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This Whisk for Hire
By Tom Witkowski, Globe Correspondent,07/19/00
Kim and Drew Conway were expecting 16 friends for dinner in their Wellesley home. They had pulled out all the stops for this party. It was black tie, the food elaborate. They had planned a tasting menu with several different courses.
Kim Conway had prepared complex meals for guests before. And every day she is what she calls a ``mom cook,'' preparing dinner for the couple's five children, ages 5 through 17. But this dinner party was different. Kim Conway did not even bother to go grocery shopping. She just picked up some wine. When the food prep needed to be done, the children were running around the house, and she was nowhere near the kitchen. ``I was up getting dressed,'' she says. Instead, in her kitchen Radius chef Michael Schlow and his helpers were creating the gourmet meal.
The Conways had won Schlow's services at a charity auction to benefit The Charles River Unit of the American Cancer Society last year. This year, at that same auction, the bidding on Schlow set a record - two couples each gave $50,000 to have him prepare dinners in their homes this year.
Boston's celebrity chefs, more and more, are putting their talents on the auction block to raise money for charities. People bid thousands of dollars to have the chefs cook in their homes and prepare elaborate dinners. Some chefs bring everything they need - pots, pans, utensils, china, food, and servers. Others show up with just the food and prepare it with whatever they find in the kitchen.
A celebrity chef in the kitchen is a popular twist on the traditional dinner party. It's like having a cooking show live in your home. Usually the chefs will demonstrate their skills, answer questions, and mingle, providing not only the meal, but the entertainment.
``Everyone loves the idea,'' says party producer Bryan Rafanelli of Rafanelli Events. Before Schlow opened Radius, Rafanelli snagged him to prepare the dinner for a client's 40th birthday party. The going rate for a top chef usually ranges from $2,500 to $5,000 for a night, Rafanelli says. But a host can hire a professional chef for a night for as little as $65 per person for a three-course meal. Most chefs are outside their restaurant kitchens only a few nights of the year, so availability is tight. When chefs are between restaurants, however, preparing dinners for private clients keeps them connected.
Stan Frankenthaler, chef/owner of Salamander, closed his Cambridge location in December. He plans to reopen in Boston this fall, but in the meantime has been working in private kitchens.
``It's just really nice to be cooking for people,'' Frankenthaler says. ``We love cooking for people and entertaining, and we throw a good party.'' He estimates he has raised about $75,000 for charities over the last six years.
The charity aspect of some of these dinners makes the price easier to swallow, says Kim Conway.
``It's for a great cause,'' she says, ``and it takes the extravagance out of it.''
Such a dinner also lets hosts rationalize the gourmet kitchen they have and rarely use. Or gives them a chance to use some of the china they have collected over the years. Philanthropist Barbara Cole Lee won Frankenthaler's services at an auction benefiting the American Repertory Theatre and took the opportunity to use everything in her china cabinet in one evening. And of course there are the bragging rights. When Boston Harbor Hotel chef Daniel Bruce is working in people's kitchens, he often sees the flash of a camera.
``It's kind of funny ... kind of like a celebrity thing. They probably take these things, put a magnet on the fridge and say, `Look who was cooking in my kitchen,''' Bruce says.
Sandra Grillo of the Back Bay was used to having a professional chef in the house, as her father was a sous-chef for the Ritz-Carlton hotel. Still, when in March Frankenthaler prepared a dinner in her home as part of the LifeSavor benefit for Community Servings, she relished the pampering.
``It was absolutely phenomenal,'' Grillo says. Frankenthaler arrived with two helpers at 2 p.m. The LifeSavor event included a two-hour pre-dinner cocktail reception at Le Meridien hotel, which Grillo was able to attend while Frankenthaler cooked.
Even better, when dinner - a four-course meal - was finished, the guests did not have to hurry and leave to free the table, as they might at a restaurant. In fact, the chef even came out of the kitchen and sat with them. ``It was more intimate,'' says Grillo. ``It was a formal dinner, but the atmosphere was informal. It was friendly.''
That same evening, Lynne Kortenhaus had chef Jonathan Cartwright of the White Barn Inn in Maine working in her Charlestown kitchen, also as part of LifeSavor. When Kortenhaus arrived home from the cocktail reception, 30 minutes ahead of her guests, one waiter was rushing around the house lighting every candle and another greeted her at her front door and poured her a glass of wine.
``I wish I could have it every night of the week,'' says Kortenhaus. ``The nice part is I got to enjoy it like everybody else did.''
Sometimes, the temptation is too much. Not only the host, but also the guests find themselves crowding into the kitchen to see the chef at work.
``It's really just an opportunity for them to talk to someone who's a professional,'' says Bruce. ``They want to kind of pick up tips, see how you organize.''
Organization is key in such an endeavor. These chefs are used to having commercial stoves and exhaust fans, other chefs preparing sauces and side dishes, and every ingredient imaginable at their fingertips. Preparing a restaurant-quality meal in someone's home kitchen is fraught with obstacles.
Chef Julia Shanks, who runs Interactive Cuisine, a business that organizes dinner parties with professional chefs in private homes, remembers cooking for one Beacon Hill party that had 92 obstacles.
The host wanted everything grilled and served on the roof deck. But the kitchen, where all the prep work was done, was on a lower level. In between were 92 steps.
Other hosts have ill-equipped kitchens or, worse, electric stoves.
``For me, that's part of the challenge,'' Shanks says. ``One of the very first parties I did, it was dinner for 10. I get there - she had a 10-inch Teflon skillet, kind of chipped, [and] some cookie sheets.''
Shanks used the sheets to saute, and the meal was a success.
Other chefs are less willing to rough it. Schlow now keeps a list of everything that is needed for an off-site dinner, such as hand-held immersion blenders, on his computer.
He usually does all the dicing, slicing, and other prep work in his restaurant kitchen, then brings all the food, cooks it, and assembles the dishes in the host's kitchen.
``They're getting full-blown treatment. We want this to be spectacular,'' he says.
Bruce tries to make the meal the most unusual that ever came out of that particular kitchen. ``I've done stuffed whelk. I've done everything exotic you can imagine,'' he says. ``I try to go into the house and prepare them something they normally wouldn't have. I'll always ask, `How exotic can I go?'''
Usually the chefs stick around after dinner and join the guests. Meanwhile, most times their helpers are in the kitchen, cleaning up.
When Frankenthaler left, ``the kitchen was spotless,'' says Grillo.
Kortenhaus found an even better surprise once her guests had gone home and Cartwright was on his way back to Maine.
``When I inspected the refrigerator,'' she says, ``what I found, actually in the freezer, was some leftover truffles they froze for me."