Room Escape Artist

I had a very silly dream for 8 years: Host a dinner party under black light, where all of the food glows. This January, we did it. It was great. And we made a cookbook and guide to throwing such a party that we will email you for free, if you make a donation to World Central Kitchen.

There’s a lot to unpack in that paragraph, so let’s get started.

Yes it’s April 1st

And yes, this is also 100% real. I want to state that without any ambiguity. While much of what we are doing is silly, it isn’t a joke.

We have a longstanding tradition of producing silly yet earnest content on April Fools Day.

We truly made a 44 page cookbook and party guide completely devoted to throwing a black light dinner party. It contains 17 different recipes ranging in complexity from anyone can do it to… a pathological level of commitment to the joke.

Why Do a Black Light Dinner Party?

Years back, Brett Kuehner and I learned how beautifully tonic water glows under blacklight. This led to us experimenting with shining black lights on all sorts of different foods and beverages. We found that a small but not insignificant amount of food either glows or reflects black light.

Unrelated to this, my parents had a cooking club for decades. Every 6 weeks, they and 5 other couples would assemble in one of their kitchens for a day and cook a meal set to a theme chosen by the hosts. I literally grew up around people getting together to communally take on cooking challenges.

Finally, black lights are an iconic symbol and trope of escape room design, for better and for worse.

These three ideas collided to inspire the Black Light Dinner Party. I loved the idea of gathering a bunch of local escape room friends who could really cook to have fun together and share a strange meal.

Also… my parents joined in, and that was special.

What’s Included in the Cookbook?

A lot. As I said… this got silly. If you aren’t familiar with our work, we have a tendency that lean towards overkill with just about everything that we do.

In addition to 17 recipes that all glow under black light and taste great, you’ll receive a hosting guide that includes all sorts of interesting tidbits about the oddities of hosting a party flooded with black lights.

Here’s a sample recipe:

How Am I Getting a Free Cookbook?

The Black Light Dinner Party cookbook is a project to fight hunger.

We will email you a PDF of the Blacklight Dinner Party Cookbook if you make a donation of $40 or more to World Central Kitchen and fill out the form below including a screenshot with confirmation of your donation.

Why $40? Think of this as like buying an escape room ticket’s worth of food. Our friends at Morty sliced the data from various angles and found that on average, for a standard group of 4, players pay about $40 per person. This data is based on a pricing sample from 25% of the venues in the US in 2026.

That’s it. We will use your email to send you the cookbook, and nothing else. This isn’t marketing bullshit and we will not giveaway or sell your contact information.

We’re asking you to make your donations directly (1) so that you know exactly where your money is going, (2) because we aren’t setup to properly pass this money through to a charity without having to pay taxes on it, and (3) because we aren’t trying to steal your tax deductions. We’re just trying to use a fun idea to raise money for a good cause.

If you can afford to donate more, we absolutely encourage it. That’s what we did.

Why World Central Kitchen?

The world has no shortage of problems, and one of the first things that’s needed when a crisis sets in is food. Given that we were having fun with food, we felt like the most appropriate way to honor our abundance was to support people for whom food is scarce.

“Founded in 2010 by Chef José Andrés, World Central Kitchen (WCK) is first to the frontlines providing fresh meals in response to crises. Applying our model of quick action, leveraging local resources, and adapting in real time, WCK has served hundreds of millions of meals around the world.”

My parents like supporting World Central Kitchen, and that fact mixed with the organization being well run and highly rated (Charity Navigator) sealed the deal.

To get things rolling, we have donated $500 to World Central Kitchen:

Also… we did try to find a black light charity, but failed to find one. So we settled on food.

Purchase

Share an image of your receipt, including the date, donation amount (at least $40), and name of the charity (World Central Kitchen).

Note that responses are not automated. A human will read your email and send you back the cookbook within 24 hours. Please excuse any time delays.

This price ($40) and response time (24 hours) are only available from April 1st – April 9th, 2026.

Black Light Dinner Party Cookbooks will still be available at this link later, but at a higher price ($100), and most likely with a slower response time.

Thank you!

Thank you to everyone who cooked for our blacklight dinner party: Lauren Greene, Brett Kuehner, Denise Kuehner, Andrew Reynolds, Joan Spira, Marc Spira, and Madeleine Welch.

Thank you to Steve Ewing for his photography and videography documentation of the fesivities.

Thank you to Theresa Wagner for her graphic goblin amazingness.

And especially, thank you to Brett Kuehner, who not only cooked for the party, but also helped us turn this insane idea into something real, and put so much extra effort into making the cookbook exist.