🍸 This cookbook wants you to be a better dinner guest

Casey Elsass's "What Can I Bring?" makes sure we're asked back with enthusiasm.

This is Cocktail Charm, a weekly email filled with delicious little things to talk about at parties. In today’s edition: ceramic extraterrestrialism, group-compliant Mormanity, and a great Q&A!

There's a whole literature of cookbooks dedicated to how to host a good holiday or dinner party. But few address the other side of the equation: what about when you're the one invited? In Casey Elsass's What Can I Bring?, the veteran cookbook writer tosses out recipes designed for easily adding to someone else's table. “Think of the book more as a self-help book than a cookbook, because we all have to ask the question [of what we can bring to the party],” Elsass says. “This book has 75 answers.”

What Can I Bring? is officially out today. Something I like about Casey’s story is that he's a seasoned cookbook author, though never primarily under his own name: although he's had a hand in 20 published books to date (like Dolci!, co-written with James Beard–nominated cook Renato Poliafito), this is his solo debut. I imagine coming in to help write someone else's cookbook is a little like showing up with your dish to their party.

I called Casey last week to talk about the book, his unofficial rules for being a better dinner guest, and the case for coming to the party with pickles. This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Gabriela Riccardi: Plenty of cookbooks think about cooking from a hosting or entertaining perspective. Why did you decide that you wanted to write a book about good guesting instead?

Casey Elsass: I wish my answer was more market research-y [laughs]. But it came about during the pandemic, when we were all on our Zoom happy hours and game nights and birthday parties, and I just missed getting together so badly. I’d taken gathering for granted.

I was trying to find ways to think and talk about that — how are we gathering, and what does this look like now? In a group text, I just said the name of the book as a joke. [And I thought] oh, actually, that's a good idea.

You seem to have anticipated a moment here — dinner parties are very in the zeitgeist right now. Food site Eater called 2024 the year of the dinner party. Searches for dinner parties on invitation platforms like Evite are up. There’s a trickle of new startups that aim to help people throw their own dinner parties, with services like custom grocery lists, drink pairings, and party playlists. Even restaurants are throwing events they call dinner parties, with shared menus and communal tables. Why do you think dinner parties are having this cultural moment?

I don't understand how trends happen. [They begin] in discrete places, but all at the same time. But how do we all get this in our heads at the same time? Seriously! Sometimes I look backwards and [wonder], Does it all really trace back to the pandemic? It feels like the most reductive answer, but also it feels like the right one in this case. We all felt a loss of connecting and gathering; it just was so fraught for so many years.

You know, this style of cookbook has sort of been shunned in publishing for a long time. It was kind of impossible to do books that were about hosting and entertaining because they were perceived as not selling well. So it's interesting to me that there's this wave coming now. And [What Can I Bring? is] sort of the UNO Reverse of a lot of these books.

And even as you take on the zeitgeist, you throw in some clever contradictions to what we’ve come to expect of dinner party food — like elevated twists on lowbrow dishes. I love that you put piña colada Jell-O shots inside.

I brought them to a barbecue last summer, and they flew. Everyone was a little timid at first, but once the first couple of people tried them, everyone was on that table so fast. I think Jell-O shots are the great unifier of people. They're so stupid.

You write this inside, which I laughed at because it’s so true for me: “Bringing a dish to a party is definitely not a competition, but it also kind of is. Everyone secretly wants to be the dish that gets second helpings, whispers of ‘Did you try that?!,’ and polished off first.” How much did that idea — bring the thing everyone wants a bite of — inform the way that you wrote this book?

Oh, a hundred percent. I didn't want to make a book that's bitchy and nasty [about how] someone else’s recipe sucks, but I did want to give everybody the tools they need to make the best version of their thing. Everybody wants to feel like their dish was the star dish.

So even if you're not necessarily a confident cook, you can pick up these recipes, and you have the ability to be the star, even if you've never been the star before at the dinner party.

I gave the same level of attention [to even the easiest recipes], because I still want them to feel magnificent in some way. You have Rice Krispy treats, but they have brown butter and toasted coconut, plus a choice of toppings that just make them look so insane that they're ultimately going to be a conversation piece.

The book also offers advice about how to come as a good guest. So what are some of those things that all of us should keep in mind if we’re bringing a dish to a party?

First, be aware of what kind of guest you are. If you're always on time, bring appetizers. If you're reliably late, bring drinks. If you're stopping by later, bring dessert. And if you bring nothing else, bring a gift that's good to your host. If you know you're always leaving the door the moment you're supposed to be there, don't sign up to bring the cheese plate. You're going to derail the whole thing!

We should all embrace room-temperature food. Don't show up at your host’s house expecting to have oven space or fridge space, because they’re playing their own game of culinary Tetris in the kitchen. There are some things in the book that do require warming up or chilling — for those kinds of things, just clear it ahead of time so they can factor it into their plan.

Show up with everything you're going to need for your dish. Do not walk in their door and start asking for a bowl, for a spoon, for cups. You are responsible for those things: think through all your serving ware and make sure it's [with you before] you leave the house.

And say thank you! Hosting is so much effort and so much stress and so much energy. The times where friends have sent a written thank you note — they're still on my refrigerator. That’s not just because they mean so much to me, but also because it's only happened two times [laughs]. Not every occasion would be appropriate to send a card, but even a very thoughtful text the next day will go a very long way in making your host feel really appreciated.

I throw a mid-winter brunch every year, and the people who come with a pre-written thank you card where they're like, I loved being here last year, and I appreciate being here again this year, and I'm gonna put my gratitude in your hand as I walk in the door — it's the nicest feeling. Okay, time for the fun round. Favorite dish someone’s brought you that you’ve had to steal yourself?

This is not that answer, but years ago, I had some friends over to my house for brunch, and I put out radishes and butter and bread and salt. Years later, one of the friends that was at that party saw that on the menu at a restaurant, and he [said to another friend], Oh my god, they stole Casey's idea. And she was like, No, people do that. That was not Casey's invention.

What a compliment, though.

I did put a version of radishes and butter in the book. It's my thing.

To answer your question, my friend Dan Olinsky, makes this dip that’s at every party, and it's so good I almost put it in the book. It’s one of those things where everything comes in a can — mayonnaise, grated parm, shredded mozz, artichoke hearts, green chilies, jalapeños. You just mix it up and bake it.

I'm such a sucker for a creamy dip with a little kick to it. And you serve it with — is it chips, vegetables, both?

Bread. It's one of those things that everybody gets stuck right there at the party, diving in on that thing. I was trying to figure out, what's the version of that that's not just store-bought?, and I really couldn't crack it, because it's just so perfect the way it is.

So it’s the Dan special. You obviously have a food community in your life. Anyone else who inspires you creatively when it comes to entertaining?

So there's this woman named Priya Parker.

Oh my god, I'm literally — hold on. Look at what's on my table next to me here. I'm rereading her book [The Art of Gathering] right now.

Stop! Yeah, she's incredible for a lot of reasons, but I think my entire body reset when she introduced this idea of giving [your gatherings] purpose.

I think guesting is probably my lane, and I'll just stay in it, but if I ever wrote an entertaining cookbook, it would be so heavily influenced by her book. When I'm hosting at my own place, my number-one [goal] is making the parameters of this gathering very clear to everybody. It's true, it does make it more enjoyable and more successful when everybody knows exactly what they're doing here. [Ed. note: You can read more on The Art of Gathering in a previous post here.]

Most off-the-wall dish you’ve brought to a party?

I mean, I think Jell-O shots are always a big swing.

Ha!

My pattern of getting together has changed so much now, because so many of my friends have kids, and the friend group has kind of evolved in a way. But in our twenties, my signature move was that at everybody's birthday, I would show up with a jar of pickles and a bottle of Jameson, and we would just plow through picklebacks.

It became the expectation that for every party in my friend group, I would walk through the door at some point with those two things.

I love when you can pick something a little oddball and make it your calling card. Last one. Say you’re on the guest list for a dinner party with anybody you’d like, living or dead. Who’ll be there? Build me a dream roster.

I've got three, because I think I want to keep it small and intimate so we can actually have a conversation. I would love to sit and have dinner and chat with Nina Simone, who has always been my absolute favorite. Ina Garten, because an audience with the queen would be incredible. And Bill Nye the Science Guy. I just — I love him so much. I’ve had a crush on him since I was a kid, and to be in his presence would be everything.

Tell me about it

Conversation-starters to take to happy hour, your group chat, or your next guesting.

Are you getting into ugly ceramics? Blobby, extraterrestrial sculptures are having a moment.

Who among us is too tired for lotion these days? The so-called rise of exhaustion skincare.

So has the definition of propaganda changed since I last checked? On TikTok, users are building boisterous lists of things they don’t like and call them “propaganda” they’re “not falling for.”

DEPARTMENT OF INTERLUDES

When it comes to reality television, BABY, these Mormons are my Alpha and Omega. They are the Father and the Son, and their dubiously-Christly rounds of dirty soda and ketamine therapy give me the blessed rush of the Holy Spirit. Take me to this uncanny valley of the Utah women who have only three group-compliant hairstyles. I love them!!!!!!!

One event that caught my eye lately

CreativeMornings — a great little group that hosts free, monthly design talks in cities around the world — is holding an online workshop for you to collage your junk mail.

Last chatter

Thanks so much to Casey for talking to us about party guesting! I’ll be paging through the cookbook starting this weekend. You can get your own copy here.

Clink clink!
Gabriela

Thanks for being a reader of Cocktail Charm! Has this newsletter helped you out at happy hour? Let me know; I’d love to hear it.