Can I give your personal chef services as a gift?

Imagine a typical weekday in your house. First, you have to ensure that everyone gets up and ready for the day. Next, there’s breakfast and lunches to be made. Then, it’s time for everyone to go to school or work. Once work and school are done, there are typically errands to be run, like getting groceries, afterschool activities that kids need to be dropped off at, homework that needs to be finished, and dinner that needs to be started. Plus, all the other things that can pop up during the day. That is a lot to handle on top of spending quality time with the ones we love. 

Do you ever feel like you don’t have time to sit and help with homework because you’re making dinner? 

Do you feel so sluggish after a long day that you pop a frozen pizza into the oven for dinner even though you wish you were making something fresh? 

A personal chef could be precisely what you need to help your busy family. 

Top 6 reasons why your busy family should hire a personal chef: 

1. Spend more time with your kids rather than at the grocery store and the kitchen. You can be more involved in your kid’s homework and learning about their day at school when you don’t have to focus on making sure a nutritious and delicious meal gets made. Your children probably would love to be able to get more time with you. 
2. Give yourself some time to yourself. As a parent, your life is typically go-go-go. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that self-care is a vital part of life and that everyone should ensure it’s part of their life. Giving yourself the night off from cooking or having to pack your family into the car to go to a restaurant to have a fresh and hot meal prepared right in your kitchen can be exactly what you need to hit the reset button. Plus, your dishes are done for you, so you don’t even have to worry about clean-up afterward. 
3. Create a better evening routine for your family. Your nights can be just as hectic, if not more so, than your days. Why not make it easier on yourself by having a personal chef come in occasionally as needed to help create a better evening routine for everyone in your household? 
4. Everyone can relax. Have you ever noticed that your kids can feel it when you get worked up and upset? Giving yourself the evening by booking a personal chef to handle a tasty meal can help you to de-stress, and by extension, your family to de-stress can be just what you need on a Wednesday night. Plus, there’s the added perk of no dinner dishes for anyone. 
5. Expand your family’s horizons when it comes to food. It can be fun to try a new meal or dish that you wouldn’t prepare for yourself. Having a professional chef whip it up in your kitchen can make new foods fun for the whole family. 
6. Add an easy and healthy meal to your life. Many parents feel guilty about the meal they serve at the end of the day to their family. Maybe you didn’t have time for something fresh and had to turn to a frozen meal? Perhaps you’re not great at cooking healthy. A personal chef offers a great way to improve the quality of what you and your family eat, even if it’s just one day a week or a few times a month. 

Myths stopping your busy family from hiring a personal chef: 

• Myth: It’s too expensive. Fact: A personal chef can fit just about any budget. If you go out to eat, you can afford a personal chef. Many chefs and menus you can book on CookinGenie cost about the same as you’d pay at a restaurant without having to leave your home. Of course, some meals may cost more than others, but that’s typically due to a few factors, such as ordering a larger serving size or the ingredients for the meal are more expensive at the grocery store, such as an expensive cut of meat. The beauty of CookinGenie is that you can see the price before you book. 
• Myth: You have to employ a chef on a weekly basis to get food cooked in your home. Fact: While many private chefs only cook for one family, a personal chef can be booked for any many or as few days as you’d like. 

• Myth: You need to upgrade to a fancy kitchen or buy unique items for your kitchen to use a personal chef. Fact: Your personal chef can prepare your meal using your kitchen and existing equipment. There may be a time when a special tool may be needed for a specific dish that you may not have, but accommodations can be made if necessary. 
• Myth: You have to be a gourmet foodie to use a personal chef. Fact: There are many dishes prepared by professional chefs, meaning it’s easy to find a meal that will work for your family. You’ll be surprised by how many different types of food dishes you can find on CookinGenie. You can select an old family favorite or switch things up with something new. 
• Myth: My family is too big (or small) for a personal chef. Fact: You can order as much or as little food as you need to feed your family. There is no minimum or maximum food requirement for ordering on CookinGenie. Some families take advantage of ordering more than is necessary for dinner, as then you’ll have leftovers for lunch tomorrow.  

Considering using a personal chef to help your busy family? No matter if you’re looking to utilize a personal chef once a week or once a month, you can find a chef and menu that works for your family. Check out the CookinGenie app today to see what’s possible. You’ll love having the opportunity to eat a great meal at home prepared by a professional chef that costs about the same as a meal at a restaurant while being able to spend more time focused on what’s important.  

One of the most dominant food trends over the past several years has been the rise of veganism. Back in 2004, there were only about 300,000 vegans living in the U.S. But in 2019, that number was over 9 million, representing a 300% increase over 15 years. Plus, reporting using google search trends shows that worldwide interest in veganism hit an all-time high in 2020.

It’s easy to understand why this rise is happening. Extensive medical research has shown that a vegan, or plant-based, diet can have health benefits ranging from weight loss, diabetes prevention, decreased risk of cancer, improved heart health, and more.

Another great reason for a vegan diet is the environment. As the planet continues to warm, people are looking for ways to live more environmentally-friendly, and eating plant-based is one of the most effective ways to reduce your carbon footprint.

But it’s not just hard-core animal lovers and health nuts that are driving the push towards veganism. Several high-profile celebrities such as singers Ariana Grande and Beyonce, actors Zac Efron and Liam Hemsworth, and even former president Bill Clinton, eat a plant-based diet.

Athletes are in on the trend too. There are dozens of world-class vegan athletes, including U.S. women’s soccer star Alex Morgan, NBA point guards Chris Paul and Kyrie Irving, and the world’s top-ranked male tennis player, Novak Djokovic. All of these elite athletes say that their performance improved after switching to a vegan diet.

However, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. A recent survey from Packaged Facts show that eating a flexitarian diet, which is largely plant-based, with some meat and dairy, is also ticking upwards, with about 36% of U.S. consumers identifying as such.

Despite all these trends, it can still be very challenging to find healthy, wholesome, delicious vegan and vegetarian food. Many restaurant menus still offer very little meat-free options. Lots of us grew up in meat-centric households and have friends and family who still sneer at the idea of veganism. Plus, if you’re not used to cooking vegan food, it can be hard to make filling, satisfying entrees with vegetables.

That’s where CookinGenie comes in. Whether you’re a committed vegan, vegetarian, or just trying to eat more veggies, CookinGenie can help you eat more delicious plant-based meals. Genie Christian Farah even offers a 100% vegan menu. But don’t worry, his entirely plant-based menu still has delicious favorites like an impossible cheeseburger and dairy-free mac n’ cheese, so you don’t have to compromise on taste. He also has other incredible whole food vegan options like a vibrant homemade falafel platter, inspired by his Lebanese heritage.

Other genies’ menus have more tasty plant-based offerings. You’ll find hearty vegan and vegetarian items like roasted cauliflower steaks with couscous, creamy mushroom risotto, and exciting international dishes like Indian lentil stew. Many of these dishes are also packed with healthy proteins.

Wherever, you may fall on the eating spectrum, if you’re looking for an affordable, easy, healthy, and delicious way to incorporate more plant-based meals in your diet, look no further than CookinGenie.

For many people, pad Thai—the delectable sweet, sour, and spicy stir fry of rice noodles, tofu, eggs, veggies, bean sprouts, crushed peanuts, and an umami-rich sauce that can be found on the menu of virtually every Thai restaurant in the US—is their first taste of Thai cooking.  

So, it’s interesting to learn that the dish that most Americans think of as the quintessential Thai food didn’t even exist until the mid-20th century.  

In her book Materializing Thailand, nutritional anthropologist Penny Van Esterik says that the dish was born out of prime minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram’s campaign throughout the 1930s and 40s to build a national identity for Thailand. Hoping to create a sense of pride in “Thai-ness” by uniting his country through culture, he changed the nation’s name from Siam to Thailand,  commissioned a new national anthem, banned local languages and dialects from schools, and set out to create a national dish.

(Also Read – Tracing Tacos – A Journey Through Time)

Curiously, the main ingredient in the dish that Phibunsongkhram—who was known as Phibun—promoted isn’t even native to Thailand. Stir-fried rice noodles originated in China and were introduced to the kingdom of Siam by Chinese traders in the 1700s. But promoting a stir-fried noodle dish helped solve a serious problem that Phibun’s nation was facing: flooding and war had caused a severe rice shortage, and encouraging people to eat noodles helped preserve the country’s precious rice supply.2 Phibun’s administration took the basic recipe for stir fried rice noodles and loaded it up with nutritious bean sprouts, onions, peanuts, eggs, meats, and a tamarind-based sauce, then encouraged vendors to sell the dish from street carts all over the country. It was, Phibun’s son later pointed out, the first fast food in Thailand.3   

Phibun’s efforts to make pad Thai a part of his country’s heritage succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Today, it is a staple of the Thai diet. Beyond Thailand, it has become a beloved dish worldwide: In 2011, pad Thai ranked number 5 in CNN Go’s reader poll of the “World’s 50 Most Delicious Foods.”4 Wondering how this simple noodle dish became an international culinary superstar? Mark Padoongpatt, a professor of Asian and Asian American studies at the University of Nevada Las Vegas and the author of a history of Thai food, says this, too, was driven by the Thai government as an act of culinary diplomacy: in an effort to stimulate exports and encourage tourism, it established the Global Thai Restaurant Company, Ltd. to train chefs and send them around the world to open Thai restaurants5.     

And now, CookinGenie brings this beloved classic noodle dish to your house. We offer three varieties of classic pad Thai—Chicken, Shrimp, and Vegetarian—cooked from scratch with wholesome, authentic ingredients like rice noodles, sweet-and-sour tamarind paste, spicy chile-garlic paste, and Thai preserved radish. Book your Genie to bring a true taste of Thailand to your very own kitchen.