Forget Martha Stewart Living and to hell with the recession! Forking Fantastic, by Zora O’Neill and Tamara Reynolds, is the new de rigueur guide to entertaining, especially in these lean times. The two hotties behind New York City’s coolest underground supper club, Sunday Night Dinners, come out with knives swinging, vehemently reminding readers that cooking for friends and family is not about spending your children’s college fund on matching bone china and kitchen gadgets, designing a Philippe Stark worthy table corsage, or decorating your Christmas setting with real snow imported from the Himalayas. It’s about lounging around the table, eating, drinking, solving the world’s problems through hearty (albeit drunken) debate and enjoying good, honest food with friends and family. In fact, bone china be damned! And for that matter, table be damned! Have a picnic on your living room floor, or better yet, do as they advise and take your living room door off of its hinges and make a table. With our food-tv and star chef obsessed culture, Zora and Tamara’s guerilla approach to entertaining is a fresh breath of fried onion and garlic perfumed air. And, it is a much needed reminder that it’s better to sweat over a hot stove rather than over the spots on the tines of a fork; that cheap wine is actually ok to cook with (and to drink!); that being broke, single and living in a tiny, under equipped apartment is no excuse to avoid inviting a gaggle of friends over for dinner, and that cooking ain’t no spectator sport! And, if all else fails, there’s always pizza.

I can’t recall ever experiencing gut-busting laughter while reading a cookbook before, but nearly fell over as Zora described her first dinner party – referring to her guests as “limp legged ladle lickers”, as they sat on the floor drinking from ladles when they’d run out of glassware. Hilarious stories of kitchen maladies and a girth of kitchen wisdom learned over six years of bi-weekly dinner parties that’d take the average home cook decades to learn, are interwoven with hunger-inducing recipes like The Magnificent Lamb Roast (with complete instructions on how to build a lamb grill and spit with a 50-gallon steel drum and cinder blocks); Peter’s Cesar Salad (which I’ve made three times – it’s THAT good); the Croke Monster (a step-by-step guide for making a croquembouche for the complete novice – I’m going to attempt to tackle that one next week), and dozens more recipes that will leave you reaching for the phone to call all your friends and invite them over for dinner, once you’ve stopped laughing and convulsing enough to actually speak. As well, the book offers totally practical advice on stocking your kitchen (and why multi-piece sets of star chef endorsed cookware are the biggest racket going), crafting a menu (if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing); how to exploit your at-home child labor force to help prep; and how to handle “The Hour of Self-Loathing” and avoid a complete nervous breakdown before dinner is served (Drink. Heavily). I cannot recommend this book enough. If there is one guide to entertaining that you should have out on your kitchen counter, and use often, it’s Forking Fantastic. This book will age well (like a nice leather handbag) as it collects grease splatters, dog eared pages, and wine glass rings – as I’m certain you’ll be using it THAT MUCH. I know I will.

WIN A COPY OF FORKING FANTASTIC!

And now for the contest! Want to win a copy of Forking Fantastic for yourself? In Chapter One,  Zora and Tamara recommend learning how to cook because it’s better, or at least more reliable, than sex. It will increase your chances of getting laid, they opine. And, it will get you through a long dry spell with a lot more self-respect. Got a favorite recipe and story about how cooking helped you get laid, win over your current (or ex – I’m impartial) squeeze (partner, spouse, lover, etc)? Email the name and description of the dish (and a recipe, if you’ve got it) and story of how it landed you your squeeze (pictures if you got ‘em – of the food, not the sex, please! And really, I don’t want graphic details – just a good story) to: cristina at thewaywardchef dot com. Be sure to include your name and address. If I post it here – you’ll receive a copy of Forking Fantastic in the mail! I have three books to give away and winners will be chosen by OCTOBER 25^th! So hurry your ass up!

Hey, they don’t call me wayward for nothing!

Note to mom: I don’t think you really need to print this post out for grandma! ;o)