The Dinner Party Project | Natasha Feldman
Suzy Chase: When two podcasts collide, magic happens. Welcome to Dinner Party, the podcast where I bring together my two hit shows, cookery by the book and decorating by the book around here. We're all about cooking, sharing stories behind recipes, and creating a cozy home. I'm your host, Susie Chase, a West Village wife, mom and home cook. Inspired by Martha Stewart trying to live in a Nora Ephron movie, surrounded by TWA plaid cookbooks, decorating books and magazines, cooking in my galley kitchen and living my best life in my darling New York City apartment in the cutest neighborhood in the city, the West Village. So come hang out and let's get into the show.
Natasha Feldman: I'm Natasha Feldman and my book is The Dinner Party Project, A No Stress Guide to Food With Friends.
Suzy Chase: I'm going to be posting a solo episode about an article that was just in the Atlantic last week. I don't know if you saw it. It's entitled, why Dining Rooms Are Disappearing from American Homes. And the writer asks, how many more dinners would be shared if we had the space to host guests? It's such a powerful question. Imagine if our spaces were geared toward gathering and less about isolation. And I think that's what the Dinner Party project is all about, eating good food and building community. You say when life gets tough, gathering around food is the greatest antidote. Chat a little bit about that.
Natasha Feldman: There's something about what that writer in the Atlantic said that so resonates. And then there's another, that final element, which is if we only had the space or whatever it is that she ends with, that is sort of like the antithesis of what I think the question should be, which she's almost saying you need X, Y, and Z to be able to host. And if we had those things, then this would be an easier solved problem. But I think the reality and what I try to solve for in the book is that we all have everything that we need to host people at home. I have a friend who lives in New York City in an apartment not much larger than this bedroom that I'm sitting in, and she has two pieces of wood underneath her bed and she puts them over the bed with a tablecloth and turns it into a dining room table and everybody sits around the bed and you think about how many people you could fit around a queen size bed, you have a full
Suzy Chase: Love it
Natasha Feldman: Size dinner party, and obviously that isn't something that everybody can accommodate and that is a bit of work, but you might have a stoop, you might have a neighborhood park, you might have a backyard, you might have a living room where people can just put plates on their hands or sit around a coffee table. There's sort of endless ways to ideate how to bring people into your space. And I think if we focus on the question being less, what is the perception of me that I want to put out into the world? And can I be that exact version of myself in this space that I currently live in? Two, what are the interesting problem solves so that I can bring people into where I am now? That's the question and I think that's the antidote.
Suzy Chase: So how did you become a dinner partier?
Natasha Feldman: I was in college and I had never hosted dinner party before because what does that even mean when you're in high school, even though your parents are cooking, I moved to London for a semester to study theater and very quickly realized that that was going to be a no for me and needed to find a way to become a part of this community because I felt sort of otherized discovering that my passion and the amount that I wanted to put into it was not at the same playing field as everybody else. And I started going to Borough Market into the grocery stores and started kind of figuring out how to cook for people. And then I would have everybody from all the different little apartment dorms over for dinner. And then I started making people's lunches to go to school and everybody kind of knew I was a little bit of a joke as far as the talent was concerned for the actual performance, but I became vital to everybody as the food supplier.
So that was my first, oh, I'm a young person discovering how I fit into spaces and what I have to bring to the table and discovering how I want to show people that I love them. And that was the first thing that clicked into place like, oh, I like to cook for people. And so after college I went to culinary school thinking I wanted to teach cooking classes, work on cooking shows, be on set, but in a different way and then just feed friends, feed friends, feed friends. So I started hosting dinner parties every week right after college, and so many friends were just in the most horrible Hollywood jobs at the lowest level, and it was so nice for them to get a home cooked meal and to come and debrief. And I was working at a restaurant, but my hours were early and school was early.
So I had this luxurious hour and a half before everybody else came home. I found my footing and I was able to establish and continue this friend group that will last me a lifetime because we had weekly intimate dinners with each other throughout those bizarro, early, mid, late twenties years. And then people bring in their partners and then they bring in, eventually you're bringing in a kid and it just sort of snowballs into this really big beautiful friend family. And so once I started, I just didn't stop, and now it is the only way that I really know how to communicate that I care for people. Maybe that's a stunted thing, but it's like
Suzy Chase: You found your lane. A lot of people don't.
Natasha Feldman: I love this lane.
Suzy Chase: It's a good lane.
Natasha Feldman: It's such a good lane.
Suzy Chase: So you give us the basics to make a dinner party, pick your peeps, pick your places, pick your style and pick your menu. You've also laid out three different cooking styles. Can you talk about those?
Natasha Feldman: Yeah, I'm curious which one you are.
Suzy Chase: I'm more solo because the collab and the potluck, it's too, I just want to do it. I'll just do it.
Natasha Feldman: You don't want to relinquish the control. No. So the reason I divided into three areas is because there are people like you and then there are also people that aren't great cooks or don't really like to cook, but still want to host dinner parties. And if that's the case, collaboration, cooking or potluck cooking is a much easier way to get people into your space without it feeling like something that's overwhelming. So I break it down as to solo cooking, meaning you cook everything before your friends come over and then you all have a nice time together. Collaboration, cooking, meaning everybody's cooking in the same space or at least you're finishing cooking, dressing things, putting finishing touches on things, seasoning things. Sometimes if people don't feel super confident in their cooking skills, collaboration, cooking is nice because in the end it's like, whose fault was it that the thing didn't taste good?
It's all of our faults. And that sort of lowers the steaks. Or there's third version potluck cooking where maybe you pick a theme and you're like, okay, you bring a salad that fits in. I'm making spaghetti and meatballs. I don't know why. I'm like on a spaghetti and meatball tear today. You make a salad that goes with it, you make a dessert that goes with it, you make a cocktail that goes with it, and then everybody's sort of coming together. But the amount of effort that everybody had to put in is significantly less than if you were to do the solo cooking. So it's really about sort of looking into yourself, what is the thing that's stopping me from having dinner parties? Is it too much cooking? Is it I don't want people to think if it's bad, it's my fault? Do I like the control? So it allows you to dive deep into really who you are and then how to make the dinner party work for you. One of those three things is going to work.
Suzy Chase: How do you recommend people find their unique vibe for a dinner party that feels authentic rather than staged? I feel like this is hard. This is hard for me. Do I play Sinatra?
Natasha Feldman: I often find that the best dinner parties are one that just feel authentic to the person in that moment. Maybe you feel like playing Sinatra one night and maybe you feel like playing Led Zeppelin another night. It's really, I think that the more that it just suits you and that people feel they're being brought into your world, the better. If somebody wants to have a dinner party exactly the way that they want to have it, then they should have it. And people are there to experience you and for them to come into your space. But what I think is really interesting about your question, and if you dig deeper than the dinner party, because the dinner party is the end product, but the work beneath the dinner party is like, there is nothing about this dinner party that is going to make your friends in the longterm like you more or less, unless you're really mean if you start being really mean and continue being mean.
But the stakes are so incredibly low, and yet we do this internal, am I good enough? Is the food good enough? Is my space good enough? Am I going to be judged? All of these root questions that if you feel secure and are a very strong base for going out into the world, having the dinner party and enjoying it and doing it regularly starts to calm a lot of those questions. But you have to be able to ask yourself them and look at them and then break them down. And to your question, should I play Sinatra? It's like, well, why not? Is what is the fear behind that that someone's going to be like, Ew, her musical taste is not good and we are no longer friends. That's just never going to actually be the case. And I think the more that we take on the uniqueness of oneself and sharing it, the more powerful the dinner party is and the more power you give yourself as a human. And that's sort of the juicy exercise underneath just having people over
Suzy Chase: God, you're like the dinner party therapist.
Natasha Feldman: Honestly, that is what they are to me.
Suzy Chase: You tell us for a dinner party, we can do a snack table, but I have a hard time visualizing what goes together with what, and I also need help with laying it out on the table. But you have the most clever formula. I'd love to hear about that.
Natasha Feldman: Yeah, there's two parts in the book that sort of dissect this piece, and the reason I added it is people that don't want to put together a full spread. There are so many delicious, awesome pre-made things that if you just slap 'em together are delicious. And there's one category which is snackies, where you can take salty, sweet, crunchy, sour, spicy, pick three of those things and then make sure that each of the snacks fits into one of those three categories. And if you keep those three consistent, you end up with a fun spread that kind of engages your palette in different ways, which is fun. And then whatever bowl they go in, I think when things are mismatched, it's really fun just the more things that if somebody comes over and sees just an entire table full of fun little snack of doodles and cocktails, I just think it's such an unusual experience that it doesn't have to be perfect.
And there's also a page that dissects how to put together a cheeseboard, and I just, cheese is dinner if you eat enough cheese. Cheese is dinner. And it also breaks down how to maybe pick the variety of cheese or if you want to just do one big hunk of cheese, how to put things with it. And it's sort of like a little flow chart to get from nothing to cheeseboard. And I wanted to gather information from that, from these cheese mongers in Los Angeles, these two female cheese mongers who I think are just cheese geniuses. So that's full of their advice, like who am I to give cheese advice when these genius humans are available? So I think there's a lot of people who would be like, no, a bunch of snacks is not dinner and that's fine, it's not for you. But I think there are some other people who have been like, wow, for me that feels like a huge weight lifted off my shoulder, and if I try that and I'm comfortable with it, then maybe I'm going to add one element that I make from scratch the next time. And then maybe you're going to add two the time after that. And I'm not saying that's the be all end all dinner party, but it is to say, if you don't know where to start, you can just start here.
Suzy Chase: This cookbook is a reminder to make dinner parties a creative practice rather than a stressful performance. Something I need to hear over and over. So what's a common hosting fear you've heard?
Natasha Feldman: I think the top one is like, what if my food sucks? The second one is, what if things are cold because I don't know how to order them and when to take things out. And the third one is, what if my guests don't like each other? Oh, these are I think are the top three. And I love them because they're all sort of solved by the same thing, which is who cares? Who gives a fart? I have had a dinner party where I put chickens in the oven and then realized after making a beautiful compound butter and putting it under the skin and evening it out and the golden potatoes underneath, put it in the oven and gone back an hour and a half later, you
Suzy Chase: Didn't turn it on.
Natasha Feldman: I didn't turn it on. So you just have this skin that looks slightly warmer than it's supposed to be. And I have friends who that was 10 years ago and people still bring it up also, this is my favorite. I got these beautiful chocolates from Stick With Me chocolates in New York, and they're the most gorgeous, uniquely flavored bonbons. And so I was eating them one at a time, splitting them in half so I could see the inside. I would share one with my boyfriend at the time, now husband, and he'd be like, let's have another one. I'd be like, no, we have to savor them. So I knew that I was going to be getting together with my best friends a few weeks later, so I hid them and I was like, he's going to find them. I have to hide them. And I bring them over and I'm like, guys, we're going to play this game. It's so fun. I'm going to hide the box and we're going to guess the flavors because they're so delicious and fun. We're going to guess the flavors. So we cut the first one up and we eat and we're like, wait,
Suzy Chase: I thought you were going to say you found the box and there weren't any chocolates in it. Okay, go on. Okay, go
Natasha Feldman: On. Found the box. There's chocolates in it. We cut 'em up all small. I've really hyped them up. We try it and we're all like, cheese is the flavor cheese. And then we cut up the next one and we're like, blue cheese. It's like they're just getting worse and worse. And then I realized they were supposed to be refrigerated as soon as I got them, and they're all rancid as the day is long and none of us got sick. But it was like, it's one of the most memorable dinner party moments where I fit everybody chocolate that tasted like cheese. So I think it's sort of like there is an element of this fluidity that you have to learn to have. I think if you want to have a flexible life. And those things are also very, are the backbones of the dinner party, and I think starting where you feel really confident.
And if that's like, Hey, I know a great Thai place down the street. I'm scared if I cook, the food's not going to be good, so I'm going to get Thai food and bring it in and we're all going to be at my house that is a dinner party, and that is a complete solve for problem one. Eventually I hope that that person's like, I'm going to make one thing. I'm going to make two things. I'm going to make a cocktail and you add on. But even if you never do, that's still a dinner party.
Suzy Chase: So these recipes are inspired by your home state of California, your Eastern European heritage and Jewish deli culture. I love a personal cookbook. I feel like I get to know you and your recipes. Talk a little bit about that.
Natasha Feldman: Thank you for saying that. I too always love cookbooks when I feel like the author is really connected to those things. And being from an Ashkenazi Jewish background, my great grandmother, my great-great grandmother when all of their recipes are here with me from Poland, from Ukraine, from wherever they came from, and it feels like a really beautiful way to keep your ancestry, your story alive. For me, having somebody make my great great grandma's brisket or my great grandma's pinwheel cookies or her sour cream coffee cake, these are all things that I had to adapt to a more modern palette, which as a recipe developer is so juicy and fun. And then also being someone who lives in southern California, also someone who grew up in the Pacific Northwest local seasonal foods are sort of just so dear to me and that's why there's a lot of recipes in the book where I'll have, if it's this time of the year, maybe think about this and if it's this time of the year, maybe think about that. All I know is what I know and all I can cook is the stuff that I can cook, and I love to do other people's recipes and learn, but I don't feel confident in teaching those things per se. This is sort of like my love letter to all of the places that I've lived and the foods and cuisines and people that have taught me what it is to eat and taste and experience food.
Suzy Chase: In your opinion, what's the best way to end a dinner party, a final course, a night cap or a parting gift or something else?
Natasha Feldman: It's dessert for me. It can be like watermelon and lime and tajin simple. It could be homemade ice cream sundaes. It could be a sheet cake. I love a whimsical dessert, a nostalgic dessert, a rice crispy treat, an icebox cake, whatever it is. I feel like giving space and separation between dinner and dessert and having that be a moment where you are returned to a childhood memory or maybe it's just something that you haven't been served in a while, something that sort of makes you smile. I think ending on a sweet note literally and metaphorically, and then sending people on their way is my favorite little parting gift
Suzy Chase: When I think of a dinner party. Salads don't immediately come to mind why it's like 30 different things. This is like dinner party therapy. I'll have to get back to you.
Natasha Feldman: I totally hear what you're saying. I love salad. It's one of my favorite things to eat because I love the confetti nature of it and all the different little things and digging and finding, I feel like a little squirrel or something, but I do understand people's trepidation because we have all experienced the over soggy, sat out too long liquid at the bottom of the bowl salad that's traumatized us and made us think we don't like salad. But I've never talked about salad this seriously. Let me tell you about salad. Yeah, I'm a snake
Because you can dress it last minute. It's a really easy dinner party thing. You can throw the lettuce and the whatever and the whatever and the cranberries and the cheese and blah in a bowl and throw it in the refrigerator earlier that day, make the dressing the day before. And then right when you're about to serve it, you shake the dressing and you pour it and you have something that what I think is a perfect supplement for a fatty dish. So if I was going to serve brisket or roast chickens or short ribs or cutlets, something that's fried, I think having a sharp vinegar salad is just always something that my palate wants. So I tend to utilize that high low combination a lot just because it feels very satisfying to me. And so making it so that you put the things together earlier and then dress it, I think is one way to alleviate the stress.
The other is there's all different kinds of salad. I have one in the book that I've had many, many, many people tell me it's the only way their kids eat greens. It's a kale salad and it's with a super garlicy aioli dressing, and then it has avocado and cheese and you smoosh it all together in advance. Well, you don't smoosh the avocado in, but you smoosh the kale in advance and then it's crunchy, but it's also soft enough that you don't feel like you're a dinosaur and it is just so garlicy and salty and satisfying and something like that that doesn't read traditional salad. And you're not chopping cucumbers and chopping this and chopping that. There's different ways to salad a wedge salad.
There's so many. There's a restaurant that I like here that serves a wedge salad, and it's literally just quarter of a iceberg with pickled onions and a poppy seed dressing. And I'm like, wow, I can't believe I paid for that one. But two, it's so delicious and it's cold and it's crisp, and it's a really easy way to play with temperature. If you want a cold component, you just keep it in the fridge. And if you want a room temperature component, it's something that can just be on the table undressed and you can dress it last minute. So I think salad actually gives you a lot of flexibility.
Suzy Chase: So talk about a couple of room temp things.
Natasha Feldman: We can put out all salads.
There's tons of veggie dishes that I put in the book. I think every vegetable is good at room temperature except for mashed potato. That's one step too far. But I think a roasted potato, a roasted asparagus, a vegetable medley. I have a delicious squash recipe in the book. It's butternut squash and you serve it with a salsa verde on top and a yogurt sauce underneath. So you get all these different textures, colors, flavors, and something like that is really delicious at room temperature and also something that's nice to look at. So you put it out in advance and then people are like, Ooh. You kind of start getting their salvatory gland going. Cheese is a great room temperature thing, but I tend to say if you want room temperature items, stick to salads, stick to veggies and have the one thing that's going to be hot and to temp either your protein or if it's your pasta or whatever that one thing is, focus on that coming out at the right temperature. And then vegetables and salads, no one's like that. Salad was too cold.
Suzy Chase: Said no one.
Natasha Feldman: Yeah, if that's what you're saying, go home. You're too grumpy to be out tonight. It's a you problem.
Suzy Chase: So what are you working on now?
Natasha Feldman: I am working on a proposal workbook two. I love food styling. I love being on set. I love being a part of something larger. And I work with Vox Media a lot. It's like the cut New Yorker, Thrillist, Eater, and I do a lot of food styling for their ads. So because it's the holiday season, we are just kind of churning out content nonstop. And I always keeping one or two food styling clients. I think it keeps me sharp and I will do the occasional catering if it's a full weekend and it feels like complex and fun. So I have a Montecito weekend coming up that I'm really excited about
Suzy Chase: With Harry and Megan.
Natasha Feldman: No, but they live close and getting ready and working on book two and then also just we're trying to make a human child. But I'm really excited about book two and we've gotten some good feedback so far. So it'll be different. Very different, but in a similar kind of with a similar ease.
Suzy Chase: So over the weekend, I made your recipe for Your New Favorite Herby Meatballs on page 85, and I also made a simple bistro salad on page 90, made a salad. I did the darn thing. So you said these meatballs are really moist and they are. I think that was the biggest takeaway from these meatballs.
Natasha Feldman: I'm so glad. What'd you think of them otherwise? Were they herby enough for you? Were they savory enough? What did you think of the technique?
Suzy Chase: Yeah, I did like the herby-ness with the Italian seasoning in it, but my number one beef usually with meatballs is they're dry
And then they get drier every day. And I'm a big meatball freezer, so they have to be super moist day one so that when you freeze them and then you thaw them and you cook them again. And the technique is sort of taking all of the wet ingredients, the onion, the garlic, the bread, all those things and whizzing them through a Cuisinart or a food processor so that you get this paste and then the paste is spread throughout the meat evenly, which does a few things. One, it causes the meat to not be able to stick together and to create that dry bond because there's all the matter in between. And then it also really helps the flavor get evenly distributed. Sometimes when you eat a meatball, you go fork in the wrong spot and there's a piece of carrot that's too large or whatever, and the whole thing falls apart. I think it's structurally important. It's texturally important, and also then you don't have to chop things is fine
So with the salad you say sometimes the best salad is a simple salad, and this is really a simple salad.
Natasha Feldman: It is. Did you like it?
Suzy Chase: It was good. And it goes great with the meatballs. They're good together.
Natasha Feldman: Yeah. Sometimes people say, I made your salad and it was two vinegar, and I'm like, I love vinegar.
Suzy Chase: Sorry, not sorry.
Natasha Feldman: Yeah, everything that all of my salads are very acid forward because to me that's what a salad is for and that's what makes a salad delicious. But yeah, I, I like that salad. I like the dressing to make extra and put it on vegetables or just to drizzle it on meat. It's kind of like a good catchall. I especially love it tossed in a little bit of arugula on a breakfast sandwich. It's really on
Suzy Chase: Me. That's good too.
Natasha Feldman: And as long as the dressing is good, no one's going to be like I expected. 17 ingredients
Suzy Chase: Now for my segment called The Perfect Bite where I ask you to describe the perfect bite of your favorite dish.
Natasha Feldman: I make a brisket pasta that is my favorite bite. I think it's sauteed kale with a lot of garlic crispy mushrooms. And then I use leftover wine braised brisket, and I cut up the brisket all small and add it in with the mushrooms and kale and the wine sauce, cook a pasta and then add it in with some pasta water until it's incredibly glossy and it's really very savory, very satisfying. I finish it with a little bit of lemon zest, so there's a pop of freshness, a little bit of parsley and either a Parmesan or something akin. And I love that. You get the rich, you get richness from the meat, you get chew from the noodle, you get earthiness from the kale and the mushrooms, and you get freshness from the lemon. And it's just so many flavors, but all things that work together at once that it's one of those dishes where every time I take a bite, I'm just excited about it over again. Sometimes you eat things in the first bite, it's delicious, and then you're just eating it because you're eating. And this is like every time I take another bite, I'm like, wow, this is what comfort tastes like.
Suzy Chase: Where can we find you on the web and social media?
Natasha Feldman: You can find me as nosh with tosh, NOSH, which is a little bite in Yiddish. And then my name is Natasha, so a lot of my friends call me Tosh, TASH. So it's with to across everything and all the things website, Instagram, and I love to make new friends and hear what people are doing and interact on the internet. It's such an amazing place to be able to make new friends. I have so many real life Forever friends that I met on the internet, and it's such a, I feel like food and women in food especially, is such a close-knit, warm environment that I love to just invite more people in. So I would encourage anybody listening to come say Hi,
Suzy Chase: Thanks for bringing The Dinner Party Project onto Dinner Party podcast. This was so much fun.
Natasha Feldman: My pleasure. I'm so glad that you had me..
Suzy Chase: Okay, so where can you listen to the new Dinner Party podcast series? Well, it's on Substack. You can also subscribe to Dinner Party for free on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Additionally, the episodes will be available on both Decorating by the Book and Cookery by the Book. Long story short, you'll be able to listen to it virtually everywhere. Thanks for listening. Bye.
