Mmmm. What is that intoxicating aroma? Perhaps I should ask my personal chef, whipping up something in the kitchen… For lunch? For dinner?
A decadent little bacon-wrapped filet, is it?
Ah, the sauce. Fantastic. Not as heavy as Hollandaise on the asparagus, but butter-based and sinfully seasoned.
Oh, right. I don’t actually have a personal chef. An occasional cohort-in-cuisine, yes. Does that count?
Wouldn’t it be lovely to have a professional who can monitor your nutritional needs, please your persnickety palate, and remember the requirements to retain your girlish figure?
What a shame that we don’t all have this option – time, budget and knowledge enough not only to skillfully prepare what we like, but to serve what is tailored to our health needs.
How Much Can a Personal Chef Earn?
After an evening spent making my “light lasagna” recently, a favored dish around here as it tends to be gobbled for four consecutive nights, my mind began wandering to puffed pastries and tasty tarts. I’m tired of my own cooking. I need a new repertoire. And I found myself daydreaming about a personal or private chef. Not that I’m actually in the market for one, but I was interested to know what they might cost.
According to Food and Wine on this subject, a personal chef working five days a week may earn $60,000 to $80,000 / year.
But wait! That was 2001!
A more current statistic (from Indeed.com) is in the same ballpark, at $64,000/year for a private chef.
Curious if there is a difference between a personal chef and a private chef, it turns out there is. I consider myself appropriately enlightened by this, from the American Personal & Private Chef Institute:
A private chef is employed by one individual or family full time, and often lives in, preparing up to three meals per day. A personal chef serves several clients, usually one per day, and provides multiple meals that are custom-designed for the clients’ particular requests and requirements.
The Institute notes that a personal chef may make between $200 and $500/day. Not exactly small potatoes.
Calling Emeril… Calling Nigella…
So what about a celebrity chef? Hungry for more information, I continued my research…
Okay. Pull up a chair and prepare to be wowed, and that’s before you taste anything! According to Restaurants.com, the highest paid celebrity chef in 2012 earned $38 million (Gordon Ramsey).
Don’t run to the ear doctor. You heard that right.
Now, take a sip of water. Some of the other stars of the celebrity chefdom managed fat wallets of their own. Consider Wolfgang Puck at $20 million and Rachel Ray at $25 million, also in 2012.
And no, that wasn’t for coming to your home and whipping up a snack. These are brands – with books, cookware, restaurants, television shows…
My Wayward Ways
My attempts at getting back on track with disciplined eating (after a summer of indulgence) have included foods I like (salmon) with, I admit, an infrequent dollop of something special. (Hello, bagel and cream cheese with lox. Goodbye, skinny jeans.)
Fortunately, I am a huge fan of soups in every season, and no more so than in autumn and winter. Anything goes – from a hearty veggie-chicken potage to potato leek. Even a light mushroom miso is delicious and satisfying.
Of course, my co-cuisine occupant is an excellent cook – and I’m grateful. Not only is he handy with a heavy skillet at the stove, but he’s creative in his interpretations of recipes sourced on the Internet. He is also extremely attentive to food quality – and that helps.
His whistling in the kitchen?
That, I consider dessert.
A “Necessary” Luxury for a Busy Woman?
Still, were I to list luxuries that I would truly love, especially as the number of hours I work is admittedly a bit excessive… I never consider spas or “treatments,” exorbitantly priced clothing or jewelry. And when it comes to travel, I’m more about quality and coziness than anything over-the-top.
For that matter, many of the working (men and) women I know avail themselves of cleaning help, something I do not. My luxury “must-have” in the domestic realm? Exactly. Culinary and nutritional expertise.
Although I love to bake at the holidays, after decades of domestic duty – having to cook rather than wanting to cook – I find myself imagining what it might be like to have someone man the burners, manage portion control, and take care of all the clean-up. I wouldn’t have to think, I wouldn’t have to shop, I wouldn’t have to lift a cooking finger – unless I was in the mood. And I dare say, I would be healthier.
The irony – as a mother – I was always far more attentive to my children’s nutritional needs than I was to my own. Shame on me, but I suspect this is common.
Too Delicious to Be True?
An overseas friend was recently in a rehab center after surgery. Part and parcel of that experience was accommodation of all of her nutritional needs, in a holistic view of what was good for her health and well-being.
So in addition to physical therapy for a knee, she was the beneficiary of a regimen of tasty and healthy meals (and snacks), designed to provide for all of her needs – and also assist in shedding in a few pounds.
She recognized what an opportunity this was – to re-establish excellent eating habits, and pick up new meal preparation tricks.
Wouldn’t it be incredible to have that option – in our “real lives?” Wouldn’t it be easier to stick to a healthy routine? Am I the only woman with a fantasy of a personal chef to whom I could outsource all culinary capers, both beautifully and nutritionally?
And oh, to wake in the morning, not only a little lighter around the middle, but in spirit as well, knowing there would never be dirty dishes that await.
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The mental energy of decision-making, planning and shopping would be so happily outsourced! This is an indulgence I have never realistically considered…although my cousin does swear by the pre-planned, pre-prepped meals of Jenny Craig? I wonder if that is sort of the poor (wo)man’s alternative?
Good one, Missy! I went years on Lean Cuisines, myself, though not for my kids. The past few years, I’ve transitioned to relatively little processed food, while still trying to cook what will work for several nights or keep in the freezer (homemade soups, for example).
But I’d much rather “outsource” it to a chef! 😉
YES! A chef once in awhile would be a welcome thing! I’m lucky as the Italian husband cooks……. not every night but when we have company!!! So, I can put my energy into the TABLE!
As someone whose been a personal chef for the last 10 years, I can attest to all of this.
I’ve often wished I had my own personal chef, after spending my week making everyone else’s food. But, one of the skills I’ve learned along the way is how to make the simplest food taste really good. So planning meals, shopping, cooking doesn’t take up as much mental energy for me as it might for someone else.
Still, coming home to a fridge full of food is a wonderful thing. And while not everyone can afford this – as a reboot, I think it is completely worthwhile. I’ve also started coaching people how to plan menus and making the process of planning, shopping, cooking more streamlined – it takes more mental energy at first to learn, but once you do life is simpler.
Either way, I completely empathize with everyone who struggles to feed themselves healthy dinners when they can’t afford their own personal chefs. Especially when they love and value good food.