So here is how I made a 15 dish coconut inspired dinner for a little family in Malibu as a private chef. How I ended up making it all and every single thing I ended up making for them. For this dinner, I wanted to do a full coconut inspired spread where every single dish had coconut in it. And so I started with this Indian inspired mixed bean salad that I began putting together around noon. I always start by making all the cold dishes first, since they can kind of be made whenever and be thrown in the fridge all day. This salad had chickpeas, lentils, mung beans, and flavored by this spice mix with curry leaves, dry Kashmiri chili, lime, and coconut oil that I mixed into the salad. I also prepped a quick endive salad with dragon fruit and grapefruit, a quick papaya salad by peeling an unripe papaya and mixing it with smashed long beans, cherry tomatoes, and dried shrimp. All the salads went in the fridge before I got on my lamb curry in this fire Dutch oven. I got it going at the same time as my ahi tuna that I crusted with sesame seeds and coconut. And then seared Tommy Lamb with a bunch of Thai flavors like fish sauce, tamarind, coconut milk, and got to use a pot filler for the first time, which was pretty cool. This point, five of the 15 dishes were pretty much done. I decided to Pass off cake duty to a special someone who wanted to take on the job, which was super helpful because I had a lot to do for the appetizer course, including making sauce for veggie wraps, spreading shrimp for coconut shrimp, spreading crab cake, and making mango salsa for a coconut crab cake. Shocking these disgustingly huge oysters that I made, a saffron coconut milk vermouth to go with, and then threw on the grill with some corn. Once that was all done, I checked in on the coconut cake, which looked phenomenal. And then it was time to put down all the apps to begin serving. I fried off my coconut shrimp and coconut crab cakes. I loated my corn, coating it with a coconut togarashi and pecorino blend. Put together one of my favorite five minute apps to make coconut scallop crudo on shrimp cracker. Sauce my coconut shrimp with pineapple glaze, top my coconut crab cakes with the mango and roasted red pepper salsa, top my grilled oysters with that coconut butter sauce and more saffron, and laid down a little build your own wrap situation with veggies, peanuts, coconut. While they were munching, I prepped and put down all the hot mains. That included a fried branzino dish, the lamb that I had braising from before, a green mussels curry, and a rice dish flavored with Indian spices. With the finishing touches on the four salads from earlier. Serve the rice in cute little coconut shells. Top the red coconut lamb curry with peanuts and mint, the fried fish with an herb and coconut salad, and the green mussels coconut curry with ginger and microgreens. Was super happy with how it all came out and think everyone else was too. We had that stunning coconut cake to wrap up the night. Spent a little bit cleaning the kitchen and yeah, absolutely passed the freak out that night.