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

Zora O'Neill (Author), Tamara Reynolds (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 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.

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.
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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

"Dinner hosts sick of Martha Stewarts and Barefoot Contessas will have a field day with O'Neill and Reynold'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."
-Publisher's Weekly

"I love these girls and their tasty, delicious, no-nonsense cooking."- Jamie Oliver

"This eccentrically enjoyable book by two strange and wonderful women may well be the cookbook America needs right now. Fun, deliberately unintimidating and filled with interesting-even ingenious-recipes, it inspires the non-professional to raise their game-and have a good time while doing so. Both book and authors are clearly good for the world."-Anthony Bourdain

"In Forking Fantastic, Tamara and Zora share their gift of creating easy and delicious meals with wonderful stories, tips, and recipes--reminding us all that good food is about sitting around a table and eating, drinking, talking, and laughing." -Ana Sortun, chef/owner of Oleana Restaurant and author of Spice

"We all know that something special happens when a bunch of people sit down together to share a meal and for some reason there are too few family suppers happening. This book will help you relax, remind you to slug some wine for courage, and inspire you to corral some friends and friendly strangers. Like the best hosts, their book is full of great stories and is generous with advice and encouragement. Cheers to more Sunday night suppers-on any day, at any hour!- Naomi Pomeroy, Chef and Co-founder ripe Family Supper; Chef/Owner, Beast

"Ah yes-peek, and much more.....into what these gals get excited about, and share in delicious bites. You too, will discover your inner chef, I know I have." -Michael Recchiuti, author of Chocolate Obsession

"For too long food writing has made actual cooking seem intimidating and complicated. Tamara and Zora's style lead you along with wit and humor and lots of great tips to the point where you will be having great convivial dinner parties with interesting food every week without even having to think about it." --Sara Jenkins, chef and co-author of Olives and Oranges

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• 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: #739,703 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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

By 

James F. Greer (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Forking Fantastic!: Put the Party Back in Dinner Party (Paperback)

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.

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

By 

Beverly Mcfarland (New Mexico) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Forking Fantastic!: Put the Party Back in Dinner Party (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.

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 (Anchorage, AK USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Forking Fantastic!: Put the Party Back in Dinner Party (Paperback)

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.