Cozy Cuisines Personal Chef Service in the News
As featured in the Pottstown Mercury, 8.7.2007
Download the full press releaseWomen's networking event to be held monthly
LOWER PROVIDENCE - A new monthly networking event for women business owners, the Women Business Owners Idea Cafe!, was recently introduced. Curtis Solutions and Cozy Cuisines, two active local Perkiomen Valley Chamber members, brainstormed the free event.
The women attending sampled culinary creations prepared onsite by Cozy Cuisines, LLC, featuring the personal chefs Jessica Reilley and Maria Schaller.
"This is a great opportunity to exchange ideas on what is working, grow your business and network with women in the community," said Amy Purcell, director of public relations for the Perkiomen Valley Chamber of Commerce.
Each month, on the third Tuesday, from 5 to 7 p.m., networking, a guest speaker and discussions will be held. Topics will focus on education and information for the small business entrepreneur. The event is supported by 50/50 tickets with residual monies collected designated to charitable organizations.
For more information about Curtis Solutions Network, Inc., call 610-454-0848. To learn more about Cozy Cuisines, call 215-774-1179. To register or sign up for Women Business Owners Idea Cafe!, log onto www.WBOIdeaCafe.com.
As featured in The Times Herald, 11.16.2006
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Someone else cooking in the kitchen
By: GARY PULEO, Times Herald Staff
11/16/2006
COLLEGEVILLE - They come, they cook, they clean up.
The only immediate evidence that someone's been poking around in your kitchen is the lingering aroma of home-cooked meals left behind.
Open the refrigerator or freezer door, however, and you'll find more tangible clues: The carefully prepared handiwork of Maria Schaller and Jessica Reilley, the two personal chefs who run Cozy Cuisines. Their slaving over a hot stove on your behalf results in about a month's worth of tasty meals made fresh and according to your specifications.
Picky eaters, the allergy-prone and the diet-conscious can all rest assured: The ladies will engage you in a detailed conversation about your likes and dislikes before they ever pick up a spatula.
"We'll meet with new clients and they'll tell us about health issues they might have, like high blood pressure, cholesterol, or trying to lose weight and then we tailor their meals to that diet," Reilley explained.
So you think the idea of a personal chef is too Oprah, too Beverly Hills ... just too darn expensive for the likes of regular people? Think again, urged Schaller.
"I think when a lot of people hear 'personal chef' they're thinking more of a private chef, where the chef comes in and makes the meal for that night, and probably even serves it and cleans up," she said. "We're not doing all of that, but it's still personalized and much more affordable."
Meal plans start around $200, plus the cost of groceries. Not surprisingly, if you prefer to dine on lobster and filet mignon your food bill will be higher than if you chowed down on chicken thighs and rice, Reilley pointed out.
Still, the average Cozy client only spends about $335 a month.
A typical day of contracting their services means that Reilley and Schaller have shopped, cooked, packed and stored - and probably vacated the premises before you get home from work.
"The reason we cook during the day when people aren't home is because we want to have a regular schedule to our business, working eight-to-five hours," Schaller noted.
Think the concept would never work with your family's diversified taste buds? The chefs are happy to cozy up to all quirks and dietary preferences, they allowed.
"Even if one family member is a vegetarian and the others eat meat, we can easily accommodate that," Reilley assured. Both women are transformed corporate types - "I went to school for mechanical engineering at Bucknell (University), and Jessica went to Penn State for computer engineering," Schaller noted - having ditched lucrative careers for the love of the perfect demi-glace.
They didn't learn how to do a lively chiffonade in a classroom, but instead crafted their culinary smarts in each other's Collegeville kitchens.
"When we both moved to this area about five years ago, we alternated cooking at each other's houses, trying new recipes, and throwing little dinner parties," Reilley said. "Slowly, after doing that for five years, we thought we could turn it into a business."
A business that is growing proportionately with the public's increasing desire for healthier convenient foods.
"Basically, what our clients are looking for is just an easier way to get dinner on the table and have it be somewhat healthy," Schaller said. "They don't want to have to go though a drive-thru or pick up a pizza or Chinese on the way home every night."
FYI
Cozy Cuisines
www.cozycuisines.com
215-774-1179
As featured in The Valley Item, 10.19.2006
Link to original article
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Collegeville duo's business is really cooking
What are you having for dinner? That's the question on the table for many area families, and two Collegeville women hope they have the answer. Just over three months ago, Jessica Reilley, 27, was working as a computer engineer. Meanwhile, Maria Schaller, also 27, was laboring days away as a chemical engineer. But the pair had a plan - they'd cooked up an idea for a personal chef service, Cozy Cuisines. "We both moved to this area about five years ago, and that's when we first started getting into cooking," Reilley said. "We'd alternate houses and cook, and some nights we'd host small dinner parties, and I think somehow we started to get into this, OK we can do this. Since we love it so much, we should find a way to do this, and I think we got tired of the corporate world as well."
Reilley and Schaller, who met during an engineering internship in college, thought up the idea about two years before Cozy Cuisines was born. They attended a class to come up with a business plan, and both left jobs in July to pursue their dream. "It's very different to have a business where your work has a direct effect on something. You're not just submitting reports or something where you never really see the person it helps," Schaller said.
The service caters to the busy - Reilley and Schaller will come to a client's home and prepare food, for a week to a month. The food will then be frozen or refrigerated, and the client can take the food out, pop it in the oven or microwave, and have a hot, homemade meal.
The process begins with an initial consultation. Reilley and Schaller present a questionnaire to clients, with queries about food allergies, likes and dislikes, family recipes and entrée choices. With the choices in place, the Cozy Cuisines chefs then set up a time to come by the house. Before arrival, they stop by the market to pick up all ingredients necessary for the culinary creations. They use their own appliances and cutlery, and stay about four hours at a home for a cooking session. In that time, they whip up everything from chicken enchiladas to bourbon-glazed salmon, along with side dishes. Food, labeled with heating times, is then packaged according to preference and popped in the refrigerator or freezer. Dishes usually take from three to five minutes to heat up, and then they're ready to go.
"I think the key is it's not only about whether or not it tastes good. With most of our clients, we're putting food in the refrigerator or freezer, and it has to heat well, and certain foods just don't heat well," Reilley said.
The pair had other requirements for the food they prepare, as well - it has to be healthy, and it has to be portioned correctly.
"Anybody who has kids or who has cooked for a long time has thought, I would love to have healthy food. So many families just grab food maybe on the way home, or put in a microwave dinner or something," Reilley said.
"The difference with us is yeah, you may be pulling something out of the freezer still, but it's all fresh ingredients that we bought that day, and we're putting it together and we're not adding anything to it," Schaller said.
Cozy Cuisines serves clients ranging from an individual to a family of five. All clients are on a plan that provides food for a month, although other plans are available. Schaller figured out an average cost, and the average client currently is spending $335 for a cooking session, which includes one month of food, groceries and menu-planning services.
"It's not as bad as you'd think, once you sit down and think about, wait, I'm already spending hundreds of dollars on groceries a month and I still have to cook it all," Schaller said.
The convenience of not having to cook it all was attractive to one of the early success stories of Cozy Cuisines. A pregnant woman a few days before giving birth called the ladies in to make a month's worth of food for the family.
"She really enjoyed it," Schaller said. "She'd had a child before ... and when she went through that, she just remembered how awful it was right when she got home from the hospital ... If you're the person that used to cook the meals, people just expect that you're going to keep cooking the meals, and she found that to be really difficult. So I think that because she'd been through that and she go to try something different this time, she was really thankful."
Overall, Schaller and Reilley said that what they hope most people get out of the Cozy Cuisines service, beside healthy meals properly portioned, is time.
"On average, if you spend 45 minutes to an hour cooking and cleaning up and getting everything ready, that's time you could be doing something else," Reilley said. "It's extra time for families, time at the dinner table, and even extra time when people would be planning meals for a week."
And although Schaller and Reilley had some initial qualms about being engineers turned chefs, they are pleased with the way things are going so far.
"Since we don't have culinary backgrounds and we were engineers, and this is just something that we're really, really passionate about, I didn't know if it would be more difficult to get started, but it doesn't seem to be that way," Reilley said. "It seems what people want is just someone who's willing to take the time to work with them, find out what they want, and then prepare the meals, and I think when people try our food, that speaks for itself."
Cozy Cuisines is fully insured, and they will drive up to an hour for clients. They are willing to accommodate allergies, diets and picky eaters. For more information, visit the Web site at www.cozycuisines.com or call 215-774-1179.