Personal chef

I am interested in knowing if any of you have used or have any opinion of the various personal chef training services that are currently available. I would love to enter the field, but am uncertain as to the quality of the currently available home study courses and their value. Thanks for any info you provide.
Gretchen

[Wambly]

I have dealt with the USPCA ...
My girlfriend is a 'premier' member and I have jumped in to help.

The recipes from the USPCA are ok, nothing to write home about ...
Most of our client base are on special diets, for either medical or weightloss, which makes the USPCA recipes a moot point.

The biggest benifit from membership is a listing on thier 'Hire-a-chef' site.
When I checked the search engines the USPCA was on the first page of the search results.
Not bad placement at all
All of our web aquired accounts have come thru them but the majority of our biz is thru word-of-mouth.

The course also gives you sample contracts, book keeping sheets, etc. ...
Some of this we have used, some not. I prefer to use Quickbooks over pencil and paper.
They also try and sell their members containers to package the finished product. We have found it much more economical to buy packaging from the local restaurant supply company.

To get to down to the brass tacks ...
The USPCA would be a good starting point. Don't expect the 'course' to cover all the variables. Not sure that could be done.
Success seems to depend largely on your location. Here in Dallas there are enough DINKs (who have finaly grown tired of McDonalds to support a slew 'o PCs while something more rural would be a much harder sell ...




[This message has been edited by Wambly (edited August 28, 2000).]

[cookM]

Here's a link to an article about private chefs that might be interesting.
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/examiner/archive/2000/07/09/MAGAZINE12347.dtl

[shroomgirl]

Private cheffing is my bread and butter.
I talked to several throughout the country doing it, took my variation and have had 2 clients for 4 years...Love it! Did not need a set program but did need to figure out the nuts and bolts of what I needed and what I'd accept.