NorthBay biz profiles local businesses that make it easy to enjoy convenient, delicious and healthy meals at home—without always having to cook.
Some people love to cook. Some don’t. Some do but don’t have as much time as they’d like. And so on. But we all have to eat and, we know, the healthier the better. The good news for people of every taste and budget is that help is out there. A range of local grocery stores, neighborhood self-assemble kitchens and even personal chefs exist for the busy and the overwhelmed, happy to help prepare healthy, almost-homemade meals for you and your family.
Convenient, delicious and healthy
Beautifull is a new line of fresh, natural, culinary-inspired, prepared meals that debuted recently at a slew of North Bay locations, including Paradise Market, Sunshine Foods, Woodlands Market and more. Founded by entrepreneur Eric Greenberg, who was inspired by his own journey to better health (wherein he lost 60 pounds by eating better), a Beautifull store (called a “foodspace”) opened recently in the Laurel Village Shopping Center in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood.
Beautifull works with chefs, nutritionists, dieticians and doctors to create meals, with inspiration coming from Asian, Indian, Italian, Mexican and fusion cuisine, though American comfort food also factors in. Advisers include local catering luminary Paula LeDuc, Dr. Dean Ornish and Dr. Christopher Gardner, who is both director of nutrition studies at the Stanford Prevention Research Center and an associate professor of medicine at the university.
Options vary by season and day as the chefs try to work with local, organic farms such as Sonoma-based Diestel Turkey, Lundberg Farms Rice, Fulton Valley Farms Chicken and Creekstone Farms Beef to source ingredients and ideas. No preservatives or artificial ingredients are used. The menu ranges from salads, sandwiches, soups and wraps to full-scale entrées and even dressings and sauces.
Visit the Beautifull website (www.beautifull.com) for a list of stores in Marin, Sonoma and Napa counties where you can find the meals. You can also place orders by phone or online and, for an added delivery charge, can have meals dropped off at your home or office on Mondays and Thursdays. Meals are delivered before noon in an insulated box.
Do it yourself—or not
Dinner MyWay came along locally a few years ago as a full-service, staffed kitchen for families or groups of friends to use to cook together, preparing as many meals ahead of time as they needed. It’s still that, with professional chefs doing all the prep work before people come in. Customers choose two-hour afternoon or evening sessions wherein they assemble the meals themselves and then take them home. No fuss, no muss. The two closest locations are in Santa Rosa and Novato.
Husband-and-wife team Ean and Dawn Coyle took over the Santa Rosa location this past January, with previous owner Lisa Hemenway, a personal friend they met through the real estate business, still on board as corporate chef.
“First of all, my husband loves to cook and we both enjoy good food,” says Dawn. “He’s a general contractor and I’ve been in the escrow business for more than 25 years, but our goal has been to one day work together at the same job. Dinner MyWay is an opportunity to have that dream come true.”
Just in time for summer, they’ll be adding a few barbecues, but otherwise, the regular list of menu items runs long, from macaroni and cheese to Mexican skirt steak and everything imaginable in between; options vary depending on time of year. Also of value is the extremely detailed nutritional information that’s provided for each recipe—not only the nitty gritty on calories and fat content, but also the details on trans fats, cholesterol, sugars, protein, carbohydrates and sodium.
Regular entrées typically serve two to three people, large entrées feed four to six, and either size can be frozen. Groups (minimum of five people) can also rent the entire kitchen for private cooking prep parties. And Dinner MyWay is also happy to make the meals available for pick up at its kitchens for no additional charge, though there is a minimum order of one entrée.
Self-prep times are available Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. through 7 p.m. and Saturday 9 a.m. to noon; pick ups can be made on the half-hour from 1:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. (Saturday 9:30 a.m. through noon). You can visit the website for details (www.dinnermyway.com).
Get Real
Ruth Lefkowitz started Ruthy’s Real Meals in March 2007, in an effort to provide home-delivered wholesome, nutritious and delicious meals to new parents, those recovering from surgery, seniors and anyone else who might not have the time to cook good food. She creates seasonal, mostly organic meals in a commercial kitchen she rents in Rohnert Park and delivers them weekly to offices and homes across Sonoma County.
She started the business when she was between jobs within the nonprofit sector, after talking to some friends who mentioned the home food delivery service they used was going out of business. “They knew I liked to cook, so they suggested I try it out,” says Lefkowitz. “I thought about it for about six months and did a lot of research on businesses like it. I discovered most big cities have businesses like mine. They’re unique like individual restaurants.
“I structured the business after the Community Supported Agriculture model (CSA): You pay a weekly fee and you get what’s on the menu. I thought that would work to develop efficiency of scale.” And the model seems to be working out great—since 2007, the business has more than doubled, with first-quarter profits in 2009 about 15 percent higher than the same period last year.
“Food is central to our lives, and it offers a platform from which to consider many social, political and environmental issues,” says Lefkowitz. “From Francis Moore Lappe’s Diet for a Small Planet to In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan or Food Politics by Marion Nestle, important connections are being made between food, health and ecology. I love being part of the solution—helping people eat more healthfully with foods that haven’t traveled miles and don’t contain petroleum inputs.”
Lefkowitz is originally from the East Coast, where she trained and worked as a pastry chef. She moved to Sonoma County in 1987 and has since planted her roots. She’s active in several community outreach projects, and supports local farmers and food producers by purchasing their products, develops backyard and urban gardens, works with young people interested in the culinary arts and supports nonprofit efforts.
A couple upcoming events include Santa Rosa’s South A Street “Vine Art Walk” on Saturday, June 6, where she’ll be providing tasty snacks at Tibidabo Photography Studio; and the Sonoma County Culinary Guild’s “Strawberry Celebration at Tierra Vegetables Farm Stand” on Saturday, June 20, where she’ll be doing a demonstration of English berry pudding.
“I really enjoy making and sharing good food,” says Lefkowitz. “I grew up in a household where we all cooked. I met a chef/mentor in my teens who taught me to go to the source for ingredients, to explore the foods of other cultures and to work with local farmers for the freshest, highest-quality produce and foods. I love shopping at the Tierra Vegetables farm stand [in Santa Rosa on Airport Boulevard] every week, as well as Andy’s Market in Sebastopol and Willowside Meats.”
Patrons receive three or four dinners per week, which they choose from an emailed or U.S. mailed menu. Orders include two or three entrées with side dishes, a soup and salad meal with fresh bread, and one dessert per week. They’re delivered (cold in a thermal tote), packaged in microwave- and oven-safe returnable glass containers, with reheating instructions for either conventional or microwave cooking. An itemized list of ingredients is included with each meal. Pricing varies depending on number of people, and if you want meat, vegetarian or vegan meals. You can find more information and check out some sample menus at www.ruthysrealmeals.com.
Dinner’s done
We’ve all fantasized about having our own personal chef, the ultimate luxury if you have the means. Many people find personal chefs through culinary schools (the Culinary Institute of America’s Greystone campus in St. Helena is the perfect local option), favorite restaurants, wineries or, of course, word of mouth. If you can’t afford your own full-time personal chef, however, there are less opulent options.
Lynnie Heltne is one personal chef who makes healthy, delicious, affordable meals for families throughout Napa and Sonoma from her base in Calistoga. With the motto, “Sit Back, Relax and Savor the Thyme,” Heltne shops at local farmers’ markets and food stores to find specialty items and even wine for her customers, highlighting the best of what we have here in the North Bay.
“One of my passions is seeking out farmers’ markets here and internationally,” she says. “There’s something really calming about the markets.”
After a free initial consultation, menus are custom-designed for each individual or family and then meals are prepared on a weekly basis with Heltne doing all the planning, shopping, prepping, cooking and cleaning up.
Heltne particularly enjoys setting up artful tables with fresh flowers and other accoutrements for her dishes. “I feel like it’s my ‘personal painting,’” she says. “The creation of food is really a display of art with all the colors, textures, shapes and flavors.”
Cost is based on a per person basis and depends on the complexity of the menu. Reheating instructions are given. Heltne can also accommodate special dietary needs, weight management requirements or cook for larger dinner parties, lunches and holidays. Should she spark a wider interest, cooking classes can also be arranged. Check out www.yourdinnersdone.com for more details.
Team efforts
With an impressive staff of chefs, many of whom are graduates of the Culinary Institute of America, GourMade Cookery will help you cook for yourself by assisting with meal planning, shopping and preparation. Working with such signature brands as certified Angus beef and Sonoma Select chicken, GourMade focuses on seasonal produce, fresh herbs and gourmet seasonings, working diligently to find ingredients that would be hard to find elsewhere. Its kitchen is in Rohnert Park (the concept started in Pleasanton, where the corporate test kitchen remains), but you can also pick up your orders in Sonoma at Valley Wine Store.
“I started the business after seeing the idea on the Food Network,” says Annette Barker, who runs the Rohnert Park kitchen as a franchise and receives recipes and support from GourMade’s founder Kathy Sensiba, who remains based in Pleasanton. “I wanted a business that I could have fun doing, and this was perfect.
“Everybody needs this—who doesn’t need this? It’s a way to eat at home, eat healthy and it makes it so simple,” Barker adds.
Essentially, GourMade has a selection of entrées, each of which serves four to six, and may be split. Meals may be selected from changing, seasonal menus posted online; customers can call in their orders or place them online. Come in and help make the entrées yourself or order them to pick up for a few extra dollars.
Barker, remembering how Sensiba first came up with the idea for GourMade when she herself was raising seven sons, says the majority of her customers are families with two working parents and kids, from toddler age to high school.
“People are just busy,” she says. “Even if you have your regular dishes that you cook every night, you get bored cooking the same old thing. This is an addition to what people are already serving at home. It just makes things so much easier.”
GourMade also has special chef-prepared packages, like the Petite Meal Package—two servings of a meat-based entrée with sides, bread rolls and cookies, designed for smaller families, college students or first-time users of the service. There’s also a Chef’s Special of the Month. Gatherings by GourMade options are intended for special events, whereby the chefs at GourMade will create the menu (spring brunch, afternoon lunch, etc.) and prep the meals for customers to cook at home. Visit www.gourmadecookery.com for more information.
“You’re getting something done here,” concludes Barker. “You’re getting something accomplished, and leaving with meals to feed your family.”
Whether you decide to have someone else cook for you or choose to do it yourself with help shopping, planning and prepping, serving healthy, thoughtful gourmet food is both a luxury and a necessity for us all.
