CHEF MAKES HOUSE CALLS
Chef cooks for seniors in their own homes
Every second Wednesday morning, Betty Reese’s kitchen in O’Hara fills with captivating aromas while she does something else. It’s like having a personal chef — for almost half the cost of the average new car payment each month.
Matt Rice, 45, is a part-time personal chef with the only area franchise of Chefs for Seniors. He started the business last August after working in the food service industry for more than 20 years, including nine in Nashville.
The franchising company was founded in 2013 by a chef and his son, Barrett and Nathan Allman,in Madison, Wis., and there are currently 54 franchisees.
Mr. Rice, a native of Ross, said he liked the idea of making his living with a service that can help elders stay in their homes and eat healthily.
For many clients, especially older clients, it is also nice having company.
“It’s different with everybody,” Mr. Rice said. “For Betty, I always stay a little bit afterward. We work on her jigsaw puzzle for a little while. For other folks, it’s all about the meals. But the companionship part is a nice component” of the job.
Ms. Reese stood behind her walker in the kitchen doorway on a recent morning, chatting with the chef as he fired up four burners, using pans and skillets that he carries in a luggage-sized tool case on wheels. He moved from burner to burner, stirring mushroom soup, pan tossing sauteed carrots and turning sizzling chicken breasts.
A standard plan is $130 plus the cost of groceries for four entrees, which are portioned into 10 meals. Mr. Rice spends about $40 on groceries for each visit, mostly on fresh foods and some in cans, which he buys at supermarkets. Ninetyfive percent of the foods he cooks are from scratch, and some that he chooses are for efficiency.
He also offers custom menus for people with dietary concerns and works individual gigs, such as special dinner parties.
Kristi Pickens, Ms. Reese’s life-care manager, said Mr. Rice solicited his service to the company she works for and that she seized on the idea for several of her clients.
“I was concerned that Betty wasn’t eating very well,” she said. “I coordinate efforts that keep her in her home. Having Matt cook has helped her mood. It is one less thing for her to worry about.”
Pittsburgh’s older population is a prime target for this business model, but Mr. Rice said he also has cooked for hyper-busy younger couples who have no time or inclination to cook. For some households, he cooks every week.
His clients pick four out of 12 entrees from a menu that rotates and changes seasonally. One recent menu included Tuscan shrimp with sun-dried tomatoes, lemon-garlic swordfish and salmon cakes with dill sauce. Dishes that are popular with his clients include chicken almondine and apple French toast
baked casserole.
It takes him about two hours to make all the entrees on each visit.
“In the initial consultation, I find out what their dietary restrictions are, so I can swap out ingredients,” he said. “Betty has sodium restrictions, so I use spices to make up for the lack of salt — parsley, dill, garlic powder, onion, pepper.”
He provides everything, even some ingredients that he doesn’t specifically charge clients for — smidgens of this and that apportioned in small jars that he carries to each job, such as brown sugar for yams and flour to dredge chicken in.
He uses a plastic squirt bottle of olive oil and small jars for spices. They fit tightly in the middle compartment of his tool case. The client does not have to provide any equipment but an oven and, on a rare occasion, he will use a microwave, he said.
On this visit to Ms. Reese’s house, he had stocked his insulated tote with sour cream, salmon, chicken breasts, butter, milk and hamburger meat. The backpack held broccoli, green beans, mushrooms, potatoes, onions and barbecue sauce.
Every kitchen presents its challenges. Ms. Reese’s kitchen is tight. The only counter space he has to work on also has to hold all his supplies and ingredients, leaving his prep space the size of a lap-top screen.
He is a one-man band for now, he said, “but at some point I’ll be adding chefs to help with the workload.”
When the chicken was done, he washed the skillet to saute yam cubes with cinnamon. In another skillet, when the carrots were tender, he emptied them and washed the skillet to cook broccoli.
He cubed a salmon fillet, mixed it with an egg, parsley, garlic powder and seasoned breadcrumbs, shaped the mixture into cakes and set them in hot oil. The air in the apartment became cinnamony, salmony and garlicky.
Ms. Reese, who had been in another room in her apartment, reappeared, smiling.
“Oh, the smells!” she said. She had cooked for her husband of 66 years, she said, but in his last years, with Alzheimer’s disease, he was harder to please, which frustrated her. When he died in 2018, she said it was hard going into the kitchen to cook for herself.
She occasionally makes lunch if there are no leftovers from what Mr. Rice made. “I don’t want to buy ingredients and have them go bad,” she said.
After placing all the food in containers for Ms. Reese to heat up later, Mr. Rice took a seat on the sofa next to her. They joked about the mostly disassembled jigsaw puzzle of Fallingwater on the coffee table.
“It looks the same as it did a couple of weeks ago,” he said, and Ms. Reese laughed, saying, “I don’t hurry, as you can tell.”
They chatted for a while, then she pondered the menu for the next visit. She ran her finger down the items, choosing the balsamic salmon, creme fraiche chicken with mushrooms, pesto zucchini spaghetti and Tuscan white bean soup.
Then he handed her a red heart-shaped box of candy and said, “Since I won’t see you next week,” referring to Valentine’s Day. She smiled and held the box to her heart.