My First Experience with a Personal Chef
February 7, 2007 by Greg
Yesterday I received my first order from my personal chef. If you have never done this before, you must try this. It is, perhaps, the only way to live.
To find a chef, I used findachef.com (see my earlier article on locating personal chefs). I contacted about 5 chefs and most replied within 24 hours. One chef stood out (the domestic goddess) as being particularly detail oriented, attentive, and ready to get the job done. I later found out she lived a previous life as a product manager. It made sense.
We setup a date to meet at my favorite restaurant and she emailed me her food survey. It was a 4 page comprehensive questionnaire isolating my preferred foods, cuisines, dietary habits, and flavoring options. Being a vegetarian with a palette for the world made the process quick. If I was a picky eater, I could easily un-check anything I didn’t want to eat.
One of the key benefits of using a personal chef is the ability to define the terms in which I eat and then have food prepared in this manner. My diet is void of high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils when possible. I prefer meals rich in vegetables highlighting greens and cruciferous vegetables. For spices, I like to eat fresh garlic and ginger. Being a vegetarian I also like to include items like flax seed and walnuts to increase my omega 3 intake. These intricacies were easily captured, and in 10 minutes, she understood my wants.
She showed up on time and with a bag full of apple cinnamon muffins for me. We checked off boxes and ate our food. I took my excitement and muffins with me, giving samples to my friends, piano teacher, and roommates. All approved. Pam, you had me at “I brought you these muffins.”
What happens next is she goes home, comes up with a custom menu, and emails it to me for approval. Of course I approved this.
Usually she arrives at a clients home and does all the work there. She cooks the meals, packages, and stores them in the clients fridge. I am seldom home, and really, would rather just have food delivered. She graciously accommodated this request.
Within two days she was at my doorstep with a bright red 30 gallon cooler full of packaged gourmet food. The food was carefully packed in throw away ziploc containers, aluminum trays, and resealable bags. Each item was labeled with a branded sticker and a printed description of each item. Accompanying the shipment was an information pack detailing the courses for each meal, preparation methods, and storage recommendations.
There are 5 meals with 4 hearty servings each. 4 of these meals go into the freezer with one being in the fridge. That gets consumed right away. By right away I mean, she’s still putting her cooler in her car, and I’m salivating over a plate of mixed baby green salad with walnuts and blueberries topped with a pomegranate vinegarette. To the side was a quinoa salad with chopped mango, oranges, green onions, sliced almonds, and something red, perhaps cranberries. This was matched with a thick roasted tomato soup with floating cheese tortellinis. I grinned ear to ear as I devoured this meal.
Oh, and she brought me a 1 gallon bag of homemade cranberry walnut granola as a bonus. I’m in love.
Oh. My. God.
My eyes just rolled back in my head. As I sit here eating.. a peanut butter sammich on 7 grain + flax organic bread.
When are you inviting me over to sample the goods?!
PS- the one thing you neglected to mention here is the price.
It’s worth noting, as all this wonderful goodness doesn’t come cheap from what I recall when we talked on Saturday.
You can come over anytime.
The service was $375 for the package. I’m working out another post that analyzes the cost vs time saved.
[...] Achieving more by doing less depends on team work. Probably not the ‘team’ you have in mind though. T4HWW suggests outsourcing as many menial tasks as you can. Much as our own Greg has handed over cooking and laundry duties to outside vendors, so can you. Beyond that though, most of your non-essential computer work, (bill paying, research, gift ordering to name but three) can be handled by low cost ‘virtual assistants’ in India. Would it be cheaper to do it yourself? Sure. It is absolutely necessary that you realize that you can always do something more cheaply yourself. This doesn’t mean you want to spend your time doing it. If you spend your time, worth $20-25 per hour, doing something that someone else will do for $10 per hour, it’s simply a poor use of resources. It is important to take baby steps toward paying others to do work for you. Few do it, which is another reason so few people have their ideal lifestyles. [...]