An Invitation to the Table: Join Us for a Pie Picnic on August 1st
Have a taste of what we're cooking up for our next Cookbook Club gathering.
It’s a Pie Picnic!
Featuring Erin Jeanne McDowell’s The Book on Pie
Summertime, and the living is easy. Easy as a Summer Friday. Easy as pie. Our next Cookbook Club gathering is a Pie Picnic featuring Erin Jeanne McDowell's The Book on Pie. Join us for an evening focused on finding a sense of ease — that ephemeral feeling of childhood summers and long, lazy vacation days amid the chaos of life. Gather around our picnic tables in the beautiful Fabrik community space in DUMBO to share your favorite pie (savory or sweet) and nostalgic summer activities to reawaken a sense of curiosity, playfulness, and joy.
Come hungry. Come with a pie. Come ready to share slices and an easy, breezy evening together. We’ll have picnic blankets and refreshing drinks ready to welcome you, the playlist queued up, and mesh totes ready to take home extra slices and use for the rest of your summer beach, pool, picnic, and farmer's market adventures.
What to Expect:
For each gathering, we focus on recipes from a featured author's cookbook. For our Pie Picnic, it’s hard to think of one more perfect than Erin Jeanne McDowell's The Book on Pie. Whether you are a seasoned baker or pie-curious, you'll find invaluable pro tips for perfecting your technique and inspiring recipes of sweet and savory pies of all kinds. Making a perfect pie takes knowledge and practice, but Erin's detailed recipes and tips make it easy to master any kind of crust, filling, and topping you could imagine. If you want more instruction, head over to her YouTube channel and website for tutorials to ensure pie-baking success!
We'll have lots of activities and surprises to keep the magic going throughout the evening.
We're partnering with our friend, Roni, Founder of Otherwell, for a crossover collaboration with her The Other Hour happy hour series. Stop by the Other Hour Game Table for Uno and Connect Four throughout the evening.
Our friend, Michelle, Co-founder of CoSee, is joining us to host our Summer Reading Book Swap to help you find your next poolside, beachside, or commuting read. The CoSee team believes in the power of community and sustainability. Every book is coming to the table recommended by another reader in our community. Bring an old favorite you are ready to pass along, and find your next great read to take home!
Take a few moments to reflect with our Letter Writing workshop focused on finding a sense of ease. We'll lead you with a brief exercise and some prompts to slow down and capture your thoughts in a heartfelt letter. Think of it like sending a letter from summer camp.
Stay tuned. We'll be announcing our other partners and activities soon!
Bring:
A pie (sweet or savory, homemade or store-bought)
A summer read you’re ready to pass on for our Summer Reading Book Swap
An empty stomach and open heart
Rough Agenda:
5:00pm: Gather. Display your pie on our picnic table. Grab a drink and join us to toast a beautiful Summer Friday.
6:00pm: Make some new friends. Eat your fill of pies of all varieties. Embrace the easy feeling of summer with our summer reading book swap, game table, letter-writing exercise, and more activities TBD.
8:00pm: Farewell! Exchange contact info and take some pie to go. We'll have take-home containers ready for you.
How to Prepare:
Sign up to attend
Pick a book to swap – If you'd like to participate in the Summer Reading Book Swap, bring a book from your bookshelf that you’re ready to pass along to another reader.
Bake a pie – Pick a recipe from The Book on Pie, or use tips from the cookbook to perfect one of your favorites. No time to bake? No problem — bring something to share that fits the theme.
Add your dish to our recipe sign up sheet along with any dietary notes. Recipes from The Book on Pie are listed in the 2nd tab.
Bring your contributions, ready to share – A Microwave and fridge are available. We'll have plates, cups, and silverware on hand.
Meet Our Partners:
Michelle Aboodi, Co-Founder of CoSee
Our friend, Michelle, Co-founder of CoSee, is joining us to host our Summer Reading Book Swap to help you find your next poolside, beachside, or commuting read. The CoSee team believes in the power of community and sustainability. Every book is coming to the table recommended by another reader in our community. Bring an old favorite you are ready to pass along, and find your next great read to take home!
Roni Bradley, Founder of Otherwell
We're partnering with our friend, Roni, Founder of Otherwell, for a crossover collaboration with her The Other Hour happy hour series. Stop by the Other Hour Game Table for Uno and Connect Four throughout the evening. There will be prizes for the winners!
Allison Mendoza and Laura Garcia, Co-Founders of The Art of Fashion and Food
Our friends, Ali and Laura, Co-founders of The Art of Fashion and Food, will set the scene for the evening with a nostalgic picnic tablescape, ready for us to fill with our pies.
Jeremy Bradford, Founder of Preface Coffee
What better to accompany pie than coffee and ice cream? Jeremy, Founder of Preface Coffee, will be serving up affogatos featuring one of his beautiful, intentional, story-driven roasts in a decaf version to help us combat a sugar crash, and still get some sleep at the end of the evening.

Summer Reading Recommendations
Get inspiration for our Summer Reading Book Swap, or add a few books to your summer reading list with recommendations from our partners. You can find all the books on the list here.
Michelle Aboodi, Co-Founder of CoSee
The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki
Roni Bradley, Founder of Otherwell
Play Therapy by Dr. David A. Crenshaw
The Creative Act by Rick Rubin
Jeremy Bradford, Founder of Preface Coffee
The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
Becoming Freud by Adam Phillips
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
A couple from me… Joni Goldbach, Founder of Letters from the Table
Hellions by Julia Elliott (one of the incredible featured authors and works at the last
dinner)A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman
Deep Play by Diane Ackerman
And if you’re interested in learning more about the history and culture of Summer Reading, check out this episode of the NPR podcast Today, Explained. A hot take from the episode: Anna Karenina is the perfect summer read.
From our last Cookbook Club: Sustainable Eating from Farm to Kitchen
I want to take a moment to thank our Featured Author, Moderator, Panelists, and Partners from our May event!
Thank you, Camille, for being our featured author and panelist!


Thank you for sharing your expertise with us through your gorgeous cookbook and on our panel! Your work is an absolute inspiration to embrace seasonal, vegetable-forward cooking. Recipes from our cookbook have become staples in my kitchen!
Thank you for your generosity in raffling off a signed copy of your cookbook. Congratulations to our winner!
For those of you who haven’t picked up a copy of Bright Cooking yet, we couldn’t recommend it more highly to inspire your cooking. And make sure to subscribe to Chef Camille Becerra’s Bright Cooking on Substack for lessons and assignments based on her cookbook.
Thank you, Anina, for the beautiful Farm to People produce and speaking on our panel!


Thank you for sharing your story building Farm to People, your expertise, and the gorgeous Farm to People produce and bread! I’m so grateful for your work making it easy to learn about and support local farmers and food producers.
For those who haven’t experienced their farm-fresh produce delivery, go to the Farm to People website to place your first order today! A Farm Box is a great way to get started with effortless weekly deliveries. You can use my referral code to get $25 off any a Farm Box in your first order: JONIG22
Thank you, Claire, for mixing gorgeous Joni cocktails for us and speaking on our panel!




Thank you for sharing the story of Joni and mixing your gorgeous, surprisingly non-alcoholic verjus cocktails for us throughout the night! I feel like I’ve found a kindred spirit in all things food with you. I have a feeling that Joni cocktails are going to be making a regular feature at home, summer garden parties, and future gatherings.
If you didn’t get a chance to try Joni, or are craving more, you have it delivered directly to your door through the Joni website, or pick some up at great shops like Minus Moonshine and Big Night.
Thank you, Jess, for sharing your expertise in living more sustainably on our panel!


Thank you for sharing your expertise from your work as a sustainability coach on our panel! Your enthusiasm and optimism that we can all make progress to live more sustainability is inspiring. I leave every conversation with you more optimistic about the future!
Follow Jess and Simply Sustainable on Instagram to learn more about Jess’s work and the Simply Sustainable Community.
Thank you, Sonia, for leading our panel and lending us your deep expertise!


Thank you so much for leading the Sustainability Panel and lending your expertise in sustainable consumption and eating practices with us! This event couldn’t have come together without you.
Sonia graciously shared several resources with us for sustainable shopping, eating, and composting in NYC. Check out her maps to find great resources and recommendations for:
Follow Sonia as she and her co-founder, Michelle, bring CoSee to life on Instagram and on the CoSee substack.
Thank you, Sam of Third Place Bar and Lawrence of St. Buena Vida, for the beautiful non-alcoholic sparkling wine!


Follow St. Buena Vida on Instagram and order their non-alcoholic sparkling white wine directly from their website. It’s a beautiful sip for embracing The Good Life!
Follow Third Place Bar on Instagram and through their event calendar on Luma to hear about upcoming AF events.
Thank you, Steven Wu, for taking photos and videos during the evening!
Check out his photo sharing app, 6180.io, as an alternative to file sharing.
Thank you, Fabrik, for hosting us!
You are the heart and home of our gatherings! Thank you for creating such a beautiful, welcome environment to gather and for everything you do to help us bring our Cookbook Club to life!
If you haven’t had an opportunity to experience the magic of the Fabrik community, try it out for a day. Day passes are available for $29 here. And if you'd like to become a member, use Referral Code FROMTHETABLE to save $49 on your 1st month of Fabrik membership.









Sustainable Meal Planning Worksheet
During the event, we had worksheets available as a take home exercise to take learnings from the experts on our panel and put them into practice. If you weren’t able to make it, or missed picking one up during the evening, download your copy here!