The Laid-Back Vibe of Chris Taylor and Ithai Schori’s Twenty Dinners
Bring your friends into the kitchen for Twenty Dinners--and get them cooking
Photos by Nicole Franzen, reprinted from Twenty Dinners
Twenty Dinners is the byproduct of two guys who met and bonded making informal, delicious meals together for their friends. That those two friends happen to be Ithai Schori, a photographer who’s worked in professional kitchens, and Chris Taylor, the bassist for Grizzly Bear, makes it a bit more compelling. Twenty Dinners is a laid-back, welcoming cookbook that wants you to invite some friends over, dive in and cook together—no stress, no pretense, no overthinking. Use the recipes—or don’t. They’re a starting point, equal parts inspiration and instruction, if that’s what you’re looking for. The authors don’t want you to take it all so seriously, though.
“If someone picks this book up and doesn’t need it by the end of it, I’m suuuuper pumped,” says co-author Schori, 31.
Wait, what? That doesn’t seem like a good marketing strategy for a new cookbook, does it?
“We want people to not be stuck with their head in cookbooks. Just let it be a dance,” he says.
That’s easy enough for Schori, who grew up in the greater New York metro area with Israeli parents, traveled frequently, and developed a wide palette. He wrote his thesis at Bates College about the rhetoric of the Food Network, became a professional photographer and dove head-first into professional kitchens, learning along the way. Taylor, 33, grew up at the proverbial apron strings of his mom and started learning that way, asking lots of questions, ultimately turning him into a well-versed, adventurous home cook. The one thing he misses the most when he’s on the road is the most mundane thing possible: grocery shopping. But when you’re at the mercy of whatever you can find on the road—some of it good, some of it bad, much of it indifferent—shopping for and then cooking your own food is task to luxuriate in.
The co-authors met through a mutual friend at a backyard barbecue. “He came over one day and said, ‘‘Can I help?’ and within five seconds I knew he knew what he was doing, and we cooked the rest of the dinner together,” says Taylor. It was culinary kismet from the start.
Going from freewheeling cookouts and dinner parties to a full-fledged cookbook is a very different undertaking, however. “We tried really hard not to write recipes. That’s how now we cook,” says Schori.
“We discovered it’s really hard to write recipes. We had to reverse engineer it,” says Taylor.
That process of reverse engineering results in 20 different dinners that bear the imprimatur of their styles and experiences, but the recipes don’t even come close to overthinking it. Their instructions are direct and easy; you won’t see measurements for things such as the amount of oil used in cooking a dish, other than to say you should just basically coat the bottom of the pan with oil. They want to take any iota of fear or intimidation you might feel about cooking, and obliterate it, gently. And offer you suggestions for alcoholic beverages with each dinner, too.
That approachable, friendly vibe runs right through the book, from the way the recipes are titled and written to the way they’re presented. See, for example, “Ithai’s Kind-of Sundae,” which isn’t quite a recipe but a list of ingredients: it involves vanilla ice cream, instant coffee and a good flaky salt like Maldon. The book’s broken down into seasons—Taylor says it “feels more fluid and natural”—and smartly highlights the best of each. One of the desserts is simply titled “Bowl of Cherries,” which serves “1 to a crowd,” and instructs readers to “put the cherries in a bowl. Serve.” (Mascarpone is optional.)
