| A
‘Day'licious Substitute For Meals |
By Leah M. Kosin
Observer Staff Writer |
| It is 5 p.m. on a Tuesday, and you have no idea what you
are going to have for dinner. |
| You were supposed to go to the grocery store three days
ago, but you decided to put it off. Now, the only thing in
the fridge is the leftover pizza from the night before. Sound
familiar? It does to one Leesburg woman. |
| Kristen Day, owner of Meals By Day, has a solution to the
"What's for dinner?" question that almost everyone
deals with at least once a week. |
| Beginning in January 2003, Day opened her business to help
people who did not have the time to prepare meals after a
long day of work. |
| Many of these people were constantly going out to eat, picking
stuff up on the way home or eating prepackaged meals, she
said. |
| "A lot of my clients just want to eat healthier, and
they want to be home with their families and they want to
have a little more variety," said Day, who currently
has 12 clients. "I only cook for one client a day. Most
of my clients have me come on a monthly basis but some of
them are a little more frequent, some are a little less frequent.
Twelve is not a full schedule for me, but I'm not sitting
around twiddling my thumbs." |
| When she is meeting with new clients, Day first schedules
a free consultation appointment to learn what their needs
are so that she knows how best to serve them. |
| "I do an interview with them or an evaluation with
them to find out what their likes and dislikes are, and once
I do that, then I cook for them a couple times and I really
get to know what people like," Day said. "I have
a menu that I constantly add stuff to, so they can choose
from that or the decision can be up to me." |
| On the day of meal preparation, Day's first stop is the
grocery store where she purchases all the ingredients she
needs to prepare her clients personalized menu. |
| She prepares meals at her client's houses, but she uses
her own cooking equipment. |
| "I bring all my own stuff with me because I've cooked
for some people that literally have nothing in their kitchen,"
Day said. "I have single guys that have plastic forks
and paper plates, and they don't have anything. So I just
bring everything with me." |
| Day said she always plans on cooking at least one week's
worth of food when she is working for a client. |
| Day said cooking can take up to six hours. |
| When complete, Day packages the meals in labeled containers,
which she then places in the client's freezer. She leaves
a menu with heating instructions as a guide. |
| According to Day, client favorites include her Mediterranean
beef stew, sweet orange salmon, pork medallions with garlic-ginger
pomegranate sauce, chicken with blueberry and ginger chutney
and three-cheese stuffed shells. |
| "Probably the one thing I enjoy making the most is
something that everyone loves," she said. "What
I do is barbecue roasted salmon. It's salmon fillet that you
marinate in pineapple juice, and then I make a spice rub and
rub it on top to bake and it just oozes into the salmon. It's
very yummy. I like making that and everyone loves it. That's
a winner." |
| Meals By Day offers gift certificates, in-home cooking classes,
romantic dinners for two, murder mystery dinners and dinner
parties, she said. |
| "If someone wants to have people over, but they don't
want to be stuck in the kitchen the entire time, then I can
come over and basically prepare and serve a dinner party or
set up buffet style," Day said. |
| Day is Meals by Day's only employee because she said she
enjoys the hands-on interaction that she has with her clients.
Call Day at 703-728-8900, e-mail MealsByDay@PCNchef.com or
visit www.MealsByDay.com. |
