AND she has SKINNY ARMS????

sorry if the title is offensive it made me laugh

BEFORE WE BEGIN!
A lovely guest is tragically missing a jacket from Tuesday’s Lucky Dinner Club - it is believed someone accidentally took it, abandoning their own lovely Aritzia leather jacket in the wake of my party (safe and sound in my closet now - don’t you worry). The missing jacket in question is a leather jacket with a missing button halfway down - if you mistakenly took it please shoot me a message and I’ll get it sorted. I have never typed the word ‘jacket’ so many times. Jacket.

Anyway!
Tuesday night was exceptional. Throwing a house party again was such a joy - packing over 30 people in my railroad apartment is my favorite version of Lucky Dinner Club. There is no choice but to get to know those in your personal space, confronting a few beats of awkwardness in order to get to the good stuff. Expert party girl Elsa Maxwell once gave Vogue readers some hosting advice - “A good party should occur in one room only, and that room should always be too small for the number of guests invited.” Between bites of mussels and focaccia and chicken with preserved lemon and tarragon and sumac and a biscoff tiramisu, we managed to get through nearly two cases of wine, mostly poured by the lovely Lindsay of Compliments To, which greatly helped ease any remaining social anxieties. Guests spilled out onto my fire escape to sneak smokes, and from what I’ve heard I did my job as designated accidental matchmaker (my greatest role) for at least a couple of you cuties. Hosting all of you was a dream, and I’m so grateful for the type of person Lucky Dinner Club attracts. I’m thinking of starting a Discord for the LDC community - is that something you’d be interested in? I’m not the best at Discord things but it seems like the most effective and non-cringe way to maintain momentum from each party.

In other news, I recently had the great joy of cooking for Meta / Facebook - with an excellent team behind me. Some influencers hosted, and one of The Bachelors was in attendance. The pilot one. It was an interesting crowd and we had an absolute blast behind the scenes. Aaand Lucky Dinner Club was recently featured in Hypebeast - I never thought cooking for 8 friends in my apartment 3 years ago would end up landing me a Hypebeast feature, but here we are.

Photos by: Jess Focht

Which leads me to my bloggy-blog part. I guess. The debacle of being a ‘perfect host.’
I recently watched the Martha Stewart doc - she’s a beast and I have nothing but respect for her, specifically the interview portion where she says ‘if your husband cheats on you, he’s a piece of shit, leave the marriage etc. etc.,’ but when confronted by the interviewer for…also dabbling in infidelity, responds with ‘well…I had a brief affair with a very attractive Irish man.’ Fair, Martha! I get it!

She truly played into the ‘perfect host’ role - creating everything from scratch, maintaining her L.L. Bean model-esque appearance, keeping her gorgeous home immaculate, all while ensuring her guests’ happiness. Obviously - perfection cannot be maintained, and society could not help but seek out the cracks in her sterling exterior.

I become a bit disillusioned scrolling through the ‘modern day Martha’ tropes on TikTok and Instagram. I feel quite far from the typical cheffy influencer / Brooklyn dinner party girly because - to be honest with you I am a complete hurricane of a person. It’s my rose and my thorn, but it is not in my nature whatsoever to possess any type A tendencies. My ‘planner’ is a stream of consciousness on a never ending pages doc that I just keep open on my computer, on which I rarely remember to press save. I just tried counting how many alarms I have on my phone - I got to 60, up to 6:53 AM. I have 255 unread text messages. I haven’t gotten a haircut since March. In order to accomplish anything, I must create pressure for myself. For example - I wanted to get better at cooking, so I started Lucky Dinner Club. I need to write, so I get writing jobs. I need to improve my musicianship, so I got a job as an in house musician at a swanky piano bar in Soho (come see me sing at The Nines, lol). On the inverse, I was recently trying not to sleep with someone, so I stripped my bed and refused to tidy up my space before the ‘date’, thinking my desire to preserve my own dignity would be enough to keep this person out of my house.
It didn’t work.

(sorry mom..if you’re reading this)

Throughout the past few years I’ve built a relatively strong armor of confidence, which is truly simply the result of a good deal of pain and discomfort - much to the dismay of my incredibly insecure and naïve 16 year old self. Of course I still wrestle with the indestructible monster which is comparison - most recently wondering how can my lover’s lover - a woman with such a fantastic resumé also possess such effortless grace and SKINNY ARMS?? So yes I would love to be lovely and chic and put together and wear silk shirts without staining them and don a slick backed bun (I would look like an egg) and ensure absolute perfection before presenting anything to the world, but I would never get anything done.

Coming from someone who has somehow made this into part of my living, the best parts of parties and hosting people are in the mistakes - in the inconveniences.
Actually, the best parts of LIFE are in the inconveniences. So many of my favorite stories - the best conversations and connections - sprung from my lack of knowledge, my shortcomings, scrambling to replace an ingredient, working within budget restraints, and god even so much inconvenient, arduous physical labor.

So as we barrel headfirst toward party season - I implore you - be the imperfect host. I’ve had countless conversations with people who are hesitant to host because their space is too small, or they aren’t fully confident in their cooking abilities, or they are worried about the awkward silences between new friends. Embrace these inconveniences! Small spaces are perfect for breaking the ice, choose a menu that works with your strengths (try a few apps and a wine tasting - or throw on a delicious stew and tell your guests to BYOB), and trust me - people will manage themselves in conversation one way or another. The best way to ~create community~ (it’s cheesy, I know) is to gather in someone’s home. Abandon dating apps! Provide a space for your friends to bring a potential romantic prospect into a social setting (like conditioning a puppy to the outside world or something)! Or better yet - introduce your favorite ex-situationship to their next situationship at your very own dinner party! It’s only messy if you want it to be.

Anyway, try your hand at hosting this year.
You might even enjoy it enough to end up doing it for a living.

Thanks for reading - here’s a playlist I’ve been adding to lately (my playlists are probably the most type A thing about me)
One more thing - I’m going to be doing a very fun holiday giveaway this month for paid subscribers only! Become a paid subscriber and stay tuuuuuned!