Cooking has been a passion for me as long as I can remember. I used to watch my mother in the kitchen and was mystified with the way she threw everything into a bowl and pulled the same moist, delicious chocolate cake out of the oven every time. Everyone praised her delicate and flaky apple pies, her homemade breads, and her delectable Sunday dinners. She did it all without a single recipe, and if you asked her how she made it, she couldn't tell you. I tried to stop her while she was making the Thanksgiving turkey one year so that I could get her famous stuffing recipe, and it took us three torturous hours to put it on paper. It was easier for her just to do it straight out of her head. I never did learn the cake recipe or many of the others, but she did instill in me a love of cooking that I've never lost.

It all started with my chocolate refrigerator cookies when I was about seven years old. My mother didn't like us to eat a lot of sweets, so I decided it was time to make my own candy bars. I melted some baking chocolate in a pan along with some sugar, oatmeal, nuts, raisins, and vanilla, and "voila", instant candy bar. They didn't exactly measure up to the store bought Chunky bars I loved and they melted in your hands instantly, but they weren't bad in a pinch.

As I got older, I just couldn't figure out how to turn this passion into anything productive other than feeding family and friends. Oh, there was the New York State Fair cooking contests. The challenge of the year was to make something gourmet and delicious out of Spam! Though I was beat out by the Spam Mousse, my Spambalaya was mentioned on the evening news. I probably singed the judges' taste buds off with all of the cayenne pepper I put in that one, but how else are you supposed to make canned meat taste good? My subsequent visit to the Culinary Institute of America was like entering a dream for the day, something I so much wanted but seemed unreachable. I never did attend the school, but I did pair up with a couple of chefs along the way for some individual training. I worked alongside the Head Chef of a fine French restaurant who looked a little bit like Dilbert's boss, sporting a shock of wiry black hair on each side of his head, and I assisted him with cooking classes while learning classic French cooking techniques straight out of "Gastronomique". He was a funny yet somewhat temperamental sort, and it was not unusual to see pans flying in my direction or hear commands shouted, such as "You're burning the mushrooms!" We probably drank much more wine than we put in the food, but it was a great experience and my cooking greatly improved after the classes.

It wasn't until later, about 6 years ago, when I had some friends over for Beef Tenderloin with Port Wine Sauce and all the trimmings, that I was told there was a career path that existed called "Personal Chef". I had never heard of such a thing, but I knew that I wanted to find out more. That is when I went to the American Personal Chef Association web site and learned about how this could be done. I wasn't quite ready to start my own business then. Perhaps I needed to go through two or three more mind-numbing sales positions before I realized that I could actually work at something I really enjoy! So when my husband, Steve, and I moved to Chestertown, Maryland, it seemed like a good time to do it. After polling several people at the firehouse last spring at the Lacrosse Fund Raiser, I decided there might be a need and started my business, naming it "Thyme is of the Essence".

My business has been building over the last year, as more and more busy people are turning to personal chefs so they can eat healthy, delicious meals tailored to their individual tastes and dietary needs in the comfort of their own home. The service I provide includes sitting down with potential clients to discuss all of their dietary desires and needs; researching of and putting together individualized menus for their approval prior to each cook date; going to their home with all of the groceries and my own cookware; preparing up to sixteen meals, including entrée and side dish at a time; packaging them in containers with labels and heating instructions; and cleaning the kitchen thoroughly.

My specialty is cooking healthy, gourmet meals. Dinner parties, luncheons, breakfasts, and cooking classes are additional options of the service. As my personal chef business has grown, the personal chef industry continues to grow as well. Industry predictions are that within the next 5 years, at the present rate of growth, there will be nearly 25,000 operating personal chefs in the United States serving nearly 300,000 clients and contributing nearly 1.2 billion to the U.S. economy. Entrepreneur Magazine has designated the Personal Chef Industry as "One of the 6 Fastest Growing Businesses in the Country".

I can't say that starting this business has been "easy street" or that I haven't had my moments when I've wondered, "why am I doing this?" like the time I sliced off my thumbnail with a potato peeler or the time the silicone pot holder slipped out of my hand just in time for me to grab that roasting pan with bare flesh. It is a challenging job, and clients will leave their house key under their car mat, only so that you can set off their car alarm. How else will all the nosey neighbors know that you've arrived?

In all seriousness though, the job of a Personal Chef is very rewarding and clients are very appreciative of the service that I provide for them. They are very busy people, many of them with small children, who up until I came along were often eating pepperoni pizzas and mozzarella sticks for dinner.

If you'd like to find out more about the chef, Susan DeTomi, and her Personal Chef business, Thyme is of the Essence, she can be reached at 443-852-2433 [chef], 410-778-3794.

You can also check out her website at www.thymeisoftheessence.com.

Women's View - October/November 2004, page 30