Louisville Ladies Do Lunch

Louisville Ladies Do Lunch: A Collection of Favorite Luncheon Recipes from the Members of Louisville’s Fifth Wheel Woman’s Club is a reprint of a cookbook originally compiled and privately distributed in 1999 by the members of The Fifth Wheel Woman’s Club of Louisville, Kentucky - an offshoot of the Welcome Wagon organization that brought women together through shared meals, bridge games, and community fundraising.The original edition was never commercially published. It was assembled and laid out by Roger Dean Peters, printed at Mailboxes Etc. on Westport Road in Louisville, and sold among members and friends as a fundraiser, with all proceeds benefiting St. Mary’s Center. Over seventy women contributed to the book, submitting recipes tested over years of lunches, dinner parties, church circles, and bridge clubs.The result is a snapshot of a particular kind of American home cooking - practical, sociable, and refined in the way that women who have fed people for decades know how to be. The book contains approximately 400 recipes organized across appetizers, soups, sandwiches, breads, salads, hot dishes, desserts, pies, cakes, and cookies. It also includes photographs of the contributing members, making it part cookbook, part community portrait.This 2026 edition, published by Misfit Pages, is a faithful reprint of that original work. The recipes, photographs, and contributor notes appear as they did in 1999, without revision. A new introduction by Amy N. Kaplan - daughter of the original editor, Mary Ann Peters - provides context for the book’s origins and the community that produced it.Most of the women whose names and faces fill these pages have since passed away. This reprint is an act of preservation: a record of their friendships, their generosity, and the food they loved to share. Whether you are a former member of The Fifth Wheel, a descendant discovering a grandmother’s recipe, or simply someone who appreciates the pleasures of a well-set lunch table, this book offers both nourishment and memory.