Dan Pelosi is not a chef in starched whites with tweezers in hand. He’s a “meatball making meatballs,” as he likes to say—warm, funny, and prone to turning leftover spinach-and-artichoke dip into a pasta bake. 

His debut cookbook, Let’s Eat, became a New York Times bestseller and cemented him as one of the most entertaining voices in food. He’s also a contributor to New York Times Cooking, where his recipes regularly appear. Now he’s back with Let’s Party, a follow-up that makes hosting feel less like a stressful performance and more like life itself—rarely perfect, often surprising, and absolutely worth the effort.

The book pairs fun, unfussy photography with playful chapter titles like Let’s Grill, Girls!, Breakfast for Dinner, and Pumpkin Spice Up Your Life. Mixed in are guides on everything from setting the table to preparing the guest list.

And at the center of it all is his tomato heart. In the book, Pelosi jokes that if the board game Operation were based on him, you’d find a tomato where the heart should be. It’s funny, but it also tells you everything you need to know: Food is more than sustenance, it’s identity and joy. That mix of humor and heart is what makes Let’s Party so practical and relatable. 

Ahead of his Seattle event at SIFF Cinema Uptown on Sept. 9, Pelosi chatted with Seattle magazine about the magic of leftovers, the food he turns to depending on his mood, and why a little planning makes entertaining feel easy.

Your new cookbook is so fun and approachable. What do you hope people take away from it?

I think the subtitle says it: Recipes and menus for celebrating every day. We build up so much anxiety and expectation around parties. I want people to join me in finding reasons to invite folks over any day of the week. There are 100 recipes divided into 16 menus, but you can also just make one recipe on a Tuesday night by yourself and call it a celebration.

Pork chops with vinegar peppers, straight from Pelosi’s Italian comfort playbook.

Photo by Johnny Miller

Tell me about referring to yourself as a “meatball making meatballs.” How did this start, and how does it capture your approach to cooking?

Meatballs are at the heart of how I was raised in my Italian American family. I was also kind of an adorable little meatball as a kid, so the nickname stuck. As an adult gay man, the word meatball has a lot of fun connotations too. I’ve eaten meatballs, I am a meatball, I make meatballs of all kinds. I pitch them so often to the New York Times they sometimes say, OK, not another meatball. But they’re warm, versatile, and welcoming—exactly the kind of cooking I love.

In the new book you write that drag queen Juanita MORE! taught you a lot about hosting. What stuck with you?

Juanita invited me to her dinner parties in San Francisco when I was in my twenties. She always posted the evening’s menu on the wall in her kitchen. In a room full of new people, that made me feel instantly at ease. Growing up, no one in my family ever said yes to an invite without knowing what was on the menu. Food was stability. It grounded us. And that’s still true for me when I host—knowing what I’m going to put on the table makes me feel at ease.

What would you tell someone about meal prep who’s just trying to get through the grocery run each week?

Trust that prepping ahead makes life easier. And embrace leftovers! Instead of thinking about what a dish was, ask yourself what it can become. Pasta becomes crispy in a frying pan. Roasted broccoli can go into a cold salad. Leftovers make incredible sandwiches.

Hosting isn’t about perfection for you. What’s a rule worth breaking, and what’s one worth sticking to?

End the party. No one knows when a party is supposed to end. As the host, it’s your job to guide people. I’ll say, “Dinner’s at seven thirty,” or “Grab a drink and go mingle,” or “This has been so fun, but it’s approaching my bedtime.” People want to know what’s happening; it makes them comfortable. The rule I always stick to is making people feel welcome. Hosting is about showing people how you live and inviting them into it. Sometimes you go to someone’s house and you learn how they live and think, I’m not going back—and that’s okay. It’s all part of finding your people.

From Pelosi’s new book: Crispy artichokes with marinated butter beans, and an olive oil pistachio berry crisp.

Photos by Johnny Miller

Depending on your mood, what do you cook when you’re…

Sad?

Baked pasta—especially the spinach and artichoke dip pasta bake from the book. The acronym for spinach and artichoke dip is SAD, by the way. 

Flirty?

I always flirt via an appetizer—low commitment, high reward. Shrimp cocktail works too. I have this wedge salad in the book that’s really sexy because it’s shareable. Usually when you order a wedge you’re supposed to split it with friends, but it feels like carving Michelangelo out of a block of iceberg. You’re like, ‘Why am I hacking at this thing?’ Let’s just make it shareable from the start.

Low energy and need a pick-me-up?

Red meat, like the steak-over-frites recipe in the Girls’ Night In chapter. Just looking at it gives me a boost.

Trying to cheer someone up?

Cookies. I always keep cookie dough in the freezer so I can pull some balls out, bake them, and go.

What do you think people are really craving right now at the table?

Beyond food, they’re craving community. The news is overwhelming, and it’s a tough time. Being invited into someone’s home and made to feel safe, loved, and fed is the greatest gift we can give each other.

When you travel, how do you decide where to eat?

I try to resist the gamification of food—the endless reviews and recommendations. I like to walk into a place, take a gamble, and see what happens. Sometimes it’s incredible, sometimes it’s not, but either way it’s an experience. My boyfriend and I just went to Japan, and we’d walk into places and have no idea what we were ordering. Sometimes we said, ‘Oh my God, that was so good.’ Other times we said, ‘What literally did we just eat?’ Both were fun.

Any Seattle spots you’re excited about while you’re in town?

We always go to The Pink Door. My boyfriend’s mom used to work there and her best friend owns it, so it’s a special place for us. But honestly, my tour schedule is so tight that dinner is usually my showtime—so I might just grab Chipotle beforehand. 

Anything else?

I think the book is for all kinds of hosts, all kinds of entertainers. It’s for parties of eight people, it’s for parties of two people, it’s for parties of one. Hopefully people who love to entertain, and people who want to but don’t know how, will all appreciate the book. I just hope it brings people joy. It’s a really fun, silly book that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and that’s what I want to bring to the world a little bit. We’re all having difficulty with everything else, so why not have some fun?

Dan Pelosi will be at SIFF Cinema Uptown on Tuesday, Sept. 9, at 7 p.m. for an author talk, Q&A, and book signing, presented by Book Larder. Tickets ($53.50) include a signed copy of Let’s Party: Recipes and Menus for Celebrating Every Day.