‘Dinner! Franny and Connor Write a Cookbook’ Serves Up Kitchen Camaraderie (Review)
Zoom meets ‘Chopped’ in this interactive at-home production
Cooking is one of those things that I’m always surprised more immersive experiences don’t take advantage of. It’s got a built-in level of interactivity and feels like it could be tied into events of all types and genres, but for the most part, it remains one of those mostly untapped veins of immersive entertainment. (And I do realize there are like 800 different logistical reasons for that, but still!).
All that is to say, that I was delighted to learn about Dinner! Franny and Connor Write a Cookbook by Francesa Chilcote and Connor Hogan. The premise of the show is pretty simple, Franny and Connor are trying to finish a quarantine cookbook with a fast approaching deadline and they need your help. You (and one other person) can help them by letting them raid your kitchen, pantry, and fridge over Zoom so they can instruct you on whipping together some kind of recipe that they can include in their cookbook.
It ends up feeling like an episode of Chopped as they have to improvise based on what you’ve got laying around, what you feel like eating, and any dietary restrictions you mentioned in a preshow survey. Despite no formal cooking experience, Franny and Connor have been coming up with interesting dishes since the show began running earlier this year.
During my experience, the pair came up with an idea for an appetizer plate featuring a grilled salad with tahini dressing, toast points, and various accoutrement. I was honestly surprised at how quickly they came up with the idea after a quick tour of my kitchen, while working with a time limit, and no knowledge of their participant’s cooking skills or level of comfort in a kitchen.
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The meal was easy to put together, and Franny and Connor are excellent guides as they walk you through the steps to complete it from their own, separate kitchens. Most importantly, it was all delicious, with a special shoutout to Connor’s tahini dressing (which my wife and I will be repeating), and made for a lovely appetizer plate. (If you’re wondering, the recipe was roughly: tahini, butter, and sesame oil to taste, mixed together with a little bit of salt and paprika. Try it over some grilled hearts of romaine, and thank Connor later).
The show wouldn’t work if the two of them couldn’t make tasty food with you, but the other key ingredient is their chemistry with each other and with you. Franny and Connor are longtime friends and it shows, as they have easy-breezy banter with each other that they’ll readily bring participants into. It keeps the experience light and fun, and just altogether enjoyable, while bringing in the vital communal aspect of cooking that’s been mostly missing for the last 13 months.
That makes it an excellent fit for the current immersive environment because it’s able to bring to life something that doesn’t quite exist right now. It feels strange to say that about such an everyday thing like cooking a meal together, but here we are. I’m not sure what that means for Dinner! after the pandemic is over because underneath the fun and joy, it is so tapped into this specific, difficult time.
Yet, with a few tweaks, it could easily continue on. And I get the feeling the appetite for remote shows will stick around for a while even when it’s safe to return to the in-person experiences we’re all craving. After all, it is the only way I would have even seen such a unique show from a small East coast company. And hey, maybe this show is the first step into a wider immersive cooking genre!
Dinner! Franny and Connor Write a Cookbook is currently taking bookings through the end of May. Tickets are donation only, but recommended donations range from free-$25.
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