Jake Cohen, DINNER PARTY ANIMAL: Recipes to Make Every Day a Celebration
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[0:45]Jake Cohen is the author of Dinner Party Animal, Recipes to Make Every Day a Celebration.
[0:50]Jake is the New York Times bestselling author of Jew-ish, and I could not, star of
[0:55]Annie's, Jake Makes It Easy, and most importantly, a nice Jewish boy from New York.
[1:00]Jake and his recipes have been featured on Rachel Ray, The Drew Barrymore Show, live with
[1:05]Kelly and Mark, Good Morning America, and The Food Network, and in the New York Times, Food
[1:09]and Wine, The Wall Street Journal of Bon Appetit, and Forbes, among others.
[1:13]When he's not posting recipes and thirst traps on social media at Jake Cohen, he's eating
[1:18]and gallavanting around New York City.
[1:20]Welcome, Jake.
[1:21]Thank you so much for coming on Totally Book to talk about a Dinner Party Animal, Recipes
[1:25]to Make Every Day a Celebration.
[1:27]Congratulations.
[1:28]Thank you.
[1:29]Thank you.
[1:30]Yay.
[1:31]Okay.
[1:32]Tell listeners your backstory before we even get into the recipes and all the ins and
[1:37]outs of how to have a great party and make people feel welcome and hospitality and all
[1:41]of that.
[1:42]I was so interested in how you grew up and how you found your place sort of at the table
[1:47]and your identity and, you know, that you were a shy kid and all that.
[1:50]So take us back so that we can get here.
[1:53]Yeah, so I grew up in Queens and it was just like Food was always such a huge passion
[2:02]of mine.
[2:03]It's not something I really thought that I was going to pursue professionally and as I just
[2:07]got older in high school, I was a very shy kid.
[2:11]I wasn't very popular kid and I just became obsessed with Food Network.
[2:16]Just I would just come home from school and watch it for hours and I started throwing these
[2:20]little dinner parties for my friends and actually more so dinner parties for people
[2:25]I wanted to become friends with and it was this way that I actually learned how to grow
[2:29]community and truly like socialize and all of these things that were so difficult for
[2:35]me and honestly because of that I really came to terms of fact that like Food was the
[2:40]only thing I was going to do, only thing I could do and I only applied to one college
[2:45]and that was the culinary and sort of America and I kind of kicked off my journey to
[2:50]working in restaurants and quickly transitioning into media running test kitchens for food
[2:53]magazines and then very luckily quickly into writing cookbooks and so this is my third
[3:00]and the one that was the hardest to write but also I think the most fun.
[3:06]Oh, I love that.
[3:07]Can I just read a little bit from your introduction because I just found it so moving.
[3:12]He said, I need community like I need air but it doesn't come as easily as breathing.
[3:17]My learning curve began in high school when I hosted my first inner party for some friends
[3:21]armed with printouts of einegarten's recipes were added to me in front of me on polenta
[3:25]while the recipes were solid my execution was not used and then I'm going to fast forward
[3:31]you said but none of that mattered it was the first time this group of teenagers had a
[3:34]home cooked meal made by one of their peers.
[3:37]We got to cosplay as adults talking about life and first loves and the intense feeling
[3:41]of being on the cusp of adulthood to my surprise after I cooked for people it seemed
[3:45]that they liked me more so I liked me more that holds true to this day and I can trace
[3:50]my love of cooking, respiration and hosting back to that first gathering nothing is quite
[3:54]as soul filling as inviting people over and feeding them a meal that you cooked to yourself
[3:59]and then you also said I'd always struggled with feelings of not being worthy of friends
[4:03]or love the confident Jake you see on social or in these pages today is not the Jake
[4:08]I was in high school I was a shy boy struggling with my weight and sexuality at the
[4:12]same time all while juggling to figure out how to build the community I so desperately
[4:17]craved that inner party was the first time my doubting inner voice was silenced I love
[4:23]that it's so amazing yeah and it's it really like it's still true to this day it's
[4:29]something that I walk a lot about when it comes to hosting and entertaining I think people
[4:34]get in their head a lot of stress around it and the comparison I always say it's like
[4:39]when you go to a yoga class and you can't touch your toes which is like I can't touch
[4:43]my toes you don't beat yourself up you know that you're there on a journey towards getting
[4:49]more flexible and it's more so about you're grateful that you did show up versus beating
[4:54]yourself up for not being able to do a split or a headstand I actually feel like when
[5:01]I go to yoga and can't do anything I just don't go back to yoga so maybe that's
[5:04]the wrong but some people feel that way about cooking too and my whole thing is like it's
[5:10]a practice it's a discipline and you're not necessarily going to just knock it out of
[5:15]the first time but that doesn't matter as long as there's food on the table and people
[5:20]you love it's going to be a great time and that's why I want to create a book that really
[5:24]could help bridge the gap for everything else from like your grocery list to like your
[5:29]timeline of how do I actually organize myself to host a dinner party yes and you tell
[5:33]us with music and you know making even the formality of an invitation something as simple
[5:39]as a paper list post or just putting some occasion and some festivity around the event
[5:44]from start to finish and then of course the menus are so great I am determined to make
[5:49]these Parker house rolls they look so I mean oh my gosh they're really good they're really
[5:53]good brown butter and the whole thing was it's like you make you just brown a ton of butter
[5:58]and you some of it in the dough in the dough itself for the Parker rolls a park house
[6:02]rolls and then the rest of it you whip up with honey to spread on top which is really
[6:06]just lovely oh my gosh so tell me a little bit more it's one thing to say okay I'm going
[6:13]to start cooking for friends and I can't make Ratatouille or whatever and it's another
[6:17]to like have a million followers and this whole empire thing that you've built so go
[6:22]back a little bit into the thing that you went by really quickly I left restaurants
[6:31]I worked at Danielle and ABC kitchen here in Manhattan and it was such an incredible experience
[6:35]just with something that I knew very early on my dream wasn't to own a restaurant my dream
[6:39]wasn't to run a restaurant my dream wasn't to to be in that world my dream was always
[6:45]to be in media so I took an internship it's a very magazine and worked my way up onto
[6:50]the masthead and from there I think that was really like the beginning of social and really
[6:58]seeing the power of it the power of it in terms of networking within the industry the
[7:03]power in terms of getting eyes on me and my recipes it was just a really great opportunity
[7:10]to start to grow while a lot of the editors were like they couldn't be bothered they
[7:15]thought it was stupid they thought they were above it and it ended up being the thing that
[7:21]got me my next job which was like I was the food editor of what's like cultacing table and it
[7:27]was just this this incredible kind of like game of plinko that social was always this
[7:32]through line of I continued to grow and again when I got my first book deal I had 70,000
[7:38]followers it was a tiny deal no one thought it was going to be like this huge success
[7:42]they thought it was just gonna be like a nice little niche book for the catalog and I knew it
[7:47]was gonna be a hit because I'm delusional like I just I when I have my mindset on something it's
[7:53]just it's gonna happen and there's no other option and so I just kind of blew it out of the
[8:01]water I knew what I wanted to do social wise to help promote it and that was like I did 18 days
[8:06]of giveaways and Instagram lies with celebrities like actually the craziest thing is looking back like
[8:12]like I think one of them was I was making lockers with Gracie Abrams and Benny Blanco cooking
[8:18]from the book and it's just like looking now back at that it's kind of wild but it was just
[8:24]really fun and I think the best part is is I know these recipes are amazing I know what I'm great
[8:31]at I know what I'm not great at and recipe development is something I love and I will always like
[8:37]make sure that these are recipes that not only you want to make but you can make and most
[8:42]importantly that you want to tell everyone in your life about because the cookbook world much like
[8:47]I would say the book world in general is still this this industry that is so rooted in word of
[8:54]mouth it is about recommendation from your community so when you create something that people love
[9:02]they tell other friends that buy copies for their friends and it really does become this like
[9:06]network of spreading like a while of fire and I love that I think it's really it's really an
[9:12]honor because then it just means that my recipes become so intertwined in like a family's culinary
[9:17]lexicon love it well you also include celebrities in this book including Joe Zaren and Katie
[9:24]Kirk who've been on this podcast and friendly with Jill very good friends with Jill and Ali I mean
[9:31]yeah it was just anyway which is great you also really focus on Shabbat which I love and is so
[9:37]needed right now and the power of Shabbat dinners and that we have this built into our culture
[9:44]that every Friday we should be hosting a party and like why not just blow it out of the water
[9:49]so talk a little bit about Shabbat and the meaning of that to you yeah Shabbat was like my
[9:53]entryway into dinner parties as an adult and in the same way that I did this like I had this
[10:00]size and high school to build community.
[10:02]What happened was in my 20s, I was so focused on work.
[10:05]I was so like head down in work in my last relationship
[10:10]and I really spent no time building community.
[10:14]That a lot of people do with their 20s.
[10:16]And I got to a point where it was like,
[10:18]what do I do?
[10:19]How do I make friends?
[10:20]How do I be an adult?
[10:21]How do I do all of these things that I wanted?
[10:24]Again, and I wanted a new version.
[10:26]I wanted the adult friends.
[10:28]I wanted the gay friends.
[10:29]I wanted the Jewish friends.
[10:31]And so I turned to Shabbat.
[10:33]And it became this really incredible opportunity.
[10:36]I got involved with this organization called One Table,
[10:38]which I'm now on the board of.
[10:40]And it's this awesome nonprofit that helps people
[10:43]in their 20s and 30s really create a sustainable
[10:46]Shabbat practice, lowering the barrier
[10:48]to entry by helping pay for groceries
[10:51]or give you all of the materials you need
[10:53]or help you buy a table if you need anything
[10:57]to make it happen.
[10:57]And for me, that was so important
[11:01]because I got to understand the ancient Jewish wisdom
[11:05]around gathering those you love and being present
[11:08]with them over a meal.
[11:10]And we do that at Shabbat because it's this incredible
[11:13]ritual that we've inherited.
[11:15]But very much like how yoga is a Hindi practice
[11:18]that everyone does because it's good for you,
[11:21]I feel that Shabbat is the same way.
[11:23]It is a practice of self care and community and intention
[11:27]and presence that is good for everyone, both Jewish and not.
[11:31]And so while this book is not,
[11:33]it's my first not inherently Jewish book.
[11:36]Obviously there's so much, so many Jewish recipes,
[11:39]there are many Jewish menus.
[11:40]It is really about taking the idea
[11:43]that what we have is universal.
[11:47]I love that.
[11:48]I know every Friday I'm like, this is the easiest.
[11:50]So it's like wine and bread, candles and friends and family.
[11:53]Like this is the easiest thing ever, right?
[11:55]That's that.
[11:57]So when you try to get people together and everything
[12:00]and put Shabbat dinners and all this together
[12:04]in this very complicated time that we're living in,
[12:07]how has like the external world and everything that's happened
[12:12]affected your intentions, your beliefs?
[12:16]Do you double down on Shabbat now?
[12:18]Post like what has changed in October 7th?
[12:20]And how has the publishing of this book
[12:24]versus your last books?
[12:25]How has that felt different if it has?
[12:28]Yeah, it's always different.
[12:29]I'll say October 7th happened during my book tour
[12:32]for my last book.
[12:34]So it was quite intense to be going through it.
[12:37]And that one was obviously a really Jewish book.
[12:41]My first two were so explicitly Jewish.
[12:43]And it was an honor to be able to do exactly what
[12:48]I know my mission was.
[12:51]And that is to spread joy and pride around Jewish culture,
[12:56]separate from everything else and to be able to allow
[12:59]a community to still find each other and still create
[13:04]some guidance around how do we like, how do we still stay
[13:09]positive, how do we still stay engaged in the rituals
[13:13]that are going to help us through this as it
[13:16]has every other trial and tribulation we faced.
[13:20]With that being said, for this book, I never really change.
[13:24]I'm a big believer in being a little polarizing.
[13:27]I think people are going to get me or they're not.
[13:30]They're either going to love me.
[13:31]I talk about this my last book.
[13:32]It's like, I hope you love me and you can't get enough of me.
[13:37]And if you don't like me, as long as it's not because he's
[13:41]a Jew or he's gay, God bless.
[13:43]God bless, it's like, I'm not for everyone.
[13:46]I don't want to be for everyone.
[13:46]I think if you were for everyone, you're
[13:48]doing mediocre work.
[13:49]Really, it's about creating people that
[13:51]can see me and be like, you know what?
[13:53]That's my style.
[13:54]That's the way I want to cook.
[13:56]That's the way I want to host.
[13:56]That's my sense of humor.
[13:58]And there are many people that are like, they love aspects of me,
[14:01]but they don't like everything.
[14:03]They hate when I'm like, a lot of people are like,
[14:05]you got to wear more clothes than the kitchen,
[14:07]because I'm always in like a tank top.
[14:09]And some people are, you got to be more Jewish.
[14:12]You got to be less Jewish.
[14:13]It's people are going to feel however they feel,
[14:15]but I'm not doing it for them.
[14:16]I'm doing it for me.
[14:17]And just letting everyone in.
[14:19]So these books are snapshots of my life.
[14:22]This book specifically is an exercise
[14:26]in the dinner parties that I throw,
[14:28]with pictures of my friends and the family
[14:30]that have all sat at the table.
[14:32]It's wild.
[14:33]It's like, we have Debra Messing and Katie Currick
[14:36]and Benny Blanco.
[14:37]And these are all the people that sit at the table
[14:40]and get to try these recipes as I test them out.
[14:42]And part of it is just like, this is what I think
[14:46]is going to make a great dinner party.
[14:49]You can agree.
[14:50]You can disagree.
[14:52]But really, it's about finding the community
[14:55]that wants to go on this journey with me.
[14:57]I love it.
[14:58]So it happens to be Thursday.
[15:00]What are you making tomorrow?
[15:01]Are you cooking for people tomorrow?
[15:03]So wild.
[15:04]So I actually did it last night.
[15:06]I did, we had a friend's over
[15:09]and I actually did the hall.
[15:10]We did like an early Shabbat because tomorrow,
[15:13]my roommate, my roommate is Benj Pasek,
[15:16]the incredible songwriter.
[15:18]One of my roommates is Benj Pasek,
[15:19]and the incredible songwriter wrote,
[15:21]J. Evan Hansen, all the music that he created a showman
[15:23]and La La Land, he's actually the special guest
[15:25]at Radio City Music Hall performing with Hugh Jackman.
[15:28]So we're all going to watch him perform.
[15:31]So that's going to be how we're spending Shabbat this Friday.
[15:36]Last night, I actually made a bunch of recipes for my book.
[15:39]I did, my best friend Brian is obsessed
[15:43]with a tiramisu cake, and it's so good.
[15:45]You just make this espresso sponge cake,
[15:47]poke holes in it, pour over syrup,
[15:49]and then top it with mascarpone cream, beyond.
[15:53]It's just really good.
[15:55]It's somewhere in between the sponge cake
[15:57]and the tiramisu.
[15:58]And then I made the one pan noki bake from the book,
[16:01]which is just so easy.
[16:03]And I love that.
[16:04]I have some recipes like the Parker House Rolls,
[16:06]and that's part of a celebration menu.
[16:09]So that's a little bit more intentional
[16:11]and a little more work that has to go in it,
[16:14]and planning, because there are moments
[16:15]where you want a project meal,
[16:17]where you're like, it's someone's birthday,
[16:19]it is an occasion, it is time to actually put in the effort.
[16:23]And then there are menus that you could just throw together
[16:26]at a time and a place for everything.
[16:27]I love it.
[16:28]And that you have these blueberry muffins,
[16:30]blueberry corn muffins, right?
[16:32]Oh my gosh.
[16:33]Yes, half corn muffin, half blueberry muffin.
[16:35]Part of it, I actually made those on,
[16:38]I went, I'm friends with many of the Roni girls,
[16:41]the new, the reboot.
[16:43]And so Aaron, who's my neighbor,
[16:45]she called me up and she's like,
[16:46]I'm having all the ladies out to East Hampton.
[16:49]Will you please come and cook a sponge?
[16:51]I was like, all right, why not?
[16:52]So I went out and did that whole menu,
[16:54]and it was just such a hit.
[16:57]I went, I want you to, so where do you cook in public?
[17:00]I know you're doing so many events for the book,
[17:03]and you're gonna be a template manual at the striker center,
[17:05]and very excited for that.
[17:07]Like, how can the average person, you know,
[17:09]get invited, get to your table?
[17:11]You can, and that's kind of like the point.
[17:14]It's like, that's one of the things I talk about.
[17:16]I don't actually cook for strangers.
[17:19]It's one of the things I find it's so intimate.
[17:22]I always say, like, people always ask,
[17:24]if you weren't doing cooking, what would you be doing?
[17:27]And the answer I typically give is porn.
[17:30]And that should mainly a joke,
[17:31]but also not really, it would be very well could be.
[17:35]And I always say, I find cooking for people,
[17:38]an incredibly intimate act,
[17:40]and I don't think that I would ever do it for money,
[17:44]and I would much more,
[17:46]I'd be much more likely probably to get into sex work
[17:48]than I would into getting to cooking for strangers.
[17:51]And I would do it with pride, I would love that.
[17:54]So he's gonna have a backup profession, yeah.
[17:57]That's great.
[17:59]Do you have another cookbook in the works?
[18:01]Always, I'm trying to do one at a time now.
[18:04]This is the end of a two-book deal,
[18:05]and so I will get through this,
[18:08]and I actually already have the next two planned out.
[18:12]The next one I'm really excited about
[18:14]will get there when we get there.
[18:16]I'm all about, like, talk about it when it's ready,
[18:19]but I love this idea of I have an idea for a concept,
[18:25]a world that I wanna live in.
[18:27]The first one was modern Jewish cooking.
[18:28]The next one was everyday cooking with a Jewish spin.
[18:31]Third one is obviously dinner party and hosting.
[18:34]My next one is gonna be completely different,
[18:37]and I love that, because I get to kind of
[18:39]have these little vignettes of sessions.
[18:42]And there's endless recipes, endless inspiration.
[18:48]It's a really fun, and it's a really fun gig to have,
[18:53]and an honor to be able to do what I love.
[18:55]That's amazing.
[18:56]So someone coming to one of your upcoming events for the book,
[19:00]what should they expect?
[19:02]Oh my God, what, it's crazy.
[19:04]So I start in LA, and I'm having,
[19:07]so my two roommates are Benj Pasek and Alex Edelman,
[19:10]the comedian, and the two of them will be hosting
[19:13]the LA one, as well as my friend Jesse Ware,
[19:17]incredible pop star slash podcast host,
[19:20]and Genji Kohan, the brilliant creator of Weeds,
[19:23]and orange is the new black.
[19:24]So we'll all be in conversation in LA.
[19:28]It's gonna be so much fun.
[19:29]Then I come back, I'm doing Philadelphia
[19:31]with Mike Solomon on of and Alex Edelman,
[19:34]and potentially Benj to who knows, not a little hop on.
[19:37]Then I'm doing New Jersey with baked by Melissa,
[19:39]with Melissa Benjay, and then Saturday.
[19:43]I'm doing the Striker Center, which I always do.
[19:46]This will be my third launch at Striker, or New York.
[19:49]I, a temple of manual, and I think it's one
[19:51]of the most incredible places in the world.
[19:54]I'm doing it on stage in conversation
[19:57]with Benj and Alex and Modi.
[20:00]the comedian and Judy Gold, the comedian, and we're going to set up a dinner party on the stage
[20:05]and really just have it be this really fun time. And then the best part is when I really wanted to
[20:11]do was the book, the title, I love the titles I come up with because I think they're really fun.
[20:17]And I don't take myself very seriously and you could see that in my work. There's a lot of humor
[20:22]and levity. And so I both love a dinner party, but I'm also kind of a party animal. So I wanted
[20:27]to do something to engage young people at New York. And I had this idea of like New York's hottest
[20:34]club is a synagogue. And so what I'm doing is obviously we're going to have this whole book talk
[20:42]on Saturday night. And then afterwards for the youths for people 20 to 40, I'll be throwing
[20:48]pretty much a disco rave in the basement of Temple of Manual. I'm my friend Emile Cohen,
[20:54]an incredible photographer slash DJ throws this party called Mother Disco in New York. That's
[20:59]like one of the hottest parties. And so we're going to throw a little raise in the basement of a synagogue
[21:04]and party. That's hilarious. I have spent a lot of time in that room at Temple of Manual,
[21:09]I have to say. So have you ever have you ever been to a dance party like that? But I have never been
[21:14]to a rave in it. So there we go. First let's do a first let's just I like again it's so
[21:20]unserious and fun. And then I'll be bumping around to many other cities. But that's week one and
[21:25]that's going to be like that the heck to come on. Well, honestly, this sort of juotery that you have
[21:31]how do we know how else to say it? You're just this positivity is so needed right now. Like you can
[21:37]just tell how passionate you are about what you do and the joy that you're bringing to it. It's so
[21:42]refreshing because the world can feel so dark. And you're like, no, let's just like get back to
[21:47]basics and like eat great food and get together. And it's very woo-woo. Very woo-woo. Very into manifestation.
[21:53]Very into all the energy like to me. And it's like you gotta you gotta be putting out positivity.
[21:58]If not, it's like you're not making the world a necessarily a better place. And so that's at
[22:05]least my in terms of my goal on this planet. I love that. Well, now I know when I try to cook these
[22:12]in my can't touch my toes cooking ability, I will and I'll like get that infusion of you and your
[22:18]spirit into my kitchen. And that is exactly how the point. That's the point. I want everyone to feel
[22:25]like they can do it because I am literally behind I'm whispering in their ear. You got this. And
[22:30]that's just it because it's not that deep like we're cooking. And I I am so not into a lot of my
[22:38]contemporaries that are so talented, but go from this place of like taking themselves very seriously.
[22:44]My good food is is is I don't know. They're just like very they're much they're very much talking
[22:48]at people. And I wanted to always be talking with people. So it's like take these recipes.
[22:53]And if you want to make them exact because you're freaking out, go for it. And if you want to take
[22:57]these recipes and make them in your own and twist and turn them. God bless. Everything is good.
[23:02]Amazing. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. Dinner party animal. So fun. I'm rooting for you
[23:09]all the way and just can't wait to watch all the fun ahead. So thank you. I'm honored to talk.
[23:15]Okay. Thanks so much. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Okay. Have fun. Bye.
[23:22]Bye. Thank you for listening to totally booked with Zibi formerly momstone have time to read books.
[23:29]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens.
[23:35]And spread the word. Thanks so much. Go and buy the books.