How did one woman's home dinners feed as many as 200 people while supporting a wider community?

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This descriptive photo essay by Shannon Harvey follows Vimala Rajendran's community dinners. Almost every week for thirteen years, Rajendran welcomed friends and strangers into her home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in the Carolina Piedmont, for Indian food.

Donations of time and money supported Rajendran and a volunteer crew, who fed as many as 200 people at each community dinner. Dinner was served from 5:30 to 10:00 in the evening. Volunteers arrived early in the day to prepare and cook food, while others stayed late to clean.

Food storage and cooking occupied much of the basement and kitchen, along with the front porch, where her husband Rush had installed propane-fueled cooking equipment. Guests sat in the living room, basement, or yard to eat and mingle; others took containers of food home to their families.

The dinners began as a way for Rajendran to support her family after leaving an abusive relationship. The community that grew around them subsequently helped her support local farmers, showcase local musicians, and offer made-from-scratch, home-cooked meals to people who might not otherwise be able to afford them. Most ingredients were sourced locally, although she also brought suitcases of spices from India.

Rajendran often used the dinners to raise funds, including for fruit trees for the Carrboro Community Garden and relief for victims of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The essay portrays the dinners as a place to share a table, couch, or picnic blanket, make friends, support regional livelihoods, and imagine contributing to global communities—even while peeling garlic on a Wednesday morning.

Encouraged by enthusiasm for her cooking, Rajendran started a catering business and opened Vimala's Curry-blossom Cafe in summer 2010. She strives to carry her sustainable, community-friendly practices into these newer ventures.

The photographs were taken over several weeks between January 2010 and March 17, 2010, the date of her final community dinner. With the restaurant open, she hoped to continue the dinners in some form.

The accompanying captions reiterate that the dinners fed as many as 200 people and identify helpers as local food activists, friends, and family, including her daughter Manju. Most dinner-day mornings began with peeling garlic. Pots and preparation space were scarce, including for peeling cardamom; the author recommends trying a cardamom brownie. Cardamom seeds were ground for brownies, and the husks were used in chai. Guests arrived after a day's preparation and finishing touches. Cooking and mingling kept Rajendran on her feet throughout the evening.

The author biography identifies Shannon Harvey as a graduate student in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research interests include food, agrarianism, and religion in the American South. She holds a BA in Studio Art with a concentration in photography from the University of Texas at Austin. The supplied text carries a 2012 copyright notice from the Center for the Study of the American South.