Surely you have experienced one of these scenarios:
It’s morning crunch time. You’re racing to get out the door, and the last thing on your mind is breakfast. You know you’ll be hungry by mid-morning if you don’t eat, but the press to get on the road is so great, if you put on the brakes, you’ll leave tire marks on your kitchen tile. What can you do?
You’re at work, it’s lunch time, and the last thing you want is another nuked frozen meal or carry out. You want something substantial to get you through the afternoon, but not so heavy you want to nap afterward. Moreover, you’re not in the mood to go out. What can you do?
Evening has arrived, and with it, the nightly question: “What’s for dinner?” Neither you nor your significant other has the energy to cook and, once again, neither of you are up for takeout. What do you do?
You plan ahead before this day arrives.
I can hear you snorting. “If I had time to go shopping and fix my meals in advance, I would!”
What if all you had to do was go online, order your meals, and have them delivered to your home? And what if the food was prepared by a seasoned chef using fresh local ingredients? And what if the food could be stored in your freezer or refrigerator, and the only thing you had to do was pop it in the microwave and then eat it?
And what if the food was “omigod” delicious?
I’m not hearing any more snorts, so maybe I’ve piqued your interest. Introducing The Chef and his Wife.
When I first heard about what Tim and Louise Mulderink do, I thought The Chef and his Wife was a clever idea. It works like this: You visit their website at www.thechefandwife.com. You read their menu for the following week. You order via email by Wednesday. On Sunday, they bring the food, cooked in their kitchen, to your door. It’s that simple.
What isn’t simple is picking what to order - unless you can afford everything. The menu is generally divided into Fresh Items and Freshly Frozen. Among the former, you’ll find soups, salads, quiches, granola bars, desserts and more. The latter includes entrees. With the exception of the few staples, their menu changes from week to week.
I could not afford the entire menu, so I had to be selective. From the Fresh Items, I chose The Chef’s Granola Energy Bars for breakfast, picking the Craisin Pecan over the Toasted Almond and Coconut with Pineapple. For lunch, I decided on the Turkey Black Bean Chili. Dinner was easy: Enchilada Casserole and German chocolate cake.
If none of those sound appetizing to you, check the menu when you’re done reading this column. As I write this on a Sunday, I’m wishing I had ordered the Rotisserie Chicken Salad, the Italian Sausage and Cavitappi Pasta, and the Cinnamon Apple Pie for this week.
The food arrives ready to throw in the refrigerator or freezer. Cooking instructions and a list of the ingredients that went into the dish are adhered to the outside of each container. As I looked at the ingredients for the Enchilada Casserole, which came frozen, and the Turkey Black Bean Chili, which was not, I was pleased to see nothing I couldn’t pronounce
I also liked the price. The Enchilada Casserole, which was made for two, cost only ten dollars. Other items were more, but still reasonable.
Even better was when my wife put the Enchilada Casserole in the microwave. Within minutes, our kitchen, dining room and living room were filled with an aroma that sent my appetite into overdrive.
The best part, though, was eating the food. While the Enchilada Casserole tasted as good as it smelled, I want to brag on the chili. The combination of black beans, hearty chunks of ground turkey, spices, and fresh tomatoes, onions and peppers was as savory as it sounds. More than that, it was some of the best chili I’ve tasted - and I’ve eaten a lot of chili.
Speaking of which, Tim is a veteran kitchen man whose most recent gig was head chef at Volkswagen. It was, in the words of his wife, “a lucrative job.” But they started a side business, which grew, and then grew some more, and then grew to the point where Tim was able to leave his position at VW.
I can’t heap too much praise on The Chef and the Wife. If you have experienced any of the scenarios I detailed at the beginning of this column, do what I did and give them one day of your life. I believe you’ll find their food to be convenient, affordable, and delicious.