- [Ned] We have a secret to tell you.
We're writing a cookbook!
It's been over a year in the making
and we can finally tell you all about it.
- [Ariel] Yeah, I like that.
Oh, I love that.
- [Ned] So in this video, we're gonna take you
behind the scenes and walk through
the entire year long process of how it got made.
- I always seem to do these huge projects
when I'm, like, largely pregnant.
- Yeah.
Keep watching to the end of the video 'cause at the end,
we are going to surprise our friends
with our brand new cookbook cover reveal.
Make sure to hit subscribe.
You want me to take out the trash?
- [Ariel] Yes, please!
- Oh, okay. Yeah, let me do that.
No, you can cut on.
You don't- nobody wants to see this.
Okay. Excuse me.
Important executive producing coming through.
I'll be back.
- That is truly his most important job.
(intense music)
- So to start the story, we've got to rewind the clock.
We got to go, (tongue trilling),
all the way back to December 2019.
New York City.
- Pre-pandemic.
The first step for us making the cookbook
was to find a publisher.
(phone ringing)
- Hey, Ned and Ariel. How's it going?
- Hey, Jessica! Good to see you.
- Jessica is our book agent.
You helped sell the "Hidden Power of (beep) Up"
to publishers, kind of connect those dots.
- Well, cookbook's gonna be a little different
than Hidden Power, that's for sure.
- We've wanted to write a cookbook for so long.
I feel like- - Yeah.
Basically, since we started dating.
So every time we had the recipe that we loved,
we'd write it down in our little notebook.
And then when we want to cook something,
we'd go like, "Oh yes. What was that
really delicious chicken recipe?"
- We have this show on Try Guys channel called "Date Night".
And so we're thinking maybe
we do something along those lines.
- You know, what are the recipes you make on your first day
versus your third day versus your 50th date?
And how does that evolve?
- I love that.
I love the idea of using cooking as, like,
the cornerstone of a relationship.
- I mean, what even is the process?
We don't even know where to start.
- There is going to be a sales process.
- That's the thing where we go to New York
and meet with all the fancy New York people, right?
- Yeah. Yeah.
That's the real fun part.
- Ariel and I just had our meeting with publishers.
We're feeling really excited, a little nervous.
We hope they like it
but we're getting a lot of positive vibes.
Okay. So we just got a call from Jessica, our book agent.
She has some exciting news for us.
- [Jessica] I closed your book auction,
and you guys officially have a publisher for your profile.
- Yay!
(Bean barking)
- Yay, Bean, yay!
After we got paired with the publisher,
it is time to start putting it all together.
Now the real work begins.
So we started brainstorming.
Our dream for the book is that
the chapters are organized around
the stages of your relationship.
So first we have "Attraction".
- [Ariel] That's like, when you first meet somebody.
- What can we cook when we first started dating?
- We had a lot of pasta. - When we wished
we could cook.
Yeah, we made a lot of pasta.
Do you remember the very first meal I made for you?
It was not very good.
- Chicken and salsa. - But it will be a funny story
in the book.
- Chicken and salsa.
- I made Ariel, Chicken Corn Salsa on Tortillas.
I feel could have fun with that
where it's like, we elevate it.
- The next chapter is, like, when you get
a little bit more comfortable with the other person.
- Right.
I mean, I think we can just call that one, "Dating".
- When we were dating, what did we eat?
- We are meeting each other's friends, you know.
- [Ariel] It's like party time.
- [Ned] That's when we discovered brunch was a thing.
- Frittatas. That's the easiest French meal ever.
- [Ned] Maybe we could do, like, some meals from
places we like to travel, like...
- [Ariel] Crab!
- Yes, crab! - Something with crab.
- And then we need something that's like, a breakup.
Or maybe like you have a fight.
- You're over the infatuation phase.
And you've come to this realization that like
you're both actually people.
- Eating ice cream out of a pint.
- Plowing through a pint
of Ben and Jerry's ice cream. (laughs)
- [Ariel] How about cookie dough?
- Oh, I like that.
I remember there was a period of time
when we lived in Chicago,
where we just had, like, cookie dough
in the freezer at all times.
Then you got to have like the extravagant, like,
kiss and make up. - What's your favorite?
'Cause I'm gonna make it for you.
So what's your favorite?
- I mean, steak.
I remember when I discovered the sear and blast method
or you sear it on cast iron and then blast it in the oven.
Yeah, that's my favorite.
- Then we kind of get into, like, moving in together.
- You definitely met the parents at that point.
So, "Stability".
- You want cozy, you want to sit on the couch.
So I'm gonna put soup.
- You're trying to, like, Netflix and chill, you know.
- Yeah. Maybe like a chili.
- (gasps) Netflix and Chili!
Oh my God. We have to do this.
Although you don't really want
to eat chili if you're trying-
I guess this would be, like, eat the chili afterwards.
You don't want the farts when you're trying to get busy.
- And the last one, the long haul.
- Babies? - It's like,
this is a marathon, not a sprint.
And we're calling that one "Commitment"
because that's, like, whatever commitment means to you.
I think this one should kind of feel like
what we're eating now.
We do a lot of grilling.
- I mean, I think this is also the opportunity
since it's the end of the cookbook,
to do, like, the more challenging recipes, you know?
Like, what are the showstoppers?
Like, remember that one time we made like a pavlova?
You know, sometimes we would go out to a date
and, like, just have dessert.
- That's true.
- Just dessert and wine.
- Or like, if you're on a really good date
and you've had your drinks, you've had your dinner,
and then you're like, "Dessert?"
- Dessert is really more just as an excuse
to spend another hour together.
You used to make something that was like,
like a little pastry thing.
- Oh, my gallette.
- That's what it is.
- I'll put my French specialty.
- I have never heard of that word before.
- I'll put my gallette.
Okay. I feel like we're in a good place now.
- Yeah.
So once we have our recipes,
are we just good to just send them off?
- You want to test them first
to make sure that when you actually follow the recipe,
the food that comes out is actually what you meant.
- Welcome to our kitchen!
- So today, we're gonna test our Peach Gallette.
- A gallette is, like, this fun pastry
where you kind of fold over the edges.
Also, it's great 'cause it's, like, medium-sized
so it's for two people.
We have a little bit of a disagreement in the writing phase.
Ariel want to do a store-bought puff pastry.
And I was like, I make bread.
I wanna do this from scratch.
So I'm going to try testing out
with a from scratch puff pastry.
We'll see how it goes.
This one reminds us of summers in Chicago.
- Half the time, it did not quite look that good.
It just tasted really good.
So we gotta make this look good and taste good.
And be like something that people
could actually make before a date.
- Yeah. This is a terrible idea.
- We're trying to incorporate, like,
store-bought stuff as well.
Because, yes, like, you can make things from scratch
but not everybody wants to or has the time to do that.
- Can we do a number on the countertop, Hun?
So sorry.
(rolling pin pounding)
Smack, smack.
Smack the butter.
- All right.
I have my puff pastry here.
- Oh wow. It's already done.
- It's already done.
- That looks really good.
- Like, it is beautiful pastry that somebody else made.
- What am I doing?
- Oh, it's so pretty.
- But I want it to be authentic.
That is authentic.
That's more authentic than I'll ever make it.
- That's right.
- Okay, okay. Taste test.
It's pretty cinnamon-y.
- Really? Too much?
- I don't know.
- Maybe we should make it less.
- I feel like we should make it less.
- Okay.
I'm going to place my peaches.
- Well, I'm still working on that puff pastry there.
- We're kind of pretending that this is, like,
like a first second date sort of situation.
You got home from work. You're making dinner.
You're making a gallette for your date.
- If you were coming over in 20 minutes,
I would be freaking out right now. (laughs)
- So the idea is that these are just gonna kind of
get soft in the oven.
Let's do something fun.
Like maybe... - Do a little crinkle.
- [Ariel] I want it to be, like, rustic and delicious.
- We should also try like a different form factor.
'Cause, like, I was gonna do mine in a circle.
- [Ariel] Yeah! I like that idea.
- [Ned] You wanna try circle?
- [Ariel] I could do circle.
- [Ned] I don't know if it's called a gallette anymore
if you do that.
- [Ariel] Oh my goodness.
- Oh my Lord.
That's a good first draft.
Little puffy on the sides.
I think we need to rethink that aspect of the design.
It's almost like when we fold over too much,
it becomes too thick.
The almonds kind of fall off.
So I think for sure, cut the almonds.
- Yeah.
- [Ned] Look at that. Look at that!
- [Ariel] Oh, that's perfect!
- [Ned] That's nice. I like the circle a lot.
- [Ariel] I like the circle a lot too.
- It's been almost a half an hour
with my homemade puff pastry.
(sighs) There's so much butter.
- I mean, it doesn't look bad.
- Look, that homemade pastry,
it turned out okay.
- Which one do you like the best?
(Wes babbling)
- Do you like... - That's all of them!
(Ned laughs)
- [Ariel] Time to taste.
- [Ned] A little soggers. Oh, look a little, oh my.
- Oh, wow. - Oh my.
Maybe it's just way too much puff pastry?
- Mm, it's delicious though.
- Just like a little bit more cook time
to get a little more crunchy.
- Yeah, and make the peaches
a little bit more soggy, I think.
- [Ned] Up next, we have my homemade puff pastry.
Circular form factor, dusted sugar on top.
- [Ariel] It's pretty crispy.
- [Ned] It's very crispy.
- Look how crispy that is. - Wow!
- [Ariel] The peaches are way better
because they're softer.
- Maybe fewer peaches had less runny juices.
Up next, we have Ariel's second attempt.
Beautiful.
I really think you put too much whipped cream on it,
but, you know what?
I love whipped cream
so I'm sure it'll taste great. - I also love whipped cream.
- [Ariel] Oh, that's better!
- Okay, so that was 15.
So we should probably do, like, 20.
- Mm, okay.
A little bit of vanilla from the whipped cream
that's working for me.
- Oh, whipped cream is it.
- Whipped cream is a winner?
- Whipped cream is it though.
- [Ariel] But I think, in general, we have kind of decided,
no almonds and circle.
- [Ned] Yes.
- Once you're done, start writing the recipes.
While your editor is taking a look at those
and reading your stories,
you'll want to set up a photo shoot.
You don't need a photo for every recipe
but you're going to want a lot of options
to run by the design team.
- Do we have to hire a special photographer?
- Yes. You definitely want to hire a photographer
who's done food photography before.
And you'll need a food stylist.
Their entire job is to make food look beautiful for photos.
- There's a whole
crowd of people. - That's a whole crew.
- I thought we were just kind of making the food and then,
either, like, me or you takes photos of it.
This is like a whole situation.
- It's a big production.
- This is the week we've been waiting for
where we finally get to put our recipes in action
and take beautiful cookbook photos.
We've got so many groceries. We're organizing them.
Ariel's got a checklist here.
- Oh my God.
- Yeah, we've got, like, a hundred different grocery items
that we're all trying to sort through.
- I've been feeling a little stressed out.
- All stressed out.
- Yeah.
- And I got like all stressed out.
We have an ambitious schedule.
We're gonna try and do 65 photos in five days.
Right here, we've got kind of the holiday,
the big show stopper Thanksgiving with the parents meal.
Gorgeous Sage Butter Roast Chicken, lemon garnish.
One of my favorite recipes is we have a Moscow Mule Punch.
It looks amazing.
We're all done with our beautiful cheese board.
But now we just have a cheeseboard.
- The food has to get eaten somehow.
- The food has to get eaten.
It's just, it's a really hard job
but it's my primary responsibility.
- It is.
You know, I am not the expert at this.
I just kind of know what I want it to look like.
There are so many people that go into one photo.
- [Ned] We have a great team together.
We've got Jess, our culinary assistant.
Danielle, our food stylist.
She goes in with tweezers to make sure
each strand of spaghetti is perfectly twirled
around the fork.
Got Ivan, our photographer.
Ariel is our prop stylist slash executive producer
slash really, she's running the show.
Constantly changing the looks of things,
swapping different colored napkins,
or different colored forks or knives.
- I'm a collector of things. Kitchenware, serve ware.
And we use them to take all sorts of
different types of photos.
- We have some fake ice cubes
that are made out of plastic
to get it to look the most real neat little fake.
And me, well, I'm just here
to make sure everything gets easy.
I'm a designated taster.
- And hand model. You got this.
- [Ivan] You nervous?
- I'm a little nervous, yeah.
- Move it more like this.
And maybe one more tomato.
That's pretty good.
That's it.
- We got it!
That's a tough job, but you know, somebody has got to do it.
So you have a heat gun here.
You're gonna brown the top with the heat gun.
Whoa.
- We could do a spoon in it, in the bottom.
(lively music)
- [Danielle] Yeah. Ooh, that's really nice.
- Great.
- [Ivan] Let's keep that.
- No one can eat the cobbler. Sorry.
- Really? - Yeah.
- [Ariel] What's in it?
- There's a layer of mashed potatoes at the bottom
and also the blackberries went bad
so I used some of the blackberries but you can't tell
because you know they're covered.
So just don't eat it.
(Ned laughs) Sorry.
- A little mound of mashed potatoes in the bottom
and then the Blackberry Cobbler all around it.
So that the top looked like kind of like full and luscious.
It's like a silicone breast implant for a pie.
Oh, it really is all mashed potatoes.
Hmm.
Doesn't taste bad.
So one of the things that we've been doing is
we'll take the photo normal.
Then we'll kind of messy it up a little bit
and then we'll add some accents.
- I think it needs a brighter napkin.
Like the almost fuchsia one.
I like that color better.
I do think it needs something on the gallette.
(whimsical music) - [Ned] Oh, yeah.
- I like it. - Yeah.
- I think that works. - Nice.
Nice!
(happy jazz music)
All right, now it's time to reveal a sneak peek
of a few of our favorite recipes.
There's Netflix and Chili,
Love at First Steak with Balsamic Reduction,
Vegetarian Cavatappi Salad with Pea Tendrils,
Morning After Avocado Toast,
Mozzarella Monkey Bread with Marinara Sauce,
Confetti Tres Leches, and of course,
the Flaky Fruit Tart, formerly Peach Gallette.
(Ariel laughs)
And finally it's time for the moment
we've all been waiting for,
the official cover reveal of "The Date Night Cookbook".
Are you guys ready?
- Yes.
- I wanna know what they think is gonna be on it.
- It's you two and then there's a big stock pot
and your children are in it,
and they're holding whisks and they're laughing.
- Okay, I'm picturing Ariel.
She has oven mitts, she's taking something out of the oven.
- Like a big roast.
- Like the biggest roast.
- And then Ned's got a sauce pan
and he's covered in sauce.
He's going, "Oh!"
Just tomato splashes everywhere.
- Ned is gonna have, like, a fake pregnancy belly
but it's actually like a bread basket.
- Oh.
- You're dressed like a doctor, but you're actually a chef.
- So I'm birthing a bread baby.
- I'm coming at it with a bread knife.
- Uh-huh, and the title is called "Honey, I'm Full-mer!"
(Ned laughs)
- That's funny.
These are all ideas that I'm like,
"Why didn't you do that?"
- "Why didn't we do that?", yeah.
You guys ready to see?
- Yeah!
- In three, two, one!
- [All] Aww!
- Oh my God! Look at 'em, look at 'em!
- [Ned] It's us! We're in a cookbook.
- We're in a cookbook. - Oh my God!
- [Keith And Zach] Look at 'em!
- It's called, "The Date Night Cookbook".
It's recipes for every stage of your relationship.
We are so excited. We're so proud of it.
And you can order it right now.
You can pre-order our cookbook at datenightcookbook.com.
It'll be available in stores everywhere, September 28th.
- Congratulations, guys.
- Yeah, so excited.
- [Ned] Thank you, thank you!
- It's like your third baby.
- [Ned And Ariel] It is like our third baby.
- It took about nine months.
- Wow.
- Except this one I can drop.
- Yeah, that's true.
(upbeat music)
- So since we're making 60 dishes in five days,
I need some help eating it.
(laughs) Yes, Sam!