When seniors Christian Yeung, Nam Dao, and Sean Liao started The Red Plate Society (RPS) last year, their goal was to nourish connections across our community—literally. As international students missing the tastes of home, the trio found themselves cooking a lot of meals in the kitchen of their dorm. They began sharing their favorite foods from Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Taiwan with one another; soon they were reaching out to other international students and preparing dishes from their home cultures, as well. Dorm feeds, special meals, and food-centric events followed.

“With RPS, we found a way to connect with our school community through something we loved to do,” says Nam, “and we hoped to inspire others to do the same.”

In May, the student-chefs started working on a cookbook as a way of celebrating the work they had done throughout the school year. They gathered and formally wrote the recipes, while Christian took the lead on editing. 

“We started with student-provided recipes that we got from the various dorm feeds that we did last year: borscht, pap and seswaa, banh mi and more, and also included some of our favorite dishes we had made,” Christian explains. “We have 19 of our own recipes in the book, plus one guest recipe from Lords by the Lake—Blair Academy’s student-run restaurant and our inspiration for RPS.”

“They generously wrote us a recipe for scallops with chive miso beurre blanc,” Nam adds. “It's a nice addition to our book that kind of tied all the knots.”

With their work completed, Christian, Nam, and Sean sent the cookbook off for publishing. They ordered 80 copies, which completely sold out during Taft’s Fall Family Weekend. 

“Through sales and donations, we were able to raise $2,100,” says Christian. “We then contacted the Watertown Food Bank and got a grocery list together. With the help of Mr. Danaher and Mr. Shotwell, and through LaBonne's Market, we were able use the proceeds from the book to purchase Thanksgiving meal supplies and donate them to the food bank.”

The success of the cookbook allowed the chef and authors to fulfill an important part of the RPS founding mission: to make a meaningful difference through the collective efforts of the community.

“Now, we’re working on publishing the cookbook online via Kindle,” says Nam “That will make it easier to distribute to other boarding schools and hopefully make an impact on communities beyond Taft.”