As Seen in The Wall Street Journal

Cranky Consumer—Outsourcing Your Family Dinner

By EILEEN GUNN

Many alternatives to both cooking from scratch and eating out are springing up. One of the most popular is a new kind of personal chef. These are not live- ins who devote all their time and energy to one wealthy household—or someone you hire to cook for one special dinner party. This new breed of personal chefs has anywhere from a handful to two dozen clients. Some stop in once a week to cook up to a week's worth of meals in your kitchen. Others cook for several clients at a time in their own kitchen and deliver, letting themselves in to stock your fridge or leaving a well-iced cooler on the porch.
 
This new business model brings the price of a personal chef within reach of the middle class—but it's still not cheap. The chefs we tested charge anywhere from $40 to $90 a meal for dinners that fed two to four people (albeit almost always with leftovers).
 
All but one of the five we tested sent us a questionnaire or interviewed us about out likes and dislikes, allergies or medical conditions, and how we like to eat—for example, are we trying to eat fewer carbs or more fresh veggies. Hefty portions seemed to be the norm with all of the chefs, with most meals stretching well beyond the two, three or four people they were intended for. And the chefs seem to like to throw in extras, particularly for new customers.
 
The meals overall were healthful—the chefs generally avoid diet-busters like cream or saturated oils—and featured a wide range of seasonings and fresh ingredients. Most chefs ask that you order a minimum of two or three meals for at least two people, and they'll cook up to about a half dozen.
 
Sitting down to a few of these meals gave us the feeling of eating restaurant food in our pajamas. But you might feel a lack of hominess sitting down five nights a week to dishes like seared scallops in a lemon-saffron sauce.
 
Choice Cooking in Brooklyn, N.Y., a delivery service, worked with us to find a time of day we'd be home to receive our package. It offered to pack the dinners in coolers that could sit outside for a few hours if we weren't home. The chef, Ryan Brown, offered complex fare such as chicken in a yogurt and cashew sauce with a brown-rice pilaf and roasted cauliflower with coriander. He also added a sweet touch: extra dessert.

The delivered meals were prompt and food was well-chilled.  The meals were well-labeled, easy to reheat and came with interesting sides like quinoa pilaf and sautéed fennel. Recyclable oven-proof cardboard trays were ecofriendly, and reheating food in the oven provided nice aromas.