NEW
YORK (CNNfn) - Sharon Worster doesn't like to leave even a trace of
evidence that she spent the entire afternoon in a client's kitchen
cooking up a storm. By the time her clients get home, the trash is
taken out, the pots have been cleaned and the stovetops, oven and
counters are sparkling.
Worster is one of a growing number of
professional personal chefs who provide home-cooked meals for
harried people who no longer have time to shop for and prepare
delicious, nutritious meals for themselves or their
families.
"I'm kind of like a food fairy," said Worster, a
personal chef in Woodlands, Texas. "They come home and have food for
a week and it was like I was never there."
 There's one thing, however, that always clues
her clients into the fact that Worster has been there: the smell.
The scents of fresh herbs and spices, reduction sauces and a variety
of home-cooked entrees linger long after Worster has cleaned off her
knives and packed up her pan and headed home.
"People are too
busy to cook and don't want to eat out all the time," Worster said.
"And they're also sick of going for takeout all the time."
A family chef, but more
affordable
Personal chefs are
something akin to family chefs who once devoted their entire
professional day to serving meals to one family. Unlike family
cooks, personal chefs usually cook once a week, only twice monthly
or once a month, depending on the needs of their customers. They
leave behind frozen or refrigerated packages of food, with elaborate
instructions on how to reheat them.
Also, unlike an old-style
family cook who only the wealthy could hire, personal chefs are much
more affordable. Partly because people are finding they are busy and
partly because they can finally afford a little help in the kitchen,
the personal chef business is a growing industry.
The United
States Personal Chef Association estimates that its ranks grow by
about 100 chefs each month. The association has 3,200 members and
expects that will swell to 5,000 within the next two years.
Likewise, the number of households that use personal chef services
has grown from about 1,000 ten years ago to nearly 100,000,
according to the USPCA.
Having a personal chef is something
of a luxury, admits Star Soltan, who hired her personal chef, Ina
Kuller, more than five years ago. Like many busy moms, Soltan often
resorted to serving pizza for dinner on those nights when she
returned home too late to cook. Kuller visits Soltan's San Diego,
Calif., home about once a month and prepares and leaves enough food
in the freezer for about 10 meals. Instead of the unhealthy take-out
burgers of years past, serving Kuller's food on those nights when
she's short on time makes her feel like she's taking care of her
family.
"It makes me feel like I'm still a good mom," Soltan
said.
Personalized meals worth a little
more
Certainly, its still not a
service that everyone can take advantage of. It's definitely more
expensive than fast food and can be more expensive than eating in a
restaurant. Even so, Jennifer Van Hoof, said it's not out of reach
for many people.
Van Hoof is a personal chef in New York
City. Her clients get a very healthy meal of an entrée, side dish
and a vegetable for about $13 per meal. At that price, Van Hoof
acknowledges that people can find cheaper ways to keep themselves
fed. But they rarely find food made quite to their liking and that
takes their dietary needs into consideration.
Most personal
chefs not only allow their clients to choose from an extensive menu,
but also let them customize the food to suit their tastes. Don't
like cayenne pepper? Your personal chef won't use it in the meals he
or she prepares for you. Allergic to cilantro? It will be tossed out
every time they cook for you. Dieting? They can take care of those
needs as well.
Benefits for chefs as well as for
clients
About half the personal chefs
working in the United States have professional culinary training,
said David MacKay, president of the USPCA. Working as personal chefs
provides them an alternative to toiling in hot restaurant kitchens
for long hours and little pay. Most personal chefs, he said, take
home between $200 and $300 a day after expenses, which works out to
be more than many head restaurant chefs earn.
Kuller is one
of those personal chefs whose background is in cooking. She worked
in both restaurants and as a family cook before starting her own
personal chef business seven years ago in San Diego. She noted the
lure of more money and fewer hours is attractive to many restaurant
chefs, but cautioned that on top of having a nose for cooking,
successful personal chefs also need a head for
business.
"Unless you fall into a clientele, you have to
learn to market yourself," Kuller said, noting that many people are
still unfamiliar with the industry. "A lot of chefs are not used to
promoting themselves, but you have to do it."
Today, Kuller
says she is as busy as she wants to be. She has many regular clients
who found her through a combination of newspaper advertising, word
of mouth and the good fortune to have had her business profiled in
the local newspaper.
The other group of personal chefs are
mostly people who, at one point, were themselves in need of a chef's
services. MacKay said the average age of the personal chefs in his
organization is 44 and is a second career for most of
them.
Worster wanted more free time after 17 very busy years
in nursing that included late night phone calls from work, double
shifts and pages from the hospital on the weekend.
"I know
how important this is for the people I cook for," she said. "There
is something about helping people get together around the table for
a meal. I know some of my clients didn't used to do that. I don't
know what they would do without me."  |
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