Chef Anna's Inspired Cooking & Personal Chef Service

Chef Anna's Cooking & Personal Chef Service

Chef Anna's Inspired Cooking & Personal Chef Service

Anna’s Inspired Cooking & Personal Chef Service provides fresh, delicious, healthy, home made meals prepared in your own kitchen. I offer a convenient solution to the ever present question at the end of the day, “What’s for dinner?”

I serve families and individuals who place a high value on their time and want a healthy, high-quality choice for dinner. Your custom menu is directed by your family’s tastes. I shop for you the day of cooking to offer the freshest ingredients. I then cook, using my portable kitchen, and package the meals in your home. You come home to a sparkling clean kitchen and a house full of wonderful aromas. You just heat, serve and relax.

Who is Anna Conrad?

I attended culinary school in Thailand as an adult but my cooking experience started when I was 3 years old standing on a stool at the counter while my Hispanic mother instructed me in the basics of stirring. Over the years I graduated to actual cooking at the knee of my Southern grandmother, and later along side of my Italian Mother In Law. As a businesswoman I was afforded the luxury of traveling all over the world and tasting different cuisines first hand. About a year ago I decided to do something radically different with my life and became a personal chef. Cooking has always been my passion and being a personal chef allows me to express my passion every single day.

What is Chef Anna?

Personal Chef service is different from a private chef in that I cook for multiple clients instead one client exclusively (I do not live in your home). I emphasize healthy cooking without sacrificing flavor. I do in-home cooking using a portable kitchen, I cater small in-home events and provide corporate plated lunches and boxed lunches. I also host cooking classes for adults and children and during the summer will offer cooking camps for children. You may have seen me on DayTime Tri-Cities, most recently on Cinco de Mayo (May 5th).

How does Chef Anna work?

First I’ll interview you using my food preferences questionnaire to learn your dietary goals, restrictions, likes and dislikes. Next, I create a customized menu, which you approve. Then I do the shopping, come to your home, cook, package and label the food, leave reheat instructions and clean up before I leave.

Who needs a personal chef?

On occasion, who doesn’t? My clients include busy families who are tired of take out or fast food. It includes individuals who find it hard to cook for one and want more interesting food choices. It includes people who are in a rut and want someone to help them break out. I have families and individuals who are dealing with extenuating circumstances such as a death or illness in the family or a parent who is assigned overseas. I have people with special needs such as diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome, heart disease, weight loss goals, etc. And I have one client who wants to expose their kids to a more varied cuisine while another client uses me because I help teach their children to cook.

Rationale for having a personal chef?

A lot of people hire others to do their household tasks, for example: housekeeping, pool maintenance, mowing the grass, auto repair, etc. They choose to hire professionals because they do the job quickly and more expertly. Cooking has in effect been hired out too in the form of eating out at a restaurant, fast food place or getting take-away - and there is nothing wrong with these options on occasion. When it becomes the norm most nights of the week then family time and a person’s health can suffer.

Many families realize this and in today’s economy many families and individuals are choosing to eat at home more often. Grocery stores are reporting record sales as a result. The problem I am hearing from many of these families is they don’t know how to cook more than a few family favorites. They eat the same things over and over falling into a rut while not having enough hours in the day to get everything done. Eating at home with Chef Anna provides an easy answer to those busy nights when cooking at home is not a good option but you still want a healthy, affordable food & quality time with your family.

Is a personal chef forever?

In short – no. A personal chef might be for a single event to share new ideas and techniques for your cooking. It might be for a few occasions to engage your children's imagination for cooking. When children are involved in preparing the food, they are more willing to try new foods. There might be a season while your parent or friend recovers from illness. You may use a personal chef on occasion so that you have 5 meals per month for those days when everyone has somewhere they must be and there’s no time to cook. Think about it - choir practice, soccer practice, PTA, business dinner for one of the parents, the list of outside demands on a family’s time is long. Instead of fast food or take out, have something healthy and tailored just to your tastes.

Is a personal chef expensive?

First, let’s look at dining out. The great things about dining out include the variety of cuisine, someone else buys the food, cooks and cleans the dishes. All you have to do is get in the car, drive to the restaurant, wait to be seated, be served, eat and pay the bill. But what does that cost?

Let’s assume you order an entrée for $11.49 and a drink for $1.79. That’s $13.28 plus 9.5% tax is $14.54 plus 15% tip is $16.72 or about $17.00 per person. And this assumes no cost for gas or your time to drive to and from the restaurant.

Is dining out healthy? Rarely. The Center for Science in the Public Interest estimates that Americans eat out on average 4 times per week yet get 1/3 of their weekly calories in those 4 meals. Considering that we eat 21 meals in a week, just 1/5 of our meals generate 1/3 of our calories.

Now, let’s look at cooking for yourself and eating at home. The cost here is simple – right? It’s just the cost of the food per person and that of course depends upon whether you choose to eat bologna sandwiches or lobster and to some extent how much you eat. We find from buying a lot of groceries for many families with varying tastes and different sizes that on average it costs about per person per meal in groceries. But there’s a hidden cost – wasted food. There is a large body of information that shows we throw away about 1/3 of the food we purchase because we don’t plan our menus well and therefore buy too much. Is eating at home healthy? It can be but only if you integrate healthy options into your menu planning.

So, how do you find time to do all of this in your busy schedule and just how much do you value your time? Have you thought about the time you spend planning your meals, shopping, preparing and cleaning up? And what is time with your family, friends or to exercise or meditate worth? On average, housekeepers make about per hour; is per hour a fair valuation for your time?

What does Chef Anna cost?

Whether we buy your groceries or you buy your groceries the cost is about the same; however, since we develop an integrated menu to use as much as possible of everything we buy for you and since we cook it the day we buy it, there’s much less waste. This helps offset the cost of our service. And the time you save is yours to spend with your family. Chef Anna requires only about 10 minutes to prepare and clean up is a snap – just put the dishwasher safe containers in the dishwasher. You have no pots to wash or stove tops to clean up – Chef Anna has already done that for you.

Is Chef Anna healthy?

Yes! and without penalty in taste. We spend hours in our test kitchen developing healthy, tasty options to replace salt, fat and whatever dietary needs you have? Allergic to yeast? We make our own sourdough bread with wild yeast that people with yeast allergies can eat. Have diabetes? We can cook with reduced or no added sugars. Need gluten free food – no problem we can do that too. Present us with your needs and we will find the solution.

Visit Chef Anna's Website: http://www.chefanna.net/

Gift Certificates Are Available.

Chef Anna Conrad
Mobile: 423-431-8542
Email: annainspiredcooking@gmail.

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