July Cookbook Club: Spanglish

Held at Bold Fork Books in Washington, DC, this Cookbook Club session turns Monti Carlo’s Spanglish into a communal cooking experiment rather than a standard author talk, with attendees each preparing a dish drawn from the book’s blend of Puerto Rican flavors and mainland American comfort food. The evening builds around shared contribution, where a circulating spreadsheet shapes what appears on the table and determines how the menu takes form in real time. Once gathered, the group eats through the results together inside the bookstore, a setting that keeps the focus on conversation, ingredients, and technique rather than presentation. Discussions move between sourcing ingredients, unexpected adjustments in the kitchen, and the personal histories embedded in the recipes themselves, reflecting the book’s emphasis on cultural overlap and adaptation. Monti Carlo’s work anchors the experience, but the structure gives equal weight to the participants, turning the event into a collective interpretation of a cookbook that treats identity as something assembled, revised, and tasted in company.