Why we hired a personal chef

I know, I know -- it sounds so hoity-toity but we hired a personal chef. She starts a week from today.

Robin is covering for her boss who is on maternity leave meaning that she comes home late and tired. One of my staff is also on maternity leave (what's up with that?) meaning that I come home late, tired and bitchy. Who wants to cook? We're tired of cold cereal.

Here's how it works. You sit down with the chef and talk about what you will eat and what you won't eat. She works up some sample menus for your approval. She shops, she cooks 20 servings (5 menus). Some are fresh, some are refrigerated and some go in the freezer. When you run out of food, you call her and she does it again.

It's more expensive than cooking but much less expensive than eating out (unless we were eating McDonalds or cheap chinese takeout). We actually did this once before, about six or seven years ago and it was fine for a while.

This time we ordered low-fat foods so one of the benefits might be that we'll drop some weight. We'll see.