Feast: Alumni Volunteer Dinner 2019-2020 — The Gourmand Film Writer

Every year, the school I work at employs a number of Alumni Volunteers who return to the school following their graduation from college for a year of service. As another of my colleagues told me “sometimes teaching is not fulling work in that we often plant seeds that will grow later. Growth that sometimes we never witness.” One of the great joys about having the Alumni Volunteer service is to have former students of mine return to the school. There has never been one who is not amazing. Their service is a gift to the school, but they’re returning to renew our relationship is a gift to me. Every year, I host the Alumni Volunteers for a dinner at my house. This year, I had the privilege of teaching all three of the Alumni to return.

As part of this dinner, I have a standard questionnaire that I ask people for whom I am cooking. Obviously, it covers the basics like dietary restrictions and allergies, but it also asks a lot of questions about flavors, cuisines, etc. This year was one of the more difficult to synthesize into a cohesive meal. I will leave it to them to let you know if I succeeded or not.

The decision was to do upscale Asian Latin fusion. Taking an idea from Chef Jose Andres, I called it Asia Poblano.

Amuse