| Cooking
Up Business, One Client at a Time |
By Erin E. Fogg 
Observer Staff Writer |
| Macaroni and cheese, meat loaf, hamburgers and french fries
are staples of many college students' diets. But when Kristen
Day attended Virginia Tech, she became fed up with the lack
of variety and nutrition offered in campus cafeterias. |
| Day took matters into her own hands. That decision led her
a few years later to start a personal chef service, Meals
By Day. |
| Shortly after buying her first cook book while in college,
Day began testing recipes on her boyfriend, who is now her
husband. "His roommates were really happy he was dating me
because I would just go over there and cook a pot of chili,"
she recalls with a laugh. "I love to share cooking with other
people." |
| After graduating in 2000 with degrees in biochemistry and
chemistry, Day moved to Leesburg and began commuting to Maryland
to work in cancer research. But she found she felt more at
home in the kitchen than in the laboratory. "I just couldn't
wait to get home from work to start cooking," she says. |
| It wasn't long before Day experienced her "eureka moment,"
and Meals By Day was born. In January 2003, she began accumulating
a list of clients for whom she plans menus, shops for groceries,
prepares meals and packages and stores food. |
| Some clients use her service regularly, while others call
for help in emergencies, such as an illness in the family,
when babies are added to households or when a special meal
is needed for a special occasion. They are bachelors, busy
families and single working parents. But nearly all Meals
By Day clients have one thing in commonthey don't have time
to cook. |
| "My goal is to simplify my clients' lives and bring dinnertime
back to the table," Day says. "That's been lost in this society." |
| Most of her clients are new to the concept of a personal
chef. "A lot of people are hesitant in the beginning because
it's a very personal thing," Day says. "You're having someone
coming into your house and cooking." |
| But the personal chef industry is a growing field, she adds.
It can be compared to professional cleaning services, which
until the past 10 years or so wasn't too prevalent. Just as
people began weighing their time constraints against household
demands and becoming comfortable allowing certified professionals
into their homes to clean, they're also catching on to the
services of personal chefs. |
| "Definitely in this area there is a greater demand," Day
says said. "People are stuck commuting for a long period of
time or they work long hours." |
| Day asks new clients to fill out a questionnaire to help
her understand their food preferences and identify allergies
they might have. From there, Day begins the menu planning
process, which includes clients pointing out meals in her
seven-page menu they think they might enjoy. |
| The next step is grocery shopping, which Day does at 7 a.m.
the day of a cooking appointment to ensure her clients' meals
have the freshest ingredients. She arrives at a client's home
with her own pots, pans, utensils, spices, oils and main ingredients.
After an average of five hours preparing a variety of entrees,
she packages every meal in containers, labels them and leaves
a list of heating instructions. |
| Day also offers special services including "murder mystery"
dinners and small dinner parties. Her most popular special
service is the romantic dinner for two, with an option of
an in-home massage by For Health and Balance in Herndon. |
| An important part of Day's business is her involvement in
the community, which also sets her apart from other personal
chefs. She belongs to the Herndon Dulles Chamber of Commerce
and volunteers on its membership committee. She is also a
member of the professionally affiliated Personal Chefs Network
and is the head chef for its Virginia chapter. Day also runs
the Loudoun arm of the Dynamic Connections for Women, a networking
forum for women business owners. |
| "A lot of people go into this business and don't know how
to make it work," she says. "Anyone can know how to cook,
but you also have to know how to run a business." |
| One of Day's favorite parts about her business is that it
is more personal than a restaurant chef's job. "I get to interact
with the people I cook for," she says. "If you're working
in a restaurant, you don't get to know them, you don't get
to know their pets or hear about their blind dates." |
| In her third year of operation, Day's client list continues
to expand as she garners recognition. Last month she won the
Herndon Dulles Chamber's 2004 Outstanding Home Office of the
Year Award. "To wake up every morning and do something you
enjoy, you can't beat that," she says. |
| Contact Meals by Day online at www.mealsbyday.com, by e-mail
at MealsByDay@PCNchef.com and by phone at 703-728-8900. |
