Cooking & Entertaining

The Phone Eats First Cookbook
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The Phone Eats First Cookbook: 50 of Social Media's Best Recipes to Feed Your Feed . . . and Then Yourself

Author Allyson Reedy, Foreword by Snejana Andreeva

A compilation of the tastiest, most popular Instagram- and TikTok-famous recipes from top food bloggers, chefs, and influencers, selected for everyday foodies to recreate their own viral moments at home.

Simultaneously celebrating and poking a little fun at our social media-obsessed culture, The Phone Eats First is an ode to how platforms like Instagram and TikTok have impacted what we eat. Best-selling author and food critic Allyson Reedy combed the internet to curate the absolute best 50 recipes, focusing on the same qualities she looks for when reviewing a restaurant: flavor, innovation, welcoming hospitality, and something that looks great on a plate, in a bowl, or, as in the case of some social media crazes, in a muffin tin.

Recipes from top food bloggers and Instagram and TikTok stars like Smitten Kitchen, The Salad Lab, The Modern Nonna and Cooking with Lynja are organized by breakfast, lunch, snacks & sides, dinner, dessert, and drinks.

This cookbook has broad appeal—from influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers to home cooks who like to get creative in the kitchen looking for tasty new ideas. Just remember the cardinal rule of social media: The Phone Eats First.

About The Author

Allyson Reedy is a longtime food writer and restaurant critic, and the author of 50 Things to Bake Before You Die and 30 Breads to Bake Before You Die. She has written for Food52, Bon Appetit, the Denver Post, Thrillist, and 5280 magazine, among others. Snejana Andreeva is better known to the Internet as The Modern Nonna (1.5M TikTok and 1.6M Instagram). Her work has been featured in Well + Good, The Kitchn, EatingWell, and the New York Post.

  • Publish Date: March 11, 2025
  • Format: Hardcover
  • Category: Cooking - Courses & Dishes - General
  • Publisher: Rizzoli
  • Trim Size: 7-1/2 x 9
  • Pages: 160
  • US Price: $35.00
  • CDN Price: $47.00
  • ISBN: 978-0-8478-2978-1
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Reviews

Vogue's 16 Cookbooks Defining the Way We’re Cooking (and Entertaining) in 2025: "Equal parts satire and celebration, The Phone Eats First is a TikTok-glossed romp through the most viral recipes of recent memory. Food critic Allyson Reedy curates 50 hits from top social stars—think lasagna soup, donut grilled cheese, and a bagel-and-cream-cheese board made for the algorithm. But beneath the pastel smoothie bowls and ice-cube-tray sushi is a real question: What makes a recipe stick? The answer, it turns out, is flavor, familiarity, and a little visual flair. Perfect for content creators and the chronically online, this cookbook is a crash course in food’s social life—and a genuinely useful one too.”

Food Network Magazine's Best Cookbooks for Mother's Day: "With her latest cookbook, Allyson Reedy celebrates 50 of the most viral and visually stunning recipes, plus photos from food bloggers and recipe creators. The book is chock-full of kitchen hacks that’ll help build your own Instagram-worthy recipe repertoire, including Michelle Tiang’s Ice Cube Tray Sushi, Snejana Andreeva’s Lasagna Soup or Jess Pryles’ Rice Paper Dumplings. This book has tons of foodie content creator inspo, whether it’s recreating Reedy’s own Millennial Pink Smoothie Bowl for breakfast or her Creamy Lemonade for a refreshing summer sipper, discovering the gustatory genius of Darryl Harmon’s Donut Grilled Cheese with Tomato Soup or celebrating social media’s influence on home cooking with a round of Dahianna’s Birria Tacos. Bonus points if you put together Deb Perelman’s Bagel and Cream Cheese Board for a festive Mother’s Day brunch. Just remember, the phone eats first, so be sure to use #thephoneeatsfirstcookbook when you post your Instagram- and TikTok-worthy dishes.”

“It’s easy to fall into deep Instagram and TikTok rabbit holes scrolling through seductive food photos. It’s harder to figure out which ones taste as good as they look. Reedy, a longtime food journalist and restaurant critic, has done the work for us by digging through the eye candy and testing and organizing the most promising recipes into chapters for every meal and occasion. Millennial Pink Smoothie Bowl, Ice Cube Tray Sushi, French Onion Soup Bites, Birria Tacos and S’Mores Cookies are among the temptations—each with their creators’ social media handles. Suggestions for hashtag pairings and photographing are also included for those planning to ‘gram before scarfing.” — Atlanta Journal & Constitution

“Best Cookbooks to Gift This Mother’s Day.” — The Food Network

"Six gifts for food lovers: new cookbooks they’ll actually love and use. In an era where everyone photographs their food, this cookbook comes from someone who actually knows how to do it professionally. Allyson Reedy presents visually striking, social-media-ready dishes — buffalo chicken egg rolls, red velvet cupcakes, smash burgers, vodka pasta with Italian sausage, accordion potatoes, chopped turkey sandwiches, and more. It encourages readers not just to cook but to style, shoot, and share. Rizzoli’s photography-driven cookbooks emphasize high-quality imagery and modern food culture — a seamless fit for Reedy’s concept. Expect bold, bright styling and strong visual impact.” — TasteTV

“After nearly 20 years of reporting on the Mile High City's best bites, food journalist and prolific author Allyson Reedy has learned through experience that 'the phone eats first'—as the social media saying goes. To honor this cultural phenomenon, she scored 50 viral recipes from Instagram's and TikTok's top food creators (think: lasagna soup and doughnut grilled cheese). Complemented by sharp commentary from Reedy (who is a Denver Post contributor) and visuals by Denver photographer Chelsea Chorpenning, the book urges readers to make their meals more 'Grammable.” — The Denver Post