Dinner Marathon

Raleigh and I had the most amazing experience this last week. The company I work for (Ministry Centered Technologies!) bid and bought a dinner for 10 from this Chef Auction we went to last November (it was a fundraiser for the Pendleton Foundation, who helps people with rare diseases who cannot afford the treatment they need to get well). So it was time to redeem it! The chef (Freddie) and his whole team of Chefs were the ones to serve us and we had the whole restaurant to ourselves. The food was incredible- it was a 5 course meal. I think the only course we didn't get a shot of (some/most of these pics are from Jeff) was the first one, mushroom tortollini in white truffle sauce (it was amazing). I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:
The picture above is our second course, the vegetable course, which was absolutely delicious. Mixed greens wrapped in cucumber, an assortment of veggies with goat cheese, then 4 different kinds of heirloom tomatoes cut up into quarters. Below is our group.
Below: 3rd course (pallet cleanser) long-stemmed strawberry dipped in 50-year-aged balsamic vinaigrette.
Below: part of the main course. Inside of these breaded "pears" was some kind of a mashed potato goodness. Basically they were potatoes and really good ones at that.
Below: the main course, which was a trio: Filet Mignon, seared sea bass (my favorite) and chicken marsala. Yes, this was 1 person's serving!!
And onto dessert....this is when all of the chefs (7 I think) brought out 1 dessert per person, plus 1 extra. So each person got their own completely different dessert. We ended up passing them around in a circle so that everyone could try them out. I'm not going to try to explain them :)

Our good friends, Jeff and Ashley, who got to come to the dinner with all of us.
Here's Jeff and Shannon (who sponsored the whole thing) with all the Chefs.
Stupid picture but oh well! This is our company...at least those of us who work in the office. Jeff, Jeff, and me. :)