need a lot more of that in our everyday life.\u201d Sunga\u2019s cake tour has five more stops this year, with New York and LA next, and in 2026 will visit 15 cities globally.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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There\u2019s a huge appetite for social clubs in big cities<\/a>, places where it\u2019s meant to be easier to meet people but there feels like an inherent lack of community. At R29 we\u2019ve reported on that with the rise of book clubs<\/a>, run clubs and walking groups<\/a>. Baking and cooking clubs are just another iteration of that, but food has always been seen as a social experience and way to share culture. Smriti Joshi, psychologist at Wysa<\/a>, says that there\u2019s a difference between friendship and community, and the latter can help us feel that we belong and are a part of a shared sense of purpose. A lack of social connections is one of the \u201cmost robust\u201d predictors of early mortality and poor mental health. \u201cCommunity isn\u2019t just a \u2018nice to have\u2019, it\u2019s a core human need,\u201d Joshi says.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn top of this, <\/strong>food is one of the most universal ways we express care,\u201d she adds. \u201cPreparing or sharing a meal is often a quiet act of love. When we gather around food, we enter a kind of shared rhythm. We slow down, talk, laugh, listen. This co-regulation where our nervous systems begin to mirror and calm each other is incredibly grounding.\u201d If ethnicity plays a role in the food we\u2019re sharing, that too is a powerful way of inviting others into \u201ca cultural moment, a family tradition, or a childhood memory\u201d. Food can build bridges between people from different backgrounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sunga isn\u2019t the only person using food as a means to connection. Polly Joshua, 30, from London, runs Snacks & Chats<\/a>, a monthly meet-up that picks a different takeaway brand each time and charges attendees \u00a35 to munch and meet. Usually 25 to 35 people come along. \u201cFood breaks the ice straight away,\u201d Joshua says. \u201cNo awkward intros, no pressure. People rock up solo all the time and end up chatting for hours. We\u2019ve seen friendships form and pub trips happen afterwards. It\u2019s just easy. And I think that\u2019s what people want, a place where you don\u2019t have to \u2018know someone\u2019 to be there.\u201d Joshua says the key to her events is they aren\u2019t \u201cover produced\u201d. They meet somewhere low-key like a park, bring a blanket, and enjoy what\u2019s on offer. \u201cIt\u2019s meant to feel like something your mate invited you to on a Saturday,\u201d she adds. Joshua works in the food industry and as part of her job gets to try new takeaway brands everyday. After seeing the success of run clubs in bringing people together, she thought why not do the same but with the brands she\u2019s exposed to at work. \u201cFitness and running clubs are great, but they\u2019re not for everyone (and definitely not me). Food felt like a leveller. Everyone eats. Everyone\u2019s welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This same sentiment is happening in intimate friendship circles. Caira Button, 31, from Chicago, started a cookbook club last summer, and had such a good reaction to it that she created a YouTube video<\/a> explaining how others could do the same with their social networks. It involves everyone cooking a different recipe from one cookbook, so they all get to feast on a variety of dishes. \u201cI am super grateful to have many incredible female friendships in my life, but I was finding it hard to schedule time to see all of them on a regular basis,\u201d Button says. \u201cI decided to start the club so I could get everyone together and be able to see them monthly and spend quality time together.\u201d Eight of them commit each month, and mutual friends that didn\u2019t know each other beforehand are now good friends themselves. \u201cWe look forward to getting together and catching up on life, all while eating good food each month,\u201d she adds. \u201cIt\u2019s honestly lower effort than you would think and yet extremely high impact. I leave each month with my belly full and my heart even fuller after sharing laughs and spending time with all of my girlfriends. I plan on continuing this forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lucy Dearlove, of food podcast Lecker<\/a>, thinks there\u2019s lots to be gained from being in a cookbook club. \u201cCooking for people is such a fundamental part of my friendships,\u201d she says, and although she\u2019s not in a specific club herself, she\u2019s in the routine of cooking and baking for friends and family regularly \u2014 and they return those efforts. Using a cookbook to connect with people \u201clevels the playing field\u201d in her opinion. You don\u2019t have to be an expert, and everyone is arriving at those recipes at the same time. \u201cIt takes the pressure off of it if you\u2019re working through a cookbook together. Maybe you don\u2019t have a family background in food or cooking and that\u2019s completely valid,\u201d Dearlove says. \u201cYour relationship with and knowledge of food doesn\u2019t have to be rooted in how you grew up.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Dearlove cooks for people, it\u2019s partly for the joy of trying something new, but it\u2019s also about communicating care. \u201cI like the idea that your relationship with food isn\u2019t fixed, and the potential of a cookbook club is to allow you to find new things and introduce new dishes that mean a lot to you, that you might have otherwise never have discovered.\u201d And that\u2019s what these new social communities revolving around food are all about \u2014 enjoying food, but then going a step further and using it to create new friendships and nurture old ones. <\/p>\n

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Being Coeliac Means Longing For Foods I\u2019ve Lost<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a park in London last month, over 200 people gathered each with a homebaked cake in hand, ready to share their creation and feast on as many others as they possibly could. Cakes of all designs and flavours \u2014 matcha and black sesame, mango and raspberry, chocolate and coconut, caramel crunch, Indian rasmalai \u2014…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/baldheadedgirls.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1882"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/baldheadedgirls.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/baldheadedgirls.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/baldheadedgirls.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/baldheadedgirls.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1882"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/baldheadedgirls.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1888,"href":"http:\/\/baldheadedgirls.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1882\/revisions\/1888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/baldheadedgirls.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/baldheadedgirls.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/baldheadedgirls.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/baldheadedgirls.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}