Heat and eat
Chef delivers her fine dining
Inspired by her husband’s health problem and recovery, a private chef who lost all her business in the pandemic launched a gourmet meal delivery service to help coopedup families get healthy fine dining from home.
Kristen Michaels created HEAT+EAT while juggling the ever-changing COVID-19 pandemic situation, managing her husband’s hospitalization and health while caring for two children and tackling distance learning. In August, the 15year chef launched the private catering service to keep her successful pre-virus cheffing business for clients in their homes afloat. The gourmet meal delivery service includes two fully tailored and cooked meals that feed between two and six diners who are quarantined or feel safer staying in.
“I’ve had some really great support, which is awesome, but like I said, we’ll just have to figure it out as we go,” Michaels said Tuesday morning. “I think business is good. The demand is definitely growing.”
Michaels’ husband, Jeremiah, has been hospitalized since November after being diagnosed with myelitis and encephalitis, the inflammation of the brain and spinal cord. He then was placed in an induced coma for two months and, throughout the pandemic, she has only seen him but a handful of times.
He started his recovery in February at Hale Makua, where Michaels has been able to drop off fresh home-cooked gourmet meals, like salmon and steak, for him to eat at the facility, a service she felt inspired her to continue with her business as a private chef.
“Come March, they shut everything down, but I was able to deliver food once a week,” she said. (Hale Makua had stopped visitations to prevent an outbreak.) “I labeled everything for him — Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday — so that he could have a good meal.
“That was definitely the start of HEAT+EAT; it was because of him.”
Through the HEAT+EAT gourmet service, meals are completely personalized to meet any dietary needs, preferences or restrictions. All deliveries include labels on each meal and detailed instructions on how to reheat the food.
Cuisines include Thai, Italian, Filipino, Mexican, Hawaiian, Mediterranean, American, Indian and more. Rates vary per customer. Pricing will include the day rate, cost of food, shopping, prepping and cooking, and duration of service requested. HEAT+EAT accepts most locations for delivery.
Michaels and her team usually offer private chef services and catering across Maui, but
when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she lost business and regular clientele who usually travel to the islands every year.
Unsure how to stay afloat, she began to notice that quarantining families and tourists who were on island were limited in meal and delivery options. Overall, residents and visitors have been limited on dining out options due to restaurant closures and other restrictions across the Valley Isle.
“We knew that kids were going to go back to distance learning, and people were still going to be working from home, doing chores and everything, and there’s just limited food that you can get from togos, and I still wanted to be able to provide the gourmet dining to clients,” she said. “It worked out from transitioning away from private cheffing in people’s homes.”
While she would love to continue in-house private cheffing, Michaels is waiting to see how the pandemic pans out. There are currently two HEAT+EAT clients who have weekly deliveries, she said, and she has cooked and delivered to a few one-timers.
Prior to the coronavirus, Michaels said she was cooking around 40 meals every two weeks and serving loyal clients on their vacations throughout the holidays and summer breaks.
Now she averages about five meals per week, she said, and the clients are a mix of residents and most recently visitors opting for a gourmet meal if they cannot go out or if they just feel safer staying in.
Michaels said that she and two other chefs follow all mandated health and safety protocols when preparing and delivering meals to prevent the spread of COVID-19, such as disinfecting the kitchen before and after each meal as well as sanitizing chef tools and equipment.
These days, meals are typically dropped off at the customer’s doorstep and with text notification to limit contact. But on occasion, Michaels said she will have face-to-face conversations with the client to describe the meals, how to properly reheat the different items, and just to build a trustworthy relationship with the customers who have “become like my extended family at this point,” she said.
Once the tourist industry ramps back up, Michaels said she is “getting nervous” for when the demand for in-house private cheffing returns. Her team is still deciding when and how to resume such services.
“That’s definitely something that we have to figure out once everybody starts coming to the island,” she said. “But I think we’ll continue to do both, I think we’ll do cheffing but also delivery because you never know, some people may not want you in their home.
“We just have to be adaptable, and we have to be flexible with the way things are changing.” Growing up, the kitchen was always the center of the household and Michaels hopes to bring that sense of family dining back.
“I’m full Filipino so the kitchen was where everybody went,” she said. “When I shifted to private cheffing, it was so nice because everyone would hang out and come into the kitchen and check out the food.
“Right now, this is such a change for everybody,” she added. “I’m happy that we can provide this delivery service, but I know soon that we will actually be able to go back to people’s homes and actually cook there.”
To place a personalized order, call 214-2100. For more information, visit chefkristin. com/heatandeat/ or email info @ChefKristin.com.
■