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Forking Fantastic!: Put the Party Back in Dinner Party [Mass Market Paperback]

Zora O'Neill , Tamara Reynolds
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)


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Book Description

October 6, 2009
The innovative hosts of a hot-ticket underground supper club invite you to crank up your oven, break out the vino, and save the dinner party from extinction

Twice a month, two veterans of the New York food world prepare a big meal in a tiny kitchen, serving heaping plates of spectacular cuisine to twenty diverse people (or more). Friends old and new at their Sunday Night Dinners supper club make spirited conversation while feasting on sumptuous cooking. Never obsessed with perfect place settings or fussy details, Zora O'Neill and Tamara Reynolds instead focus on the practical joys of down-to-earth entertaining at home. In Forking Fantastic, they showcase their very best recipes for making mouthwatering dinners-and for having the time of your life.

With a healthy dose of irreverent attitude and infectious spirit, here Tamara and Zora take the pressure off and encourage us to reclaim the lost art of cooking delectable meals for the masses. Forking Fantastic! includes:

* foolproof, party-tested, delicious menus that are easy to master, each with a "Plan of Attack" for preparing multiple recipes without panic.

* practical tips on everything from shopping and stocking a kitchen to making creative vegetarian substitutions and trussing a whole lamb for spit-roasting

* hard-won advice from the trenches and an inside look at Tamara and Zora's own cooking disasters

Food-forward but always realistic, Tamara and Zora celebrate seasonal, local ingredients while also extolling cornbread mix and the frozen pea. Quirky, funny and fresh, this book arms intimidated cooks everywhere with the courage, confidence and tools they need to have people over for the sake of food and community, not for the prize of being the best hostess on the block. A manifesto for bringing back a time-honored ritual one mind-blowing feast at a time, Forking Fantastic! makes dinner parties rock.
--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dinner hosts sick of Martha Stewarts and Barefoot Contessas will have a field day with O'Neill and Reynolds's irreverent, compulsively readable entertaining guide. Veteran hostesses of an underground New York supper club, the two chefs share dinner party secrets emphasizing good times with a minimum of stress, and an informal, refreshingly profane tone that belies the genre's staid, prescriptive standard. In short, hosts are encouraged to make the party theirs, which means cooking what's comfortable, rather than catering to the diets of guests; not getting wound up over wine; and even playing the soundtrack you like, rather than worry about ambiance. Practical, empowering tips include hiring a dishwasher (cheaper than you think, especially if guests chip in) and skipping the intensive house-cleaning. Four seasonal menus, complete with timelines and wine tips, give hosts of all experience levels a number of entry points and techniques, including a Baby Step Dinner Party and a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Cassoulet, in which cooks are discouraged from scouring the earth for a particular sausage or bean. The affable, freewheeling spirit can backfire, however, as the authors frequently pause mid-recipe to offer an aside, anecdote or even a different recipe altogether. This volume will fit in nicely next to Amy Sedaris's I Like You, but even the Contessa would be impressed with these cookbook newcomers.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

The women behind a Queens supper club offer a frank and fearless guide to throwing a panic-free dinner party, whether it's the Baby-Step Menu, the Fall Means Ham menu or the Amazing Cassoulet menu.
--New York Times Book Review

A hilarious compilation of plate-licking recipes, foolproof menus, and playful anecdotes that will help even the most inexperienced cook entertain a group. --Saveur

Product Details

  • Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Gotham; Original edition (October 6, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1592405053
  • ISBN-13: 978-1592405053
  • Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,033,935 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
(17)
4.7 out of 5 stars
Love this cookbook, almost more fun reading than actually cooking the recipes! Mapchick  |  8 reviewers made a similar statement
Read this book and be inspired to have the best dinner parties ever. Avid Reader  |  5 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Practical. Funny. Profane. Awesome. October 7, 2009
Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Ok, I've only had this book for 24 hours, so the recipes are not battle-tested, with the exception of a yummy Spanish Tortilla I made with leftovers last night (think frittata, not mexican tortilla). Having said that, I love the spirit of the book. It's aimed at someone who basically never throws a dinner party because of the stress involved. The recipes, shopping tips, etc all emphasize maximum deliciousness with least effort - for instance, it recommends never peeling a vegetable. It correctly identifies the surprising tastiness of frozen peas. I could go on.

The pleasure the authors take in a wine-infused, too-many-people-in-a-small-apartment kind of a dinner party is infectious. All in all, if the use of the f-word bothers you, or you want your dinner to look great in photographs, look elsewhere. If you've been meaning to get 8 people over for dinner more often, and want some help, this is just the ticket.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Brazen over-the-top fun! Who can resist? October 11, 2009
Format:Mass Market Paperback
If you've never considered cooking for another person never mind a group, this book will at least get you fantasizing about the possibility. Even if you rarely cook for yourself, you'll find yourself thinking Hmmm, I could make that... And seasoned cooks? I'm one of those ~ boasting dozens of years of creative cookery ~ yet there were multiple "who knew?" moments for me. These women know what they're talking about and better yet, know how to say it with clarity. And when's the last time you laughed out loud reading a cookbook?

Despite the statement that their vision of vegetarianism includes a bacon exception, the authors' vegetable dishes are original and tantalizing ~ and don't actually contain bacon although the recipe for candying it might make you want to.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Laid Back, Delicious Food & Fun!!!! October 12, 2009
By Erin
Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I just got this cookbook last week and am already in love with it -- I love the laid-back, no measurements approach (which is really how you're supposed to cook!), and the no-fuss approach to dining. I've already flagged a bunch of recipes to make for upcoming dinner parties.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Inspiring November 27, 2009
Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I just love this book! It's so much more than a cookbook. The dynamic personalities of the authors shine through in the telling of their cooking adventures, recipes, and stories. Their humor and love of entertaining have inspired me to have more dinner parties and to stress less about it. This is a great book for people at all stages of cooking experience. I've been cooking for many years and still found some great tips to help me. Read this book and be inspired to have the best dinner parties ever. I highly recommend it.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The Real Fun of Cooking finally explained November 1, 2009
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Forking Fantastic uses cooking as a means not a goal. The goal is a better, healthier and, mainly, a more social life. This is the first cook book I ever read that truly delivers its message in a simple and fun way with no bs. The authors, Tamara and Zora experienced a real change for the better in their lives since they began throwing dinner parties and they make a very convincing argument why this could work for anyone. This book has some great recipes (from caesar's salad to fried chicken to croquembouche to lane cake) and awesome practical tips like what a great kitchen needs - turns out, not much (3 knives, a cast iron skillets, a few stainless steel bowls and a garlic press), they also support the Jamie Oliver style of not using exact measurements (thank you!). This book will give you all the confidence you need to stop eating take away watching reruns of Friends and actually get a life.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Some may be offended, buy to most: BUY THIS BOOK! February 19, 2011
Format:Paperback
First, if you are offended by some three and four letter words (used somewhat often), believe having a social cocktail (or 3) before / after dinner (and wine with) is a bad thing, believe it would be faux pas to have anything but a perfect table setting and / or using anything except a table to eat off of (just wait till you get the idea of using saw horses and taking a door off its hinges) than this book is NOT for you. For the rest of us hard working and often broke people of earth who wish to still be able to entertain and enjoy life, this is the book for you! Anyone who thinks the meals are not great or tasteless must have missed the part when the authors talked about you being the cook and encouraging one to adjust (or even flat out change) the recipes to ones liking. This is anything but some dry, stiff, cook book. Lots of tips, several great meal ideas and just about the only book one would need when it comes to setting up a dinner party or supper club.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Forking Fantastic offers home cooking geared to crowd-pleasing results, and comes from two veterans of the New York food world who twice monthly prepare a big meal in a tiny kitchen. These thus are foolproof, party-tested menus and recipes easy for beginners to access and providing accompanying tips on everything from shopping to stocking a kitchen. Any general culinary collection will welcome its lively format and presentation.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Recipes October 16, 2009
Format:Mass Market Paperback
The great thing about this book is that it's more than a cookbook. It was fun reading about their adventures in and out of the kitchen and the book is full of a lot of easy and delicious recipes. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to add a little spice into their culinary life.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars It's great!
Love this cookbook, almost more fun reading than actually cooking the recipes!
I'll actually have to try some of them sometime, I love reading cookbooks.
Thank you Zora!
Published 4 days ago by Mapchick
5.0 out of 5 stars Fun story with great recipes
a cookbook that really is a story of two lady's Sunday Dinners with friends - both work in the NY food service industry for great restaurants and from time to time do "Sunday... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Larry Nebel
1.0 out of 5 stars Don't bother
I bought this book, recommended by Daily Candy, for entertaining in our vacation home. Tried the recipe that was highlighted in the article... Read more
Published on August 30, 2010 by Susan
5.0 out of 5 stars All around fun & fine forkin.
Amazing recipies, simple and effective. This book is roll-on-the-floor -laughing fun just to read. Total winner!!
Published on August 11, 2010 by Mark
5.0 out of 5 stars It is Forking Fantastic!
This is a great read about a great idea. Delicious food, cheap wine, good conversation, attitude, fun. We should all start such an enterprise!
Published on July 26, 2010 by Maggie G
5.0 out of 5 stars Get entertaining, America!
Love, love, love this book! My husband bought it for me for Christmas and I sat down and started reading it while the kids were opening their gifts...oops! Read more
Published on January 17, 2010 by Theresa M. Daggett
4.0 out of 5 stars Lots of fun with food
This book is as irreverent and enjoyable as its cover would indicate. I know that I can pull off many of their recipes, and I'm not an accomplished cook by any means. Read more
Published on November 29, 2009 by Jonathan Groner
5.0 out of 5 stars Freaking great book - for cookin' & readin'
One rainy day I found myself killing time in one those generic big box bookstores with obligatory café. Read more
Published on November 13, 2009 by Conner Gorry
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