Dinner Made Simple

Daily Texan Weekend - October 28-30, 2005

Chefs Ditch Restaurants, Get Personal by Sandy Ewen

“I'm leaving corporate America. I am pursuing my dream of becoming a personal chef,” announced Toni Scott to her friends and family a little over a year ago. She has not looked back. For many people with cooking know-how and a busy lifestyle, the personal chef profession is a perfect fit.

Personal chefs afford customers an alternative to restaurants and family-made meals. They allow busy families to eat healthy, customized, home-cooked meals together in the comfort of their homes. Eating healthy food is a difficult goal for many households, as working families often cannot find time or energy to cook a balanced meal and often rely on take-out or purchases from the frozen-food aisle to make it through the week.

For many households, hiring a personal chef is an easy and surprisingly economical solution. Personal chefs may find that this career route can be very rewarding for enterprising individuals. Flexible work schedules and face to face relationships with customers are some benefits that personal chefs may enjoy. The profession offers chefs an exciting alternative to the usual gigs at restaurants and hotels. Scott spent many years cooking for friends and family and only recently realized that she has developed a marketable skill.

“[I] didn’t give much serious thought of cooking professionally until last fall, when I found a career in food that fit with my lifestyle of having a busy family,” said Scott. In addition to a convenient work schedule, personal chefs also enjoy developing relationships with their customers. The ability to fully customize a family’s diet, according to the family’s specific health needs and personal preferences, can be very rewarding. Scott, like many personal chefs, meets with clients prior to cooking for them to establish what they like and don’t like to eat, whether or not they have any dietary restrictions, whether they need low fat or low sodium. Scott then develops a specific menu, which the family can approve or modify. On the established cook date, she purchases all the necessary ingredients and typically prepares five different meals, with four generous portions of each, in her clients’ homes. When she is finished, the kitchen is spotless and the refrigerator and freezer are stocked with enough home-cooked food for a week or more. After only a year in the business, Scott serves as a chef for six different families.