A day in the life of 18-year-old David Lanster is full if typical teenage stuff: school, baseball practice and homework. And then he starts cooking. “Some nights I'm up until 1:00 a.m. making pies, or even later if we're cooking beef,” said the student at Ransom Everglades High School in Florida, US.

    For the past year, Lanster and Kelly Moran, his classmate, have been hosting fancy dinner parties at Lanster's parents' home. Their meals have 17 courses and are all made by them. Their guests used to give them gifts to thank them until the pair decided to do something nice for charity（慈善）. “We got some really great Miami Heat tickets, a nice watch, and many kitchen gadgets（小器具）,” Lanster said. “But we wanted to make this something positive for people other than us.”

    Lanster and Moran focused on Common Threads, a charity that aims to teach kids in poor communities to cook and make healthy eating choices. The young cooks ask their guests to give however much they want as payment for their meals. It all goes to Common Threads because Lanster's parents cover their food costs. After their last 12-person event, Lanster and Moran gave $1,600 to the charity.

    Now, they're taking their show out of the kitchen and on the road. They have started to organize private dinner parties with a similar model: the host pays for the ingredients, and the guests make a donation to a charity of their choice.

    Without formal training, Lanster said he had been interested in cooking since he helped his mom in the kitchen when he was very young. He learned how to cook by reading cookbooks and watching TV programs. Outside the kitchen, the two are busy preparing their college applications. Neither of them is sure what they will do in the future, but they're promised their parents that they will leave professional cooking alone until they finish school.