Natasha Feldman - The Dinner Party Project: A No-Stress Guide to Food with Friends

To anyone in search of a big, full life

fueled by friends and food

Ive met most of my favorite people at dinner parties.

My closest pal of ten years, Julianna? Collected her at a dinner party I hosted to find a new roommate. The night ended in sticky cinnamon buns.

My friend Phi? I met her at a dinner party I was invited to when I ran into a guy I did theater with as a kid.

The guy I did theater with? Well, we arent tight, but the woman he was dating at the time, the one who threw the dinner party where I met Phi? She is a very close friend of mine now too.

The photographer for this book? Wanna guess how I met her? Yup. At a dinner party.

My husband, Andy? I knew it was the real deal after I brought him to a dinner party hosted by my two best friends. There was risotto involved.

My dog, Malone? Well, she used to be my friends dog until we fell in love at a dinner party, and the rest is history.

I could regale you all day with stories about people Ive met at dinner parties and clung to like a baby koala. Dinner parties bring people together. Theres just something about having dinner and drinks at a friends house that is 1,000x more memorable than going to a restaurant. So as a believer in the power of dinner parties, I spent my mid-twenties attending as many as humanly possible.

But then, as my friends and I got busy with careers, dating lives, families, and general garbage, the dinner parties got further and further apart. One day, I was sitting on the couch feeling unsettled, thinking about what had shifted, and it became really obvious. I knew what I needed. Enter Friendsday Wednesday.

Friendsday Wednesday (n.): A Wednesday when your friends come over for dinner so your week doesnt suck.

It began with a Google Sheet where people could sign up for one of six open spots per week. I thought just a few people would sign up, and that maybe some weeks no one would sign up, and I would have to deal with the existential question that all humans ask themselves in their darkest moments: DO ALL MY FRIENDS HATE ME?

But right away the entire month was booked! I was incredibly excited.

I used the first Friendsday Wednesday as a chance to dust off cookbooks Id been meaning to crack open. Id pick one recipe I was really excited about and make simple sides to serve with it. I made things like Moroccan stewed lamb with cherry rice, extra-gooey butternut squash mac and cheese, grilled kebabs with fluffy homemade pitas, and cochinita pibil tacos. On occasion, if the day exploded, I would just order takeout. Guests always brought the booze.

Friendsday Wednesday quickly became the best day of the week, not just for me and my partner (hi, Andy!), but for all of our friends. People started texting me to find out what we ate on nights they werent there, or to ask if they could bring a plus-one, and to get ideas about how they could host their own version of Friendsday Wednesday.

The act of gathering and feeding people allowed me to maintain sanity, support my community, and have some fun. Being an adult can be sort of a drag a lot of the time, and gathering around food is the greatest antidote.

Am I saying that becoming a regular dinner partier will necessarily lead you to a fulfilling career and the love of your life? Im not not saying it.

Who benefits from more dinner parties? Everyone.

Im not a social scientist, but I do have a theory. Here it goes...

You know Maslows Hierarchy of Needs, the theory that our most basic needs must be met so that we can start to address our more complex needs like self-esteem, confidence, and creativity? Well, I think were screwing it up.

Today, were not getting our most basic needs met. Statistically, millennials are more burnt out and isolated than any other generation. The General Social Survey found that the number of Americans without any close friends has tripled since 1985. We eat out 30 percent more than any other generation. Were less confident in the kitchen. (Someone close to me, who I will not out in this public forumcough *Andy*once asked me how to heat up soup.) Were about half as likely to have someone over for dinnereven just once a month.

Our shortcuts to food, health, and friendshipdrinking cereal-milk-flavored meal replacements alone at our desks, taking gummy vitamins that promise magic, and responding to group texts with ridiculous TikTok videosmay trick our brains into thinking weve checked each of Maslows boxes, but they dont actually form a stable foundation. We have optimized ourselves into oblivion, and its isolating us, chipping away at our sense of self, and making us anxious and unhappy. Our need for authentic community is impossible to ignore.

Preparing and eating dinner with your family or framily (thats your friend-family) makes your life better. The sense of accomplishment youll get from creating an opportunity for people to sit around a table while stuffing their faces and laugh-crying is unparalleled. Youll get closer with your friends and make new ones. And the basic act of cooking is so good for your mental state that studies have shown it de-stresses and grounds you in the same way that meditation does. In other words, its basically free therapy.

Now, I know what youre thinking: That sounds fun. But also Im a tired person, and I dont know if Ill actually do it.

Our overworked and overstressed brains can always come up with reasons not to do things, so let me take a minute to knock down some of those fake excuses now.

I work till 8 on Wednesdays. Wednesdays are bad for me.

Well, guess what? Friendsday Wednesdays dont have to be on Wednesdays! They can be on Saturdays. You will have to call them Friendsday Saturdays, which is an objectively worse name, but if it fits your lifestyle better, go for it!

I dont know how to boil water.

First off, Im sure thats an exaggeration. Second off, thats what this book is for. Each of these recipes was tested by friends of mine who have next to no experience in the kitchen. If they can make my eggplant parmesan with blistered tomatoes and burrataand they did, and it was good!then you can too. Plus, the recipes are full of tips to help you work through them, including what you can make in advance (and how to reheat it). There are also suggestions in the menu section for stuff you can just buy prepared at your grocery store (helloooo, frozen cheesecake).

Look, Natasha, Im no mid-90s Martha Stewart. Im much closer to 2020s Martha Stewart, who posts blurry photos of chickens and close-up pics of her dental work on her Instagram. I dont have time to prepare a meal, do some intricate napkin-fold, arrange a candle-lit tablescape, and then cook and clean. Thats too much for me.

Okay, well, look, that was really specific. But the bottom line is that you dont have to make a multicourse meal and show off your mid-90s Martha skills if you dont want to. You can order pizza and make one of my delicious salads to pair it with, and thats a dinner party too.