Come Dine with Me event raises over £600 for the Team
An unusual Saturday night meal in the Herdwick Inn at Penruddock (12 March) has raised over £600 for Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team.
Linda Wilmot is landlady and regular chef at the Inn: “It all started last year when a local doctor asked if he could cook in the restaurant kitchen for the night, invite friends and regulars to eat his special menu and raise money for Eden Valley Hospice,” she says. “It proved a brilliant idea and the MRT event last Saturday was the fourth one in all. We’ve now raised just under £2500 for local charities. The kitchen is getting back to normal now for the summer but I think we’ll be running a few more Come Dine with Me events next winter as we already have people queuing up to do the next ones.”
Brian Firth was the chef on Saturday and he chose the dinner menu as well as selecting Patterdale MRT as the beneficiaries. Brian and his wife, Susan, are regulars in the Herdwick Inn and they are currently building a house in the village.
“The menu was a three course Italian-themed dinner finishing with a fantastic Pannatone bread and butter pudding,” says Brian. “The whole experience was an eye opener into professional catering, but also an opportunity which I thoroughly enjoyed. I would like to thank Linda, Mark, Dean and all the team at the Herdwick Inn for encouraging everyone to take part in this fantastic event.”
Dave and Jacquie Freeborn and Ray Griffiths and his family, members of Patterdale MRT, were among the 80+ diners and they had already booked for the dinner when they found out that the Team would be receiving the proceeds: “It was a complete surprise,” says Jacquie, “but the best sort of fundraising as it is such an original idea and everyone also had a great night out.”