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One year, six books, and countless Italian dishes of exploration.

This is the Quanto Basta Cookbook Club, and you’re invited.

So you’re a fan of Italian cooking–there’s no doubt about it.

If you’re like us, then you probably have an ever-growing collection of Italian cookbooks sitting on your shelf, that you turn to for ideas and inspiration. Here at q.b. Cucina, we’re cookbook-aholics. We love the way they look, the way they feel, and even the way they smell!

You love the feeling of jumping back and forth from the book to the countertop. And you likely know no greater satisfaction than pulling a perfectly roasted pan of pine nuts from the oven to sprinkle over a handmade butternut squash ravioli later.

You also likely wish you had spent more time cooking —and, perhaps most importantly, tasting—the many recipes from the cookbooks that you skim but never try.

If this sounds like you, then you won’t want to miss the best Italian cookbook club on the internet!

What is the Quanto Basta Cookbook Club?

The Quanto Basta Cookbook Club is an online community for Italian food lovers who want to challenge themselves to cook more from cookbooks. 

One year, six books, a growing community, and countless dishes of exploration! 

Over the course of a year, we’ll dive into deep discussions about these hand-selected books, their themes, and their authors. Each month, you’ll cook lots of incredible food and be supported and inspired by a community of like-minded Italian food lovers and home cooks. You’ll even have a private forum where you can show off photos of your finished dishes, and exchange ideas, tips, recipe troubleshooting, and general thoughts on Italian cuisine.  

Marcella Hazan book surrounded by pasta, pasta tools and herbs

Membership Pricing

  • Bimonthly Membership
  • $60
    bimonthly
  • billed every two months

    Access to an online chat room with weekly discussions facilitated by our team

    Access to virtual events with book authors and experts

    Access to virtual cookbook club member meetups

    Free shipping sitewide on qbcucina.com

    5% off products from qbcucina.com

  • Annual Membership
  • $306
    yearly
  • billed yearly

    Everything that’s included with the bimonthly membership, plus:

    15% off the total membership price ($54 savings)

Prepay for the cookbooks and get them for the lowest price we’re allowed to sell them for, plus free shipping.

  • Bimonthly Membership + Cookbooks
  • $94
    bimonthly
  • billed every two months

    Access to an online chat room with weekly discussions facilitated by our team

    Access to virtual events with book authors and experts

    Access to virtual cookbook club member meetups

    Free shipping sitewide at qbcucina.com

    5% off all products from qbcucina.com

    + All 6 cookbooks (shipped out every 2 months)

  • Annual Membership + Cookbooks
  • $479
    yearly
  • billed yearly

    Everything that’s included with the bimonthly membership, plus:

    15% off the total membership price ($54 savings)

    + All  6 cookbooks (shipped out every two months)

How does it work?

Glad you asked. Every two months, we’ll cook from one Italian cookbook. These books are pre-selected by our team and carefully chosen to explore various aspects of Italian cooking, from traditional recipes to modern adaptations.

You’ll cook at least one recipe from the book each week (that’s up to 52 new recipes to keep in your kitchen arsenal!). Some of the recipes will be selected by our team, while others will be your choice. At its core, this community is about cooking and we want to inspire this community to cook weekly.

You’ll also have the ability to chat with our team and other group members in a private forum, sharing your thoughts and questions as we cook our way through each book. Need an idea for a substitution? Make a revelation while rolling out dough? Hit the chat.

In addition, the q.b. Cucina team will build and nurture our cookbook community with weekly virtual discussions about our current book pick, as well as Italian cooking in general.

Each month, we’ll host a virtual aperitivo for the community to get together, chat about the book, our latest meals, and, generally, connect more deeply. This will be a time when you grab a glass of wine and laugh on a video conference with some foodie friends from around the globe.

Finally, each time we start a new book, we’ll have an Expert Event. Sometimes that expert will have a lesson to teach us about a cooking technique that’s described in the book and sometimes that expert will be the author themselves! We’re excited to share more about this in the months ahead!

What Our Members Love…

“I love the community and the incredible feedback and tips I get from everyone! I’ve enjoyed meeting new people and pushing myself to try recipes that I would normally pass over in a cookbook.”

“The accountability and motivation from this club are great! The helpful tips and advice in the chat are also so useful. Plus, I am learning new cooking skills and being introduced to cookbooks I might not have found on my own.”

“I love that I am challenging myself to try new recipes and ingredients. I enjoy that we have a choice every other week as well. This helps keep my budget balanced because I can choose recipes that only require accessible and available ingredients!”

Why are we hosting an Italian cookbook club?

There are a couple of factors that have perfectly aligned to make this Cookbook Club a reality.

First, our audience loves to cook. We suspect you do too. The amount of times we get thoughtful questions on how best to roll out pasta dough, or what’s our recommendation for a substitute for ricotta salata is incredible. We’ve even seen some of y’all connecting in the comments on posts.

It’s inspiring. We’re building this community for YOU, our most excited and invested fans. We want to have a place—not just in the comments of Instagram posts—for you to connect, ask questions, share resources, and, most of all, enjoy Italian food!

Second, cookbooks are awesome. We love them and we can’t get enough of them. Food is a vital part of culture. And cookbooks are like Rosetta Stones that help you to better understand a culture, through food.

We also believe that cookbooks should not be paperweights or coffee table decor. They should be earmarked, written in, spilled on, used, and loved. Building a community around cookbooks is one thing. Building a community around cooking from cookbooks is another. We want these cookbooks to get worn in!

Lastly, and perhaps least romantic, is that paid communities like these are often an essential part of small businesses like ours in uncertain economic times. Being able to predict future revenue is a critical part of building a business. It’s a luxury that not many small retailers have.

Bimonthly or annual memberships create cash flow consistency and allow businesses like ours to maintain and sustain while investing in new products and ideas. If we know two things for certain, it is that 1) pasta is great and 2) we’re in economically uncertain times. This community could possibly help us to navigate through and beyond the recession and global bear market.

If you go further and pre-purchase the books, you help to make us “look better” to authors, their publishers, and their distributors. Looking better makes getting better rates, special bonuses, and even author experiences more likely.

In short, if you sign up for this community, you represent our ideal and best customer type. You’re the type of person who loves to cook and loves Italian food. You’re a cookbook fan that wants to dive deeper into their books and grow their skills and knowledge. You’re not a lone wolf but love being part of a pack of like-minded folks. And, you’re willing to invest in yourself (and our business) as you pursue your passions.

FAQ

General

Why should I join?

Our hope is that this cookbook club does four things for you:

  1. Fosters connection and community for those who love Italian cooking.
  2. Challenges you to learn about aspects of Italian cooking you might not have otherwise been exposed to, while also providing a consistent learning environment.
  3. Offers shared support and troubleshooting. We can all learn so much from one another and we hope that being a member of this group compounds that support.
  4. Gives you extra perks, like 15% off and free shipping on all cookbooks in our shop, plus an additional 5% off all other products. Plus, all members will get a quanto basta bookmark and set of post-it notes.

Can I gift this membership to someone else?

Of course! When checking out, please enter the recipient’s name and email address under SHIPPING and email us at [email protected] to let us know the name and email of the person joining the club.

I am based outside of the U.S. Can I still join?

No, at the moment we are only able to offer this membership to U.S. residents.

Membership & Billing

How much does it cost?

It costs less than $1 per day. See our full pricing breakdown and membership tiers here under the “pricing” tab.

We believe the Quanto Basta Cookbook Club is worth ~$30/month. We also believe that the first folks to join this community are going to be the heart and soul of it. So we’ve set it up for our first members to get rewarded for joining and committing!

How does billing work?

Annual memberships are billed once every year. For example, if you sign up on March 27, 2023, your membership will renew on March 27, 2024.

Bi-monthly memberships are billed once every two months, on the first day of the month. For example, if you sign up on January 27, 2024, you will be charged on February 1, 2024 and your cookbook club cohort will begin on March 1.

All memberships renew automatically. You can manage your membership by logging into your account portal.

When does my membership start?

When you register for the QB Cookbook Club, your membership won’t begin until the next cookbook cohort kicks off.

For example, if you registered on May 29, 2024, your membership won’t start until July 1.

Cohorts for the 2024 year are broken down as follows:

  • January & February (Registration takes place November 28-December 7)
  • March & April (Registration takes place the last week of February)
  • May & June (Registration takes place the last week of March)
  • July & August (Registration takes place the last week of May)
  • September & October (Registration takes place the last week of July)
  • November & December (Registration takes place the last week of September)

The reason that we begin registration a month before the next cohort is so that we can order the cookbooks and materials in advance and get them shipped to you before the cooking begins!

Is the Cookbook Club refundable?

We do not offer refunds after a membership has been paid for. If you would like to cancel your membership we can offer a prorated amount of store credit.

Are the cookbooks included in the price?

We offer multiple types of Cookbook Club memberships, including the option to include cookbooks or not include cookbooks.

We hope that this gives our members more flexibility, especially because many of our members already own a lot of Italian cookbooks!

To see all of our membership and pricing options, please visit the product page and view the Pricing tab.

What if I prepay for the cookbooks but I already have one or two of the chosen cookbooks?

If you sign up for a membership that includes the cookbooks, and you already have one of the books, we encourage you to gift it! We’re glad to add gift wrapping to the book, free of charge, (normally $5) for you to give to a friend or family member. We will not, however, offer partial refunds. Thank you in advance for your understanding.

Email us at [email protected] to request gift wrapping on the book.

How do I manage my subscription?

Login to your account via the My Account portal page. Navigate to the “Subscriptions” tab.

Here you can:

  • View your membership tier
  • View your membership renewal date
  • Toggle on and off the auto-renew feature
  • Update your billing and payment information
  • Cancel your membership
  • Reactivate your membership

What if the membership pricing changes and I paid for annual membership?

If you’re an annual founding member and our Cookbook Club prices go up, your pricing won’t. You’ll be “grandfathered” into your lower price. 

If prices drop, which we don’t foresee happening, we’ll figure out the best way to either add equivalent value to our founding members or reduce your pricing in proportion to the update pricing. 

We’re so grateful to our founding Cookbook Club members and we’re always going to do what’s best for you!

Virtual Events

How many events will there be?

We are aiming to offer at least one virtual event per month. One of the events will be a virtual meet-up so you can meet and chat with other cookbook club members. We’ll discuss the book, talk about some of the recipes, and share any feedback. The other virtual event will be with an outside person of interest, either the author of the book or an expert on the topic.

When do the virtual events take place?

We have 1 virtual event each month. Events are usually scheduled between 6-9 pm U.S. Eastern Standard Time on weekdays and between 12-9 pm U.S. Eastern Standard Time on the weekends. We try to vary the days and times of the week in order to accommodate everyone’s schedules. If you cannot attend a virtual event, you’ll have access to the recording that you can watch on your own.

Do I have to attend every event?

No, but we encourage you to participate as much as you can! The more you put in, the more you will get out of it. We will do our best accommodate everyone’s schedules when planning events.

Cookbooks & Recipes

What will the cookbooks be?

We have chosen to keep the titles of the books we’ll be cooking from top secret in order to keep things exciting and remove the temptation to jump ahead. After you sign up, we’ll announce the title of the first book. For the remaining books, we’ll announce those titles 3 weeks prior to cooking from them so you’ll have plenty of time to source the book.

Which cookbooks have you cooked from so far?

2023

Pasta Grannies: Comfort Cooking by Vicki Bennison
The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan
Italian Street Food by Paola Bacchia
The Amalfi Coast by The Caldesis
Italian American by Scott Taccinelli & Angie Rito
Pasta Every Day by Meryl Feinstein

2024

Italy by Ingredient by Viola Buitoni
Liguria by Laurel Evans

What if I don’t like the cookbook that was chosen?

Part of being in a cookbook club is to challenge yourself to cook from books you might not have considered! If you’re not excited about the book we have selected, we encourage you to stick it out and cook as many recipes from it as you can. You might be surprised! Sometimes a book doesn’t look as exciting as it is. After all, Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking Cookbook has zero photographs but her recipes are timeless, and her style of writing is captivating. Of course, you can always sit it out if you don’t want to cook that particular book. Please note that we cannot offer a partial refund for the cookbook book club after signing up.

Do I have to cook a recipe every week?

No, but we encourage you to participate as much as you can! The more you put in, the more you will get out of it. Of course, we totally understand that everyone has busy schedules, sick kids, vacations, etc. so just do your best.

How are the recipes selected?

For each cookbook, our team will select four recipes. We will try to select a variety of recipes, that showcase what the book is all about while also challenging you to try something new. Having some of the recipes preselected also means we can compare notes as a group.

You will also have the opportunity to cook four recipes of your choice and share with us your thoughts on that dish!

We hope that this format pushes you to feel challenged, while also giving you some freedom and flexibility to cook what’s interesting to you.

What if I don’t have the ingredients or tools needed for the selected recipe?

We will try our best to offer resources on where to source specific equipment and ingredients needed for a recipe. Of course, there may be instances where finding these items is not feasible. In this case, we recommend that you find an appropriate substitute and we’ll try to help with that as best we can. We’ll announce the pre-selected recipes one month in advance, so you’ll have plenty of time to gather your ingredients and tools.

What if I have dietary restrictions?

With every cookbook, we try our best to assign a variety of recipes. Many of the recipes we cook are naturally vegetarian. We encourage members with dietary restrictions to make their own substitutions. If there is an assigned recipe that is too difficult to alter, you can simply skip that recipe for that week or cook another recipe from the book.

Also, we alternate between assigned recipes and recipes of choice, so you’ll have the option to choose many recipes that better fit your tastes.

Lastly, we’ve seen amazing collaboration among members in our Slack chat group when it comes to making substitution recommendations!

Perks & Discounts

What discounts are available to q.b. Cookbook Club members?

All active members enjoy 5% off and free shipping on qbcucina.com

To apply your discount, login to your account, add items to your cart, then use the coupon code qbcookbookclub at checkout.

We occasionally also have other special discounts and free swag through our Cookbook Club Authors.

Don’t see what you’re looking for? Email us at [email protected]