Open Wide: A Cookbook for Friends

* INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *

The debut cookbook from benny blanco—pop music super-producer, artist, actor on FXX’s Dave, and consummate food freak—teaches you everything you need to know about cooking, enjoying life, and throwing the greatest dinner party of all time.

Hi, I’m benny blanco. I’m in a television show with my best friend Dave and I probably produced most of the songs you have heard on the radio from 2008 until now. When I was thirteen, my friend got a George Foreman Grill and it changed my life forever. We would invite friends over, get stoned, and make the most elaborate sandwiches our prepubescent minds could fathom. I became obsessed with food and cooking for friends. 

I know what you are going to say, and I get it. Cooking is scary. But I promise you, once you get into it, it will be your new addiction. Slicing an onion is like taking a Xanax to me. I made this cookbook to teach you everything I know about food, cooking, and throwing the greatest dinner party of all time. There are the basics to get your kitchen ready, a little advice from my expert friends, then all of the dinner party menus I love to make, like: 

• 5 Dishes to Get You Laid and One for the Morning After
• I Wish I Were an Italian Grandma
• Take Me to the Cheesy Rodeo
• F*ck Morton’s Steakhouse 

Which are filled with insane recipes like: 

• Lose Your Mind Lobster Rolls
• “I Might Go Vegetarian” Veggie Sandwich
• Chicken Cutlets with Honey, Peppers, and Parm
• “I Hope We Didn’t Make a Baby” Breakfast Burrito. 

I’ve been told some of the finest stories over meals. I’ve laughed so hard I thought I was going to actually die. I’ve fallen in love—sometimes with the food, sometimes with the person across the table. I’ve cried in good ways, and I’ve cried in bad ways. I hope you’ve been lucky enough to have all these same memories and then some. But if you haven’t, I can make you a promise. If you follow these three simple steps, it will all become a reality: Open this book. Open your heart. And open wide, baby.

benny blanco is a record producer, songwriter, artist, actor, record executive, and cookbook author. blanco has contributed to the sale of hundreds of millions of albums worldwide through his work with artists including Ed Sheeran, SZA, Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Katy Perry, The Weeknd, Maroon 5, Juice WRLD, Sia and many more. His two albums as an artist—Friends Keep Secrets and Friends Keep Secrets 2—have been streamed more than 11 billion times to date and spawned multiple multiplatinum hits. blanco made his TV debut playing a fictionalized version of himself on the FXX series Dave with Lil Dicky which has become the #1 comedy on FX and FXX. His longtime friendship with acclaimed chef Matty Matheson has spawned two massively viral online food series, Matty & Benny Eat Out America and Stupid F*cking Cooking Show. Open Wide is his first book.

Jess Damuck is a recipe developer, food stylist, and author of the bestselling cookbook Salad Freak and Health Nut as well as the co-author of benny blanco’s Open Wide. After a decade of being one of Martha Stewart’s right hands in creating magazines and television shows, she moved to Los Angeles to have more dinner parties, make ceramics, focus on produce-driven cooking, and spend time in her garden with her dogs and her partner, Ben. Follow Jess online at @jessdamuck.