“You read the book, and then everyone brings a dish and we talk about the book, watch the movie, and compare and contrast,” she said.

This month, they’re reading Raymond Chandler’s “Farewell, My Lovely,” featuring L.A.’s most celebrated literary detective, Phillip Marlowe.

In the winter, she hosts Dinner & Cookbook night, where group members get a cookbook and must make a dish from one of the recipes.

There are theme book clubs, including a season of nothing but British murder mysteries, and a monthly Literary Café, “where we just get together and talk about books: what we’re reading, making recommendations.”

“The nice thing about my groups is we’re more than a group,” she said. “We’ve become friends. I’ve become friends with them. I’ve had new people come in that have felt very comfortable, which is what I want, and I appreciate it.

Now, though, Ms. Wowak, 74, wants to travel.

“I would stay longer, but there’s things I still want to do while I can do them, like more traveling. I’m a military brat, so really [my family] did a lot of traveling, and I just want to be able to go places and not have to hurry back for work,” she said.

She promised some of her most loyal group members that some of the book groups may continue, but on a more informal basis.

“One of them said, ‘Can’t you stay forever?’ and I said, ‘Comes a time, right?’” Ms. Wowak’s grandparents emigrated from Poland to the North Fork, and her father went to high school here, but when he joined the U.S. Air Force as a reconnaissance officer, the family moved around with his job. “Whenever he had his 30-day leaves, we would come back here, usually during the summer,” she said. Ms. Wowak completed high school in England and returned home to the North Fork, where she and her ex-husband Tom took over his parents farm stand and grew the business in Laurel. Her daughter Valerie now runs it. Her oldest daughter, Amy, lives in Chicago and works for Adobe, while her youngest, Jillian, owns a bar in Brooklyn.