The Party Shirt Cookbook Will Have You Trying The Most Unexpected Flavor Combos - Exclusive Interview
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When you have over 20 million followers on TikTok, you must be doing something right. Xavier Di Petta and Nick Iavarone, known as Party Shirt on social channels, found a niche on the internet as they became branded as the myth busters of wild food concoctions. Is it inedible or incredible? Is it a snack or yack? The popular DJ duo is here to let you know with their newest recipes.
In an exclusive interview with Mashed, the social media personalities dove into their breakout cookbook, "The Party Shirt Cookbook: 100 Recipes for Next-Level Eats." The meals and desserts feature surprising food combinations for a simple family game night, friends hang out, or a fun dinner date (if you've never heard of Oreo butter, you certainly have now). Di Petta and Iavarone divulged on the cookbook-making process while swearing by Easy Cheese as a staple pantry item, but we'll let you be the judge of that tip.
Don't underestimate Easy Cheese
Let's talk about your new cookbook. What's the recipe you recommend your followers to try first?
Xavier Di Petta: Well, the Hot Cheeto waffle is a really great first one because it's fairly easy to do. It sums up all the other recipes in the book of combining great snacks that you can get from Walmart, Ralphs, or anywhere, no specialty stores. Chuck them in something. Heat it up and you have a new combination of flavors that you would've never thought about. That's a good starter. From there, explore the other recipes. That summarizes what we're doing through the book.
I was looking through your cookbook. They're really unexpected flavor combinations.
Di Petta: Totally. There's some that use science like the chips and the asparagus, where we're using the flavor profile that scientists have looked into that prove and explain why these weird combinations can sometimes work to create a totally new flavor. Some things, [like when] you put cheese and a cookie together, it's going to taste like cheese and a cookie, right? There's nothing new, but some of them, when you combine them, create a totally new flavor profile that you haven't thought of or tried before.
What do you think the most underrated flavor combination is?
Di Petta: That's more Ivy's [Nick Iavarone] wheelhouse. He's the best at combining. Yesterday, I saw him ... we have a can of Easy Cheese, and he was putting it on the Nerd gummy clusters.
Nick Iavarone: I'll experiment. There's so much stuff in there that's random, especially in the drink section. There's a bunch of random stuff in there. I don't know the craziest one. The Easy Cheese Oreo is the out of pocket, random one. That one tastes like cheesecake. That one's amazing.
Is that just putting Easy Cheese on an Oreo?
Iavarone: Yep, but it tastes like a legit cheesecake.
Di Petta: It does.
Iavarone: It's weird. When it combines, the consistency when it fuses together, it's like eating a New York cheesecake. It's crazy.
Leave your leftovers for a pot roast
Iavarone: We tell everyone that. They're like, "No," because before we even tried that, we had never had Easy Cheese, either of us. We were like, "How good is this, actually?"
Di Petta: Yeah. That sounds disgusting. How can you put cheese, a dairy product that expires, on a snack?
I've never eaten that.
Iavarone: You should try it, because I'm a stan for Easy Cheese. It's amazing. We did a video, and then we crushed the can within an hour.
Di Petta: Before we filmed the video, we had crushed the can of Easy Cheese. We had to go back and get another can so we could make the video. We were like, "This is a gift from the gods. Why have I not tried?"
Iavarone: That was our intro to Easy Cheese. The ice cream and the Fruit Roll-Up, that's a staple as well. If you get the strawberry Fruit Roll-Up and butter pecan Talenti ice cream and you make a little ravioli dumpling, chef's kiss. Amazing.
That was a trend for a while.
Di Petta: It was, and that's what we added for the cookbook, different type of candies in there. You throw some Gushers in there or you throw some Nerd Clusters, and then you get that extra crunch, that extra flavor. You're going through a few different flavor profiles there. It spices it up a little bit.
Iavarone: There's so much different stuff we did in the book too. We did the Poor Man's Pot Roast.
Di Petta: Yeah, that was fantastic.
Iavarone: You take a cheap pot roast and you throw whatever you want in there. We threw ranch packets in there.
Di Petta: Gravy packets.
Iavarone: Everything, and you let that cook.
Di Petta: Put them in the slow cooker.
Iavarone: Yeah. It comes out incredible.
Di Petta: It falls apart.
Leftover stuff. Kind of a garbage dump.
Di Petta: Yeah, exactly, like the kitchen sink.
The cookbook is all about the snack hacks
Are there any recipes that didn't make the final cut?
Di Petta: Over 100. The recipe development process sounds ridiculous because it's a snack book, but it took over a year. We worked with Jenn Garbee. She's a writer for the LA Times. She's on the cover, and she helped us develop all these, because these had all been snacks or yacks originally that we tried. She worked with us. [She asked], "What are your favorites? Let's see how we can develop these into unique recipes." From there, we would say yes or no. She's awesome. She just co-wrote the book for "Somebody Feed Phil," who's the guy who made "Everyone Loves Raymond," and he has that show on Netflix.
That went number one in the cookbook section. We're lucky to be working with her. She and her son tried all these recipes together as we were developing them. There's some funny ones in there, like the white pizza, which is just melted cheese with a couple of jalapeños. There's some really interesting ones that sound ridiculous, but make for great snacks.
This is the world's first true snack book. Anyone can make a cookbook. If you're going to copy a recipe these days, you're going to go watch a TikTok. How do I make Gigi Hadid's pasta? I'm going to watch a TikTok. I don't want to be reading about this. What this really combines — it gets the recipes that you've probably seen on TikTok and turns them into actual snacks that if you brought to a potluck or Super Bowl party, people would be freaking out.
You have a good amount of butter recipes that are really creative, like an Oreo butter, which I thought was interesting. How do you see people using this cookbook in their everyday life, or is this meant for special occasions?
Di Petta: It's meant for the everyman, the everywoman, and the every person chef. These are things that you can throw in an air fryer. You can put a few things together. These things are meant to be [used when] it's 4:00 PM and you have that craving and it's that weird time between lunch and dinner and you don't know what to do. Bang. You open one of these. Pick a few. Everything really uses only a few ingredients.
Iavarone: You can pretty much find everything already in what typical people have.
Di Petta: The average American pantry.
Iavarone: There's so many other things, too. You could pick one out and then it could be a fun game night where it's like, "Let's try this one tonight."
Di Petta: Exactly — a great date night, a great friend coming together on a Friendsgiving, and that's what we're always trying to do. You get into these routines of life and we're finding little ways to break them up. You make one of these, or there's so many different things. Stoners would love it. Kids would love it. It's for all ages. Parents love to make it for themselves, not even their kids. These are classic snacks they grew up with. "This is how I know Hot Cheetos." Bam. Now it comes in a waffle with cheese, and jalapeños give you a totally new outlook on a classic snack.
You can add anything to butter—even Oreos
A lot of our readers love food tips. For the Oreo butter, how would you use that?
Di Petta: The Oreo butter, you could put on anything. Maybe you have a sponge cake, and you want to spice it up. Maybe you have a graham cracker you want to put it on, or maybe you want to combine it with something new and throw it on a charcuterie board. You've got people trying it with brie cheese and a cracker and then the Oreo butter. That one's really an all purpose. It really spices everything else up.
Are there any non-traditional ingredients to add to butter that aren't in the cookbook?
Di Petta: There's a great guy on TikTok and he creates all these different butters like bone marrow butter. He finds all these weird things and then makes them into a puree and then makes them into butter. He thought you can combine anything with butter, just like there's another person who makes all these different ice creams. They'll go get animal crackers and mix them up and put them with heavy cream. Truly, I don't know what you couldn't make with butter.
There's a lot of dessert recipes, too. What's a simple dessert that someone can whip up with three ingredients or less, off the top of your head?
Di Petta: I don't want to go back to it, we already said, but the Oreo cheesecake is such an easy one, and it's such a mind-blowing one for people that they crack that open and bang. There's some heavier prep ones, like the avocado cheesecake, and that one's absolutely delicious and it's worth the effort, but that's not a three-minute thing. The Oreo cheesecake is so amazing because of how quick and simple it is. It's two ingredients. It takes seconds. Go back to the Fruit Roll up. That was another smash. There's a hundred recipes, so I forget which ones made the cut. The two-ingredient fudge pops are great too.
Iavarone: Yeah, that one's great. The easy Oreo cookie or the Oreo pies, basically you put crushed up Oreos, a little bit of milk or –
Di Petta: The Summer refresher, we love too, because that bridges the gap between healthy and a bit of a dessert, a bit of a cheeky little snack. It's also quick to make you get some grapes, toss in some Jell-O mix, and toss them in the freezer. You can add some different stuff to spice it up, and an hour later you've got a great snack that's guilt-free.
There's no shortage of fast food hacks
I saw a few McDonald's inspired recipes [in the cookbook] too. Do you have any fast food hacks that you'd be able to share?
Di Petta: Absolutely. It's one of our favorite new things that, at In-N-Out, you can get the –
Iavarone: Flying Dutchman?
Di Petta: Yeah, the Flying Dutchman, but wrapped in the whole grilled onion. Both the patties are half an onion, sliced and grilled. I'm not big on these substitution things. People have been doing the tomatoes as buns, the lettuce as buns, and I'm like, "F*** it, give me the carbs. I want a traditional burger." This is the only time where I've tried one of these substitution things and it's significantly better than the original, which shocked me. There's another great one we just did, but that's not in the book: the McDonald's gelato.
Iavarone: Oh my God.
Di Petta: Get a Tupperware container. You get six soft serve ice creams, put it all in there, smash it up, that gives you the base. Then, you get the sides of the-
Iavarone: The McFlurrys and the sundaes. You get the hot fudge, caramel, and the cookie crumble.
Di Petta: And you toss it all together. Then you get an apple pie, or if you're lucky, if it's the right time, they might have the Oreo cream pies or the holiday pies. You toss that in there and it seriously looks like gelato and it maybe tastes better than most gelato.
Iavarone: Also, if you get an ice cream and then the Hi-C orange soda from McDonald's, throw that in there. That's easy.
Di Petta: Everyone wants McDonald's snack wraps back. We're huge McDonald's snack wrap fans, especially. I grew up in Australia and when we were in Europe, they had them. We were having them every day. We come back here and obviously, they don't have them. The Burger King recently brought in these snack wraps. I've been having them almost every day.
Iavarone: They blow McDonald's out of the water, too.
Di Petta: Try the snack wraps at Burger King, if you crave McDonald's. It's been a lifesaving substitute.
Not all foods pair together well
I'm sure you'll get some heat for anything you say about fast food anything. What do you think is the most overrated food trend?
Di Petta: It's hard to say because we forget about the ones ... some of them are our yacks and the ones that didn't make the book, where they're combined and it's [supposed to] taste like this, and we're like, "It absolutely does not." There was one — Hennessy and chocolate milk — it was supposed to taste like something and it did not taste good.
Iavarone: We just did one where we were supposed to try ground beef and Fruit loops and it was terrible.
Di Petta: It doesn't create a new flavor profile or anything.
Iavarone: There's a lot of great ones, but we've also done a lot of ones where we're like, "What the hell did we just eat?"
Di Petta: Luckily, that's what the book is. We've done all the bad ones, so you get 100 of the best ones.
You guys stitched Corey B's grapes and sugar ? Was that one good or not?
Di Petta: Yeah, I [had it] for months. I just threw it out a couple days ago. I had it in the freezer. I'd pick out a few grapes here and there. That was a great one. The amount of sugar you use subverts the healthiness, but if you're not looking for a healthy snack, you're looking for a great little –
Iavarone: That was easy to make too.
Di Petta: Between that and the summer refresher, I would choose our summer refresher, because I prefer the flavors of Jell-O.
The Party Shirt men are taking it to the next level
Do you ever get pushback from the internet on a viral video that you made, or they disagree with a food trend that you enjoyed?
Iavarone: Yeah, we're willing to explore and willing to put ourselves out there. Some people think we're insane. That's the major pushback.
Di Petta: They can't believe whatever we say tastes good. The good thing is, because we've built this reputation as a third party verification system in this sea of misinformation, we're lucky the audience trusts us and will try the combinations that we recommend, even if they don't seem appealing at first. They might've seen one of the videos we test and they're like, "I don't know, this could be someone trying to get a viral moment by combining insane stuff." Then, they see us and they're like, "These guys have said what's shipped before. There's no objective truth, but I trust these guys enough to give it a shot for myself."
The Mythbusters of food, I guess.
Di Petta: Exactly. MythBusters for Gen Z.
Do you guys have any other upcoming projects or anything else going on that you'd like to talk about?
Di Petta: This cookbook's been two years in the making, so it's been a big moment for us. We just hired a new production team to take our content to the next level. We want to start showcasing stuff we do outside of "Snack or Yack" and "Fact or Cap," taking our food reviews to restaurants, to other countries and continents and showing, because we have a crazy collection of weird and odd cars. We're very "Ripley's Believe It or Not." We're very interested in oddities and collectibles and blasts from the past. We want to showcase more of that.
"The Party Shirt Cookbook: 100 Recipes for Next-Level Eats" is now available on Amazon. Check out Party Shirt's latest recipes on TikTok.
This interview has been edited for clarity.