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

by Natasha Feldman

The dinner party is back! Chef and cooking show host Natasha Feldman shares the secrets to throwing fun and delicious no-stress gatherings. This modern manual offers 80+ recipes as well as menu ideas, sketches (like a flow chart for what to cook when you're lazy), and practical tips to ensure that everyone enjoys the party—especially the host!


Making and eating dinner with your friends should be a blast—nothing tops getting people together, sharing good food, and laughing until you cry. The Dinner Party Project is here to revive and democratize the dinner party, to make it a fun, communal practice rather than a stressful solo performance by the host.

Forget fussy recipes with ingredients lists that run a mile long. With sections on appetizers, main dishes, drinks, sides, and desserts, Feldman provides recipes for every mood and cooking comfort level (including pizza parties, taco nights, and permission to order takeout). Whimsical illustrations help demystify the cheese plate, offer store-bought dessert options, and guide you to your ideal dinner menu; tips within each recipe ensure great results and help you plan ahead and avoid last-minute scrambling.

Recipes

Crunchy Radishes Dipped in Honey Fennel ButterPeel ’n’ Eat Shrimp with Basil Dipping MagicPerfect Seared Ribeye with Pistachio Date Salsa VerdeParty PestoVery Adult Bitter Greens with Roasted Grapes and PecorinoVeggie Pot Pie with Black Pepper and Parm PhylloThin Mint Pudding Pie
So go pick a date, plan a menu, and invite some friends over—after all, nothing brings people together like a good meal. 

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Nonfiction, Food, Food and Drink

272 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 18, 2023

Reviews

[Miss✧Pickypants ᓚᘏᗢ · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this very chipper cookbook, Natasha Feldman offers up a roadmap for planning and hosting successful dinner parties for up to 6 people. Recipes, coupled with a copious amount of helpful tips, are well written and relatively easy ones to make. Less experienced cooks, along with anyone who wants to host a dinner party but is apprehensive about doing so, will likely appreciate this cookbook most.

[Kristen Hooper · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meh….my interest was lost once I came across “Hot Dog Soup”

*gag*

[Madison Groves · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this cookbook cover to cover and it genuinely feels like it healed something inside of me. The pages and the recipes are filled with joy and quirkiness and reminders that the people around the table are the main point.

[Jeri Feldman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a true delight to read. I love all the functional advice and general inspiration. Most of all, I love the idea of using the dinner party to nourish my friend group and establish stronger bonds. It really works!

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book. I haven't made any recipes from it yet, but I already want to get my own copy, just based on reading the library copy.
I hope the recipes live up to my expectations!

[Swan Bender · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed browsing through the recipes and photos and found some great ideas.

[Marianna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some unique recipes and everything seems very doable for the average home cook.

[Rhonda Lomazow · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Dinner Party Project has an eye catching cover beautiful photography and recipes I can’t wait to try.A guide to stress free entertaining looking forward to inviting my friends over to sample the dishes.Thanks #booksparks for my copy.@Nashwithtash

[Margaret Gerberding · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like the pandemic made me forget how to host get togethers, and this book was very helpful. It is full of recipes and tips to put a fun and stress free gathering together.

[Jessica Hicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t know about you but I think was a lot more social before Covid. I used to have people over to gorge on homemade baked goods and I threw singles dinner parties and attended many potlucks. Now it sounds too hard. But then I got this super cool book from Book Sparks and Natasha Feldman helped me feel inspired once more! She makes it all sound so easy. She emphasizes that you really just need to eat with a friend. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a big beautiful house- you could eat takeout in a driveway! It’s all about connecting with people in person. And if you do want to put in a little more effort, she has recipes and menus and party themes to help!

Here’s what I made:

🍍 Agra Fresca: I’ve seen Agra fresca in restaurants and never knew it was so labor intensive! It tasted good at first but then was too acidic.
🧀 Cheese Board Cheese Chat is a 2 page spread with lots of great inspiration to make a charcuterie board
🍅 Rigatoni with Confit Tomatoes and Burrata- you really can’t go wrong with roasted tomato, garlic, and basil! Even better with the pesto and cheese bites!
🥗 Carole King Salad, winter edition- I love that this recipe has a variation for each season. Pears, candied pecans, and aged Gouda are so good together! The dressing was a little acidic for me
🍃 Brown Butter and Sage RKTs- I knew the brown butter was gonna be amazing in these but I was shocked by how delicious flaky salt is on top! I will never go back!
☕️ Clara’s Coffee Cake- turned out spectacular with bobs red mill gf baking flour. Love the crunch on top and the layers and the flavor!
🎉 Floofy Funfetti Cake- I used King Arthur gf funfetti mix and the chocolatey frosting variation. It was suuuper rich. A favorite among the kids!

[Ink_Drinker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love to cook and have friends/family over for a dinner get-together, but I always get anxious planning what I should cook and worried that it won't turn out good.

After discovering The Dinner Party Project, all those worries were dissolved. Natasha @noshwithtash made entertaining easy with her book full of menu ideas including delicious main dishes, appetizers, sides, drinks and desserts. Natasha also includes hosting tips and a dinner party breakdown and both will help with easing your stress level when preparing for a dinner party.

I recently had book club friends over for taco night and I made the recipe Sort-of-Kind-of Cochinta Pibil. My friends loved the robust flavors in this dish. It's so fun to try a different spin on a regular favorite and know ahead of time that it's going to turn out great!! By request, we are now using this recipe for our monthly book club taco night!!

I also tried the Cozy Night Borscht Soup which is a family favorite. This recipe had added meat and potatoes which I had never included before and it made it filling enough for the main meal. It will definitely be in our family's meal rotation.

If you're tired of being stuck in the kitchen while everyone else enjoys your party, grab this cookbook! No more missing out on the memory-making!!

[Julianna Strickland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not only is this a helpful guide for throwing any size dinner party, but the recipes are truly excellent and I keep coming back to them. I’ve made the bistro salad weekly since getting this book, and I’ve made the Sage RKT’s at least 3 separate times because they’re addictive. I also love the meatballs and the pizza dough! It’s refreshing to find a cookbook that has it all - beautiful photos, great ideas, and most importantly, recipes that work and are not intimidating. I’ll be cooking from this book for a long time.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every home needs this book. It’s so easy to follow and Natasha makes its so fun with playful pictures and graphics. It feels like we get to know her through her recipes. I’ve thrown several dinner parties inspired by this book and every time my guests commented on how delicious the food was. Even if you don’t like hosting, the book is really a great purchase. Don’t be stupid, be a smarty— go and buy this book on how to throw a perfect dinner party.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though Feldman appears to have a ton of experience in the areas of cooking and entertaining, her book feels like the approachable, down-to-earth guide for a normie amateur, and I love that. Not only are her tips helpful (about delegating, pre-prep, the flow chart to help you determine what you gave time and energy for) the recipes are so solid and manageable-sounding I put this straight on my books to buy list. The dessert section alone makes it feel worth it.

In a category glutted with cookbooks that *claim* to be accessible to the average, harried, short-on-time amateur, this one actually delivers and makes the premise of hosting a dinner party feel doable.

[Erin Shipley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love to cook and have a kitchen full of cookbooks and this has quickly become my go to for recipes for dinners with and without friends! The menus are so helpful for dinner parties and everyone really gets into the cooking. Maybe the best cooked cabbage recipe I have ever made! Highly recommend this book to any level of cook.

[Ilan Levin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has quickly become a kitchen essential. The recipes are so delicious, well-conceived, and not at all fussy or overwhelming. The recipes are also perfectly complemented by the beautiful photography and playful design. Do yourself a favor and order this book, then invite your friends & family over for a fun and tasty meal!

[Booksandcoffeemx · Rating 4 out of 5]

𝘗𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴!

Do you like to host dinner parties?
Or just make yummy food at your home?
This practical cook book comes with yummy and easy to make recipes, from salads to tacos, drinks and desserts. I can’t wait to try some.

[Annaleigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Got this cookbook for Christmas and I gobbled it up. I love the way the author breaks down hosting to the basics, and gives set menus. While there are some recipes I doubt I’ll ever try, I can’t wait to test out a couple next time I’m entertaining friends.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could not stand the photography in this cookbook. The pictures do no justice to the recipes. Most of the recipes are okay but the photos of them are unappetizing to me. Hard pass on trying any.

[Sheran Shepps · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good ideas

[Anu · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good collection of recipes for entertaining

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm trying to get my friends together more often and I've been looking at various ways to accomplish that. I might have to go the dinner party route in 2024.