The dinner party project A no-stress guide to food with friends

Fans of Feldman's YouTube show Nosh with Tash will feel right at home with her first cookbook, which encourages the return of the dinner party. Recipe titles that will make readers giggle are only the first trick she uses in dispelling any potential hosting anxiety. Helpful yet witty guides and charts walk planners through a variety of considerations, like menus, timelines, and style. Once you've settled on a vibe, you head to the recipes, which are diverse in flavor and fit into a variety of menus, including vegetarian. A font of tips and tricks, Natasha continues to put beginners at ease with an encouraging tone, while kitchen vets will love the book's bright design and smart choices (e.g., ingredients listed in chronological order). Everyone will love the adorable little illustrations, sprinkled throughout, that demonstrate culinary skills. The Dinner Party Project won't disappoint: readers will have so much fun in the kitchen, they may have trouble knowing when the planning/prep ends and the party begins.

Dinner parties can be wonderful, but they're usually fraught with anxiety and involve a great deal of work. Feldman, who has a YouTube cooking show called Nosh with Tash, posits that dinner parties are so important that they should be part of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. But how does anyone throw dinner parties when everyone has busy lives and essentially no time to spare? Feldman offers three paths: going solo, group cooking, or potluck. Her book includes cartoony flowcharts, various menus, and lots and lots of inviting, tasty recipes. All aspects of party food are covered--drinks, appetizers, veggies, mains, and desserts. The intro gives advice about picking and planning, along with good kitchen hints like how to read a recipe. The point of the book is that dinner parties are important social activities and most of all should be fun. It is easy, reading this, to imagine three or four friends in the kitchen dividing the work and enjoying each other's company before the event. VERDICT Feldman's first cookbook is fun to read and should be even more fun to cook from.--Danise Hoover