A Personal Chef for the Family Reunion — So Everyone Finally Sits at the Same Table

"The Almeida family gathers once a year when the São Paulo and Recife branches manage to align holidays — 32 people at the grandparents' house. Every year, Vó Célia cooked for three days straight. For her 80th year, the grandchildren booked a myChef chef and secretly sent him her handwritten recipe notebook."

The chef reproduced her frango com quiabo and her bolo de fubá almost exactly — she inspected the kitchen, corrected the angu once, then sat down. It was the first reunion in decades where she was at the table for the entire meal. The photo of her being served dessert became the family's group chat cover.

"Fifteen cousins spread across three states rented a sítio near Atibaia for a long-weekend reunion, 28 people counting kids. Nobody wanted to spend the Saturday cooking for that crowd, and delivery wasn't realistic on a rural road."

Their chef ran an all-afternoon churrasco with picanha and slow ribs, a separate table of kids' food, and grilled pineapple for dessert. The cousins spent the day in the pool instead of at the grill, and booked the same chef for the following year before he left.

"Marcos hosted his father's 75th birthday reunion for 20 relatives in his apartment in Belo Horizonte. His father is diabetic, two nephews are vegetarian, and his mother-in-law is celiac — planning one menu had defeated the family every previous year."

The chef built a mineiro lunch where every single person could eat the main table: sugar-conscious dessert included, a vegetarian tutu that the meat-eaters also finished, and a gluten-free bolo de fubá. Marcos said the food arguments simply didn't happen for the first time ever.