Adults

Book Tasting

Jul 1, 2025

$101-250

Byline

Janae McNally, Social Media Coordinator, Livingston County Library, Chillicothe, Mo.

We pick three books and come up with dish ideas based on recipes or food mentioned in the story. Then we team up with three local restaurants, and each one creates a dish inspired by one of the books. At the event, we chat about the books and get to taste the dishes that go with them.

Advanced Planning

A few months out, we picked three books that either had actual recipes (like "The Kitchen Front"), were set in foodie places like Italy, or just had a strong connection to food. We reached out to three local restaurants and asked each one to create a dish inspired by their assigned book. One came up with an appetizer, one did a soup and one made a dessert — each dish tying into the story they were given.

Marketing

We promoted the event on Facebook and our website, and it was such a hit that we filled all 12 spots in just one day! The response was so overwhelming, we ended up expanding the participant list to 30.

Budgeting

We had the budget to treat it like a catered event, so we purchased one dish from each restaurant. Depending on the ingredients and the number of participants, it could have gotten expensive, but we kept it manageable. For the setup, we used what we had to decorate the tables and bought nicer plastic plates and utensils to elevate the experience. Our restaurants were also willing to work with us since it was free advertising for them.

Day-of-event Activity

Two of us handled the setup of laying out tablecloths, place settings and decorations. We had three tables, each themed around one of the books, with decorations to match. We also set up a space for each restaurant to keep their food warm or cool until it was time to serve.

Program Execution

We had 30 people sign up, and only a couple didn’t show. We kicked things off with a quick book review and group discussion. Then, two local teens helped out as servers, using book carts to bring out small tastings while we talked about each dish, why it was chosen, and if the chef was willing, a bit about how it was made.

After everyone was served, we played a short snippet of the audiobook so everyone could hear a moment from the story. Then we moved on to the next book and repeated the process. The whole event took about an hour, and everyone loved it—many stayed around to mingle for at least another 30 minutes. We’ve hosted two so far and plan to keep them going quarterly.

Advice

We picked the books ourselves and gave each restaurant a few dish ideas that fit within their usual style or menu. Having the restaurants bring the food, keep it warm or cold and do a short presentation about their dish really helped make sure everything looked and tasted its best.