For the past five years, chef and author Samin Nosrat has done something that, for many, can feel impossible. She's kept up a weekly dinner with friends.
At first, she thought people would be too busy for it. But over time, the dinner — held every Monday night for about 10 guests at a friend's house — has become "a grounding, meaningful practice in all of our lives," she says. "At one point, a friend told me that Monday dinner was her church."
Nosrat writes about the magic that holds her weekly dinners together and shares 125 of her all-time favorite dishes in Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love: A Cookbook. Published in September, the book includes big-batch recipes for group meals, like creamy spinach lasagna, slow-cooked salmon and Pane Criminale, a garlic butter-infused loaf of bread (click here to jump to the recipe).
The key to maintaining these dinners is to ritualize it, she says. These gatherings are less about the menu and more about "eating and cooking together, whether that's with your family, your chosen family or both."
Nosrat, The New York Times-bestselling author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking, talks to Life Kit about how to make a weekly dinner habit with friends that sticks.
Create familiarity
Eliminate the guesswork of when and where your dinner will happen for the group. Choose the same day, time and location — and keep it. "That's one less thing we have to coordinate and check in about," Nosrat says. "That also means everyone is familiar with the kitchen, the space and the pantry."
Keep the menu casual
Think of big-batch dishes you can make in advance that don't involve a lot of last-minute tending, like "things that are braised, stewed or able to be served at room temperature," Nosrat says. For her, that might mean a bolognese sauce or roasted vegetables with a creamy dressing.
And don't make dishes that are too complicated. This is not the time to make a soufflé. At a recent weekly dinner, "we had a big noodle salad and a watermelon. It was not fancy," Nosrat says.
Get the kids involved
There are a few kids in Nosrat's dinner group, and she loves to get them in the kitchen. "When kids help cook, they're more likely to be curious [about the meal]," she says.
Think about any steps in the meal prep that the kids can do themselves, and save it for when you're all together. Can they fold some dumplings? Whisk a dressing? Sprinkle cheese on quesadillas?
Whatever it is, keep it simple. Cooking with kids can quickly get messy. "You don't want to overwhelm the home where you're going," she says.
Bring whatever you can
Weekly dinners are a team effort, but you may not always be able to bring a dish — maybe you were busy that week or short on budget. Don't let that stop you from coming, Nosrat says. "It's important for us that you're there."
If you don't have a contribution, "maybe stop and buy ice cream, or swing by the grocery store to get the last-minute thing," she says.
If there's someone who's consistently showing up empty-handed, "nip it in the bud and talk about it," she says. You don't want your weekly dinners to be a place where people harbor resentments.
Elevate the moment
While your weekly gathering should feel effortless, it should also feel special. You want to "distinguish it from just another pizza night," Nosrat says.
She offers a few simple ways to elevate the occasion: Bring out the cloth napkins. Send the kids out to the yard to pick flowers for the table. Share a good bottle of wine.
And take a moment to "come together and admire the food on the table," Nosrat says. Just having that feeling of "wow, we get to eat this, we all worked on this — it's sacred."
Recipe: Pane Criminale
This is one of Nosrat's favorite things to bring to a group meal. In this recipe, the bread is sliced vertically instead of horizontally, guaranteeing that each slice of bread has garlic butter. Once you set it at the center of the table, "everyone just starts pulling it apart," she says. Her friends started calling it "criminally good," hence the recipe's name, which means "criminal bread" in Italian.
Recipe from Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love: A Cookbook
Makes one 1-pound loaf or two 8-ounce baguettes
10 large garlic cloves, peeled
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
8 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
1/3 cup finely chopped parsley leaves, basil leaves and/or chives
1/3 heaping cup finely grated Parmesan
1 teaspoon garlic powder Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
One 1-pound loaf rustic country bread or two 8-ounce baguettes
Adjust an oven rack to the center position and preheat to 400 F.
Mince 8 of the garlic cloves. Gently heat a small saucepan over medium-low and add the oil and minced garlic. Cook, stirring and swirling constantly, until the garlic is tender and fragrant, about 7 minutes. Do not allow it to take on any color. (If you sense the garlic is starting to brown, remove the pan from the heat, and add a few drops of water.) Pour the garlic and oil into a medium heatproof bowl and set aside to cool.
Finely grate the remaining 2 garlic cloves. When the minced garlic and oil have cooled to room temperature, stir in the grated garlic, butter, chopped herbs, Parmesan, garlic powder, and salt and pepper to taste.
Deeply score the bread in 1-inch slices, but don't cut all the way through. Use an offset spatula to generously spread garlic butter on one side of each slice, as far down as you can reach. Wrap the bread in aluminum foil and place it on a sheet pan.
Bake for 20 minutes (10 minutes for baguettes). Unwrap the top of the loaf and bake until the crust is browned and crisp, 5 to 8 minutes longer. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly before serving.
The digital story was edited by Beck Harlan, Sylvie Douglis and Marielle Segarra, with art direction by Beck Harlan. We'd love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.
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