On Saturday, April 5, 30 Vancouverites will make home cooked meals for strangers all to benefit local charities during #dinnerpartyYVR, presented by Cressey. SPUD, Fortis BC and Two Rivers help provide the dinner ingredients, while Serendipity Winery and Granville Island Brewery will pour libations. After dinner, Modo, The Car-Coop will whisk diners off to the After Party, hosted at Meccanica.
And over the next two weeks, we'll be sharing some of the hobby chef's stories. To support a meal, visit dinnerpartyyvr.com.
Introducing Ron and Carmen. What inspired you to sign on as a Hobby Chef?
I love to cook for people and combining cooking with an opportunity to raise money for A Better Life Foundation made it a no brainer. And my wife prefers this to me quitting my IT job and betting our savings on opening a bistro food truck.
So, what's for dinner?
I’m all about that perfect intersection of flavour and presentation. We’ll start with a surprise amuse and a spicy take on a Bloody Mary, then follow with a roasted tomato soup. Next is our wicked wedge salad, a spicier cousin to the oft maligned traditional. Just because we have access to great local organic greens is no reason to be a hater on the simple head of iceberg.
Our main course is Cab Sav braised short ribs with garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus; the result of carefully browning short ribs (love that maillard reaction) and then lovingly braising them in wine for hours until they are fork tender. To finish we’ll serve something lemony to cleanse the palate. We’ll be pairing our courses with a red wine from Serendipity and a pale ale from Granville Island Brewing.
Introduce us to your sous chef.
My sous chef is Carmen, my wife and best friend, because together we make an awesome dinner party team. She doesn’t cook but loves to search for recipes from my 500+ cookbooks which I then get to make. While my focus is in the kitchen, she rocks the décor and is the best bartender/hostess. Most importantly, she excels at stalling with charm while I’m recovering from the occasional kitchen timing foible…
Where's home?
Our Riley Park home was built in 1960 and is a renovation work in progress. We’re always rebuilding or redecorating something and we even manage to finish some of these projects. We can’t justify tearing down a perfectly good old house so we treat the old lady with as much time and love as the budget affords.
Your dinner will be supporting A Better Life Foundation. What do you want us to know most about this organization?
Living in Vancouver is amazing and a big part of that is the unique people and communities that make up the city. This includes the residents of the Downtown East Side, some of the most disadvantaged in Canada. Like anybody, these DTES residents deserve an opportunity to live a fulfilled life with security and dignity.
When Mark Brand revived Save-On-Meats with a focus on supporting the local community and its citizens and then started the A Better Life Foundation, I saw someone who was actually working to make things better; not just discussing issues ad nauseum.
They have this great sandwich program. A meal token sells for $2.25 and that gets someone a hot breakfast sandwich for less than the price of a coffee. Every month I buy tokens for the VPD to distribute to those in need. And they also provide cooking classes for at-risk women in SROs, teaching them how to prepare healthy, low-cost meals for themselves and their children. Classes are taught by peer instructors and the $75 cost is supported by donations.
ABLF works every day right here in Vancouver to provide food, education and support for at-risk residents of Vancouver’s DTES. You know where your donation is going and what it’s being used for. This kind of transparency appeals to me and is very rare.
Snag the last seat at Ron's table, or any other of the #dinnerpartyYVR meals, visit dinnerpartyyvr.com
