ABOUT
Hi, I’m Crystal.
I like cooking and eating, dumb themes, and having people over.
I have always been like this.
My husband once had a 40th birthday party built around Mountain Dew. My dad’s 70th involved an unreasonable amount of mezze and honored his mustache. For my son’s Valentine’s Day-adjacent birthday, I once cut approximately one million tiny paper hearts by hand to make garland. This felt reasonable at the time..
I like making ordinary things feel special. Sometimes that means menus and place cards and an extremely specific theme. Sometimes it means ordering pizza and putting chips in a bowl.
The amount of effort isn’t the point. The idea is to get people together.
Party SHAHnanigans
This seemed like a reasonable thing to put on the internet.
Party SHAHnanigans is where I keep track of the things I cook, the things I bring, the parties I throw, the things I buy, and the things I am actively trying not to buy.
It is not a guide to perfect hosting. I do not have an enormous kitchen, a catering staff, or an inventory of matching dishes for 40 people.
I remain undeterred.
THE PARTY NOTEBOOK
I have an actual notebook.
I have an actual grid-paper notebook full of menus, shopping lists, recipes, things I want to buy, things I absolutely did buy, and ideas that seemed reasonable at the time.
It is where dinner parties start, where shopping lists get out of hand, and where I write down the things I want to remember for next time.
Eventually it occurred to me that I was basically making a tiny magazine for myself.
So naturally, I put my notebook on the internet.
A NOTE ABOUT FOOD
I am not a recipe developer. When I make someone else's recipe, I'll tell you whose it is and send you there to get it.
Some recipes are adapted because I apparently cannot leave anything alone. Some are family recipes that have existed for years in the extremely precise measurements of “some,” “a little,” and “until it looks right.” Occasionally I make something up myself.
I'm writing all of it down anyway.
LOWBROW BUT BRILLIANT
This is more or less the goal.
New York Magazine has an Approval Matrix, and my preferred quadrant has always been Lowbrow but Brilliant.
I like nice things. I also like paper plates, grocery-store flowers, beer, candles, store-bought pie crust, and ordering pizza.
I don't think making something special requires making it precious.
Sometimes going completely overboard is the fun. Other times, the correct amount of effort is putting out plastic wine cups.
It all counts.
JUST COME OVER
No occasion required.
You don't need the perfect house, the right dishes, a new set of napkins, or a particularly good reason to have people over.
Sometimes I cook all day. Sometimes I order takeout and pick up a 6-pack.
Just Come Over isn't about doing less. It's about lowering the barrier to getting people together.
Mostly, this is a place for the things I would be doing anyway: cooking dinner, having people over, bringing something when I’m invited somewhere, buying things I probably don’t need, and occasionally turning a perfectly normal Wednesday into an event.
Some of it will be useful. Some of it will be ridiculous. Hopefully some of it makes having people over feel a little less complicated - or at least gives you an idea you want to steal.
You don’t need to do all of it. You don’t need to do any of it.
Pick the part that sounds fun.
I live in a South Philly rowhome and remain undeterred by square footage.
So . . .