By Leann Schenke

MIDDLETOWN — It’s no secret there are perks that come with being a celebrity.
In singer John Legend’s case, it’s comfort food from a local restaurant, made and delivered at a moment’s notice.

Crystal Ashby, chef and co-owner of Crystal’s Comfort Food, knew she might have the opportunity to cook for Mr. Legend at some point, since a friend who works with him had previously mentioned the possibility.

But Tuesday night, Ms. Ashby’s friend called and asked if she’d be willing to cater a rehearsal — the very next day.

The roughly 24 hours’ notice meant Ms. Ashby and her husband, Steven, spent all of Tuesday night preparing.

Mr. Legend’s order consisted of four types of wings, stuffed salmon and stuffed chicken breast — which isn’t on her menu anymore, but Ms. Ashby said she was more than happy to prepare for him.

She also cooked another previous menu item: egg rolls stuffed with macaroni and cheese, cabbage and yam.

“My husband and I, we worked all night,” Ms. Ashby said. “They gave us a menu of what they wanted. We gave them what they ordered, but we also threw in a little bit of extra food, and they enjoyed it.”

Mr. Legend and his staff ended up getting “a little of everything” from the Middletown-based restaurant/catering business that opened in April — ordering nearly six of each item currently offered.

“He took some back to Chrissy (Teigen, his wife), which we don’t know how she liked it yet,” Ms. Ashby said. Ms. Teigen has authored two cookbooks.

Ms. Ashby said Mr. Legend enjoyed the food and offered to a take a picture with her and her husband.

There were COVID-19 precautions Ms. Ashby said she and Mr. Ashby had to take into account while preparing the food, like individually wrapping each item.

According to the cook, Mr. Legend was rehearsing for a concert in Philadelphia that is scheduled for October. She catered to his team of about 25 people Wednesday, including backup dancers and singers, plus bodyguards.

Ms. Ashby said the exposure she’s received from catering for a celebrity has already been good for her business, though she noted Mr. Legend is not the first celebrity to enjoy her comfort food.

“I actually market myself as a ‘celebrity chef’ because we’ve catered for other people,” she said. “We’ve had people randomly walk into the store. We haven’t done this that often, going to rehearsals.”

Ms. Ashby said she previously prepared food for Yvonne Orji, who stars on HBO’s “Insecure.” She’s also cooked for Quincy Harris, DC Young Fly, Jermaine Dolly and Ro James.

Originally from the Philadelphia area, Ms. Ashby and her husband, who co-owns and operates the restaurant, have lived in Townsend since 2013.

Crystal’s Comfort Food got its start as a catering company in 2016 but quickly grew to become a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, one year later.

Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, the Ashbys were commuting more than an hour a day to their business’s first location. In March 2020, they opted to close the Lansdowne store and move the entire menu online.

Luckily, they were able to sustain the business throughout the pandemic with online orders.

Opening a location in Middletown was something Ms. Ashby said she’d been considering for some time. Her dream was made reality in April, when a friend of the family’s told her he knew of a few empty storefronts in Middletown.

The Ashbys chose their current location because the numbers in the address, 426 E. Main St., match up with Ms. Ashby’s birthday, April 26.

“I’m a spiritual person, and I like numbers, so when I saw that I told my husband, ‘I don’t care, we’re getting it,’” she said.

Ms. Ashby is the lead chef of the business, but her husband joined her full time in 2018.

“He has (post-traumatic stress disorder) from his time in the military, so we started using cooking as a coping method,” she said. “He’s learning more, and he loves to cook.”

Ms. Ashby added that she’s always enjoyed cooking and has been fortunate to be able to build a career out of that passion.

“I have no formal training. I learned by just being nosy in the kitchen, by asking, ‘What’s that? What did you put in that dish?’” she said. “My mother worked nights, so she’d be sleeping during the day, and I’d be in the kitchen fixing up things for my niece and I to eat because I knew my mother had to rest.”

While cooking for a celebrity is a treat, as one commenter put it in a photo of Mr. Legend that Ms. Ashby shared to her business’s Facebook page, “I’m not sure who is luckier, you or John and crew.”