For a week, I put my family's dinners and snacks in the hands of a professional.Dolly Faibyshev for BII grew up in a Bagel Bites and SnackWell's kind of '90s household, descending from a long, prestigious line of women who did the cooking required of mothers without once pretending to enjoy it.Take, for example, my Grandma Lillie, a brilliant woman who deserved to go to college alongside her brother in the 1930s, but instead became a beloved homemaker. She engineered her family's meal rotation down to a science: Monday meatloaf, Tuesday steak and french fries, Wednesday liver and onions, etc. The system freed her up for things she actually enjoyed.My own mother always ensured we were well fed, with a few signature dishes we could look forward to, although the microwave was her cooking tool of choice. I inherited my mother's microwave prowess, but have also flirted with cooking over the years. Living most of my adult life in New York City, there was never much need for it, nor a kitchen large enough to attempt it.I haven't been a huge fan of cooking over the years.Dolly Faibyshev for BIBut for a glorious stretch in my early 30s, newly married and child-free, I tied on a polka-dot apron with a frilly sweetheart neckline three nights a week and pretended to be the kind of woman who delighted in making Blue Apron recipes. (Say what you will about meal kits, but they taught me to mince garlic with confidence.)The domestic-goddess cosplay eventually fizzled out. Recipes started to blur together, especially within my vegetarian constraints, and the weekly arrival became its own household-management problem. And honestly, I just got bored.Even though I married a man whose parents taught him a thing or two in the kitchen, I knew our family needed help — professional help.Preparing for serviceI hired a personal chef to prep our meals for a week to give me temporary relief from the dreaded question, "What's for dinner?" For $1,000 in labor, plus roughly $350 in groceries, our lunch, dinner, and snacks would all be freshly prepped and tailored to our family's tastes.It wasn't quite the luxury of a full-time private chef, which would have cost more than $1,000 a day. Still, it promised something equally enticing: a week in which meals would simply, already, exist.Chef Day was a big deal in my home.Dolly Faibyshev for BII came across Chef John Poiarkoff while searching local Facebook groups in the New York area. He grew up helping with his family's catering business, later trained at the French Culinary Institute in NYC, and worked at MoMA's renowned restaurant, The Modern. Now, Poiarkoff mostly consults for restaurants and, luckily for me, takes on the occasional private client.Before he arrived, Chef John and I had a Zoom consultation to map out the week. The chef of over a decade told me he tries to customize each menu to a client's needs and wants while sticking to dishes that keep well in the refrigerator and reheat easily.We briefly went over food restrictions and dislikes, but mostly spent time discussing what my family loves: lamb, salmon, and Indian food for my husband; any and all cheeses for me; tuna and cucumber sandwiches for my obviously half-English son; and anything without a face for my newly vegetarian 5-year-old daughter (and me).Even our discussion of hummus turned granular — did I want cumin and garlic for more heat? We settled on lemon and milder flavors for the meals overall, so there would be a chance my children would eat them.I was excited to cross off getting groceries at Trader Joe's from my to-do list since Chef John, who mostly shops at farmers markets and Wegmans, would buy the ingredients. Groceries for his meal-prep clients generally range from $300 to $700 a week, depending on the size of the family and the quality desired.Chef John arrived at my home with a ton of ingredients he'd shopped for in advance.Dolly Faibyshev for BIHe also requested photos of my kitchen with the cabinets open so he could see what he'd be working with — a black hole of pots, pans, and Tupperware all missing their tops.Chef John would do most of the prep at home, then come to mine for four to five hours to finish everything while the kids and I gawked at him.Chef DayIn the weeks leading up to what became known as "Chef Day" in my household, my son was crushed to learn Chef John would not be sleeping in our basement and on call 24/7 for his snacking needs.A few weeks later, he asked whether I could write an article about hiring a butler for children. I reminded him that his parents already perform the services of a butler for free, to which he said,"OK, sure, so maybe you could get a costume."Anyway, Chef Day began with an unloading of olive oil, spices, knives…and then an unexpected question. "I didn't bring salt," Chef John said. "Do you have salt?"I did! A fact I present as evidence that I am not entirely beyond hope.A few minutes later, he asked about a blender for the hummus. I couldn't confidently say wheth
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