Amtrak's Original Onboard Magazine
The Joy of Not Cooking
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Amtrak's Original Onboard
Magazine
The Joy of Not Cooking
Personal Chefs Deliver the Goods
You're sick of eating carry-out, you're too tired to cook, you've got dishpan
hands and you just can't bear to make another restaurant reservation--so what
are your going to do? Assuming you don't want to start a Fritos and Diet Coke
diet (trust me; you don't), you've got one choice. Hire a personal chef.
Personal chefs will cook and serve you a gourmet meal. They'll stock your fridge
with a month's worth of easy-to-reheat meals. They'll teach you and your friends
how to make a perfect coq-au-vin. They'll even respect your finicky no-carb,
no-dairy, no-fruit, no-meat diet. And they'll do it for less than you'd normally
spend on carry-out and restaurants.
Sound like a dream come true? Sure, but it's also a natural solution for today's
over-stressed, over-committed work force. We're already in the habit of hiring
outsiders to tidy our homes, clean our clothes and take care of our children, so
why not out-source the cooking?
If you want someone to live with you and fry up grilled cheese at 3 a.m., you
want a private chef. Personal chefs are different--they're freelancers with a
kitchen full of clients. And it's a growing trade. Ten years ago, about 100
people called themselves personal chefs. Today, there are about 8,000 of them
with 75,000 clients, cooking up a $52 million industry. In five years the
numbers are expected to boil over; 25,000 personal chefs, 300,000 clients, $1
billion in annual revenues. That's a whole lot of ravioli.
Hungry for a first-hand experience of personal pampering. I called Rita Borges
of Talk of the Town, a personal chef service in New York. Many of Borges'
clients are folks like me; busy, kitchen-challenged professionals. Her most
popular service is her 12 meal plan, which costs $365. Factor in the time you
save by not shopping, chopping or cleaning up, and a personal chef becomes an
economical choice. Affordable self-indulgence--who can resist?
Borges usually cooks in a commercial kitchen and delivers the food to her
clients, often when they aren't home. But I wanted an up-close look at her
handiwork, so she agreed to cook in my apartment. After a Q&A about my likes and
dislikes, we settled on the menu: sesame-encrusted seared tuna, sea bass poached
in a lemongrass and chili coconut broth, sauteed mixed mushrooms and a pear and
pistacho tart.
Borges walked into my teeny Manhattan kitchen with three bags of food, wine and
mixing bowls, and we went to work as a team, cleaning mushrooms, tweaking the
amount of red curry in the broth until we hit the perfect degree of spicy.
Everything was delicious. Oh, and did I mention that she cleaned the kitchen?
Even Emeril won't do that.
Borges left the restaurant business after a decade because she prefers the
intimate relationship she develops with her clients. According to Candy Wallace,
founder of the American Personal Chef Association (APCA), many cooks turn to
personal chef-ing when they tire of the industry grind. Belinda Clarke of Dine
by Design is a former caterer who is now president of the New York chapter of
the United States Personal Chef Association (USPCA). She agrees that the
personal contact makes the work rewarding, especially when she's working with
clients with health problems. "You add value to their lives," Clark says.
Speaking of value-added, Boston-based personal chef Julia Shanks throws what she
calls "interactive dinner parties" for her clients. "I get guests and hosts
involved in preparation of a three-course gourmet dinner. It's not only a meal;
it's an evening's entertainment." Averaging $75 per person with a $500 minimum
(wine not included), an interactive dinner party costs as much as an expensive
restaurant, and you don't have to worry about parking. If you want a personal
chef experience minus the chef, the Impromptu Gourmet will deliver--literally.
They provide meals designed by celebrity personal chefs like Jean-Georges
Vongerichten, Charlie Palmer and Eric Ripert and FedEx them to you in
pre-chopped, pre-seasoned, ready-to-cook servings. All for $40--about the cost
of three appetizers at one of New York's swankier restaurants. What a bargain.