The best gatherings usually have a constraint. Not a theme, exactly — a rule. Something small enough that nobody's intimidated and specific enough that everyone gets competitive about it.
Jazzie Annies is the one we keep coming back to. The rule: everyone starts with the same box of Annie's mac and cheese. What you do to it after that is entirely your business. Then everybody tastes everything and argues about who won.
It costs about three dollars a person to enter. It has produced more debate at our table than any dinner party that took four times the effort. Here's how to run one.
The one rule that makes it work
The box is the base and it's non-negotiable. Everyone starts from the same $3 box of shells and white cheddar.
That constraint is the entire point. It levels the field between the friend who went to culinary school and the friend who owns exactly one pot. It means nobody can win by spending more money. And it makes the results genuinely surprising — ten people start from identical ingredients and somehow one of them shows up with something involving smoked brisket and a crispy panko lid.
Say it explicitly in the invite, because someone will otherwise show up with a from-scratch béchamel and, while it may be delicious, it's a different contest.
How many people
Six to twelve is the range. Below six you don't get enough variety for the tasting to feel like an event. Above twelve and you're facing fifteen mac and cheeses, everyone is full after four bites, and eight dishes go home barely touched.
Eight is the sweet spot. Enough range to be interesting, small enough that everyone can actually try everything.
Tell people how much to bring
This is the single most common way it goes wrong. Left to their own devices, people bring a full catering tray, because bringing "just one box" feels stingy. Then you have eight catering trays and everyone eats two spoonfuls of each.
One box's worth per person. That's it. It feels too small when you're making it. It is exactly right when eight of them are on the table. Put the actual sentence in the invite — "one box each, we're tasting, not feeding an army" — because people won't believe it otherwise.
The logistics nobody thinks about until it's too late
Mac and cheese has a specific enemy: it congeals. Something that was perfect at home is a solid brick forty minutes later. Plan for it.
- Warming space is the real bottleneck. Slow cookers on Warm are ideal. If you're relying on the oven, everything has to fit at once — count the pans before the day.
- Outlets and power strips. Six slow cookers is more amperage than one kitchen wall gives you. Spread them across circuits or you'll trip a breaker mid-party.
- One serving spoon per dish. Not a stack of spoons in a jar. Per dish. Otherwise the first three people cross-contaminate every entry and the blue cheese one ruins the carbonara one.
- Small plates, not dinner plates. People take too much when the plate is big, and then can't try everything.
- Something acidic to drink. Eight cheese dishes is a lot of dairy. Lemonade, a crisp beer, anything with bite. Guests will thank you an hour in.
- Something green. One salad. It is not the point of the party, and by minute forty it will be the most popular thing on the table.
What people actually make
If someone asks for ideas, these are the directions that tend to show up:
- Buffalo chicken — shredded chicken, hot sauce, blue cheese crumbles. Reliable, always near the top.
- Green chile — roasted hatch chiles and pepper jack. A regional favorite that converts everyone.
- Breakfast mac — bacon, a soft egg on top, black pepper. Divisive and usually great.
- The crunchy lid — panko, crushed crackers, or an entire bag of hot chips blitzed and broiled on top. Texture wins more often than flavor does.
- Smoked anything — brisket, pulled pork, smoked gouda. Whoever owns a smoker will use this as an excuse.
- Kimchi or jalapeño popper — the acid and heat cut the richness, which makes them memorable at the end of a heavy tasting.
- The unhinged entry — every group has one person whose contribution is a bit. Encourage it. It's usually the thing everyone remembers.
Judging, and why you need more than one category
If there's a single "best," one person wins and seven people lose. That's a worse party.
Give out five or six awards instead:
- Best Overall
- Most Creative
- Best Texture
- Biggest Risk
- Most Likely to Be Requested Again
- Least Like Mac and Cheese
Vote by paper slip or a show of hands after everyone's tasted. The categories mean nearly everybody takes something home, and "Biggest Risk" gives the person who made the weird one a reason to have made the weird one.
Keep the prizes stupid. A ribbon, a wooden spoon, a box of Annie's for next year's title defense.
What the host actually handles
The dishes take care of themselves — that's the beauty of it. What the host is really responsible for is the infrastructure, which is also the part that's easiest to forget:
Small plates, forks, napkins, serving spoons, warming space, power strips, drinks, the one salad, a table with enough surface area, and index cards so people can label what they made.
That's a real list of about ten things, and every one of them is the kind of item that gets forgotten because it isn't food. It's exactly what BringWhat is for — put the infrastructure on the list alongside the entries, and let people claim it. Somebody will bring the power strip if you give them the chance to volunteer for it. Nobody will if it lives in your head.
The variations
Once the format clicks, it works on almost any cheap base:
- Jazzie Ramen — instant noodles, elevated. Even cheaper, even faster.
- Jazzie Boxed Brownies — same box, same rule, dessert version.
- Jazzie Canned Chili — surprisingly great in cold weather.
- Jazzie Frozen Pizza — chaotic, requires a lot of oven, worth it once.
The base doesn't matter. The constraint does. Give a group of people the same cheap starting point and permission to go as far as they want with it, and you will consistently get a better evening than a dinner party that took three days to plan.
Three dollars, one rule, one afternoon. It's the cheapest good party there is.