One Night Chef

At the very end of November I hosted our annual (and last!!) residency class Christmas and we did something very different and neat this year!! We have a local chef (engineer by day!) who does private parties to collect donations to send to his home of Nepal. He has a special school he supports there. He charges $25/plate to cook and serve a 3-course meal and then any tips above that are sent to support his efforts in Nepal. I love this idea! You can tell he has such a passion for his work and I was so inspired by him!

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited that I didn't have to worry about preparing the meal for everyone myself. Hah! The whole idea was my friend Trish's and I'm so glad she encouraged us to go this route as a class to celebrate Christmas and support this charity!

Surya came to my house with a huge load of groceries to start cooking about four hours before the party started. He also brought reinforcements! These two sweet girls helped him cook and serve :)

I was so amazed at all the action going on in my kitchen!!

We all sat down to eat and Surya did a nice little introduction to each of the courses and also at the end he talked about his charity work.

Our first course was a sweet potato soup served in a pumpkin. I am sure that I've never had the wherewithal to serve anything from the inside of a pumpkin. It was one of the best soups I've ever had in my entire life and I am not just saying that!! I didn't even get a picture of it on my plate. Yes. That good!

Then he served us shrimp fettuccine. I loved how he really decorated the plates! It was so full of flavor!! I think if I won the lottery I would just hire Surya to move in with us. Hah!!

For dessert we had (I wish I could remember the actual name) but it was an ethnic banana kind of like a plantain with ice cream and a cinnamon stick. I was just amazed!

Here is our whole group! I care so much for everyone at the table! We have become such a great family during this journey of residency!!! Such a fun night! :)