Personal Chef-ing for Fun and Profit

Mission Impastable should be available this fall. In that book, Alli, and her friend and business partner, Gina, start a personal chef business. A bold and brave move they take while seeking their goals of self-worth, independence, and financial security. Gina has always been the professional worker, while Alli has pasted together a series of temporary subsistence-level jobs.

However, Alli and Gina are quite naïve when it comes to starting a personal chef business, or any business, for that matter. Gina has worked for others, admittedly in a supervisory capacity. Still . . .  But, Alli? Well, you know Alli. She’s sort of like Maria in The Sound of Music (“a flibbertijibbet, a will-of-the-wisp, a clown”). Bright and shiny things draw her attention so she has a hard time staying focused on details, especially if she thinks they’re boring. She says that Gina makes things happen but Alli is the one conceptualizing the happenings.

In preparation for writing this book, I read about personal chefs, I checked out some of the official personal chef associations websites, I looked for requirements, and finally I talked with a personal chef who also writes mysteries and romance books with recipes. Carolyn Hughey was a great help.

However.

By the time Carolyn got her hands on me, Mission Impastable was off to the editor for publication in a couple of months. Think, think, think!

Ah, ha! Got it! I know how to fix all the errors they are making in book one of the “Dinner is Served” series.

Things are not going well with the PC biz in book two, Prime Rib and Punishment, so they take on a teaching job at the local culinary institute. While there, they teach a couple of courses on how to run a PC business. Doing the research for that (and meeting a PC in the region) helps them figure out what they need to do to fix the reasons they aren’t successful. They acknowledge what they did wrong and then rectify their mistakes. Business picks up, life looks good! This takes re-working the first part of book two, but that is relatively easy at this stage.

Just like in real life, if things don’t go the way they are supposed to, step back and analyze the options. Yanking the book back and re-writing it was NOT a good option. I think editors lose patience if you don’t know what you’re doing. In this case I can have my personal chefs learn, just like all of us do in reality.

In case you are interested in how personal chef-ing works, try these resources:

1.     American Personal & Private Chef Institute & Association ...

www.personalchef.com/‎

American Personal & Private Chef Association excels in Personal Chef Training, Certification, Personal Chef Support, Conferences & Personal Chef Association ...

‎Find a Personal Chef - ‎APPCA Member Area - ‎Become a Personal Chef - ‎Contact Us

2.     United States Personal Chef Association - Personal Chef Training ...

www.uspca.com/‎

Personal Chef Education and Personal Chef Membership: United States Personal Chef Association (USPCA)

‎The Personal Chef Association - ‎Contact Us - ‎Media - ‎Personal Chef Recipe

3.     The Personal Chef Association

www.uspca.com/association/‎

With this in mind, the United States Personal Chef Association was able to allow this new career field to flourish while maintaining and regulating the manner in ...

4.     Personal Chef Certification (CPC)

www.uspca.com/association/certification/‎

Personal Chef Certification (CPC). CPC - Certified Personal Chef. In 1996 the United States Personal Chef Association created a certification program with a ...

5.     Personal Chef Association - Hangin' With People Who Love Food

www.personalchefassociation.com/‎

Social Networking site for foodies, personal chefs, culinarians, and other folks who simply love to prepare and eat glorious food.

6.     Find and Hire a Personal Chef - Personal Chef Search.Com ...

www.personalchefsearch.com/‎

Find and hire a personal chef, the American Personal Chef Registry invites you enjoy the ... Hire a Personal ChefAmerican Personal & Private Chef Association.

7.     2013 Personal & Private Chef Summit in Baltimore at Stratford ...

www.personalchefsummit.com/‎

The American Personal & Private Chef Association (APPCA), based in San Diego, promotes the “business of doing business” as a personal or private chef ...

8.     the American Personal & Private Chef Association's Discussion ...

personalchefforum.com/eve‎

American Personal Chef Association the Industry Leader in Personal Chef Training, Certification, Support, Annual Conferences & Networking. Find and hire a ...

9.     American Personal & Private Chef Association Forums

personalchefforum.com/‎

American Personal Chef Association the Industry Leader in Personal Chef Training, Certification, Support, Annual Conferences & Networking. Find and hire a ...

10.  Personal chef - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_chef‎

Various training programs are also offered by the United States Personal Chef Association and the American Personal & Private Chef Association.

Beautiful Food--NOT!

I had a conversation recently with a fellow author/personal chef/cooking-school-trained friend about food presentation. (By the way, if you haven’t read Carolyn Hughey’s books you are missing out on some tasty treats!)

I was whining about how my food tasted okay, but that the “plating” (as the cooking shows call it) was mediocre on a good day. Let’s not talk about the bad days! Shudder!

I just sort of slop it onto plates and platters and bowls and hope people don’t notice because it smells so good. See, I think if I overwhelm one sense that deadens the others.

Carolyn pooh-poohed me. Of course I could do it. It consisted of a few simple techniques and an understanding of color, texture, and proportional sizing. I do get it--intellectually--but I can’t do it. I am convinced plating is a specialty area in the realm of art. Food porn at its best. I am not at all artistic.

Have I ever done a coulis? Well, inadvertently, I guess, when the chicken juice dribbles on the plate, though that is not technically a coulis. And I am known for the powdered-sugar brownie plate--but that is lack of aim, too.

 I am thinking of having Alli and Gina deal with this in one of the cooking classes they teach in Prime Rib and Punishment. I can just imagine Alli giving the students directions on how to plate and then being challenged by one to show them not tell them. (Sound familiar, Authors?) A huge advantage to being a personal chef is you leave the prepackaged food for the client to “plate”.

At my house, we mostly avoid the issue of plating by serving company buffet style! Voilà! No one need know my little secret. Shhh!

MJ and Me

DH says he hopes the NSA never does an analysis of my computer searches. Undetectable poisons. Airport security breaches. How to fool a lie detector test. And more recently, marijuana types and how to grow and cook with them.

I tell him to stay alive, and it shouldn’t be an issue. Seriously, do I really believe the government is watching us all the time? (Uh, given recent revelations, maybe so.)

Still, I have an alibi, right? I can show them manuscript pages and book contracts and blog posts. I’m safe. I think. For now.

Who has time to worry about that stuff anyway? I don’t write thrillers (yet); I write cozy culinary mysteries. Book three in my series is re-titled (Thank you Author Carolyn Hughey) Pot Luck.

Here’s the premise as of now:

AZ and other states have medical marijuana laws so Alli and Gina whip up some ganja/MJ/pot recipes, much to Gina’s despair. They have a client who needs to ingest rather than inhale her marijuana prescription, and they come up with recipes for her. Alli sees making mixes to sell as a way to supplement their income because they are still struggling personal chefs.

Alll re-establishes a friendship with a local medical marijuana provider, a friend from HS days (Mostel from book two) and his grower. When the grower ends up dead of a heroine overdose, Alli doesn’t believe it and seeks to solve the mystery. She is sure someone killed Seth instead of it being an accidental drug death, but is it the HS friend, a local druggie known for petty thefts, a rival provider, a doctor known for generous prescribing, or the political crook who has a lot to lose if his addiction is made public?

In this book readers learn why Alli is reluctant to make a commitment to Evan. She doesn’t want him to know a secret she has carried for years. Also, Alli’s brother is released from prison after helping the police in Prime Rib and Punishment. She finally realizes Cal is unredeemable, and that he lied about knowing where her family is.

Alli is on the search for tasty mix recipes that she can add MJ to. Of course she’ll do brownies. Any other suggestions for her?