When West New York resident Komal Shah-Kapoor was pregnant with her first child a couple years ago, she started to crave the home-cooked Indian meals prepared by her mother or an aunt. As a new mom, she found herself with little time and energy to prepare the comfort food she yearned for, let alone a well-balanced meal.
Shah-Kapoor eventually found a cook to prepare meals for her at a reasonable rate, but the price-haggling was exhausting and “such a hassle.”
It’s an ordeal familiar to expecting mothers and new parents, and it often gets “solved” by greasy takeout. Poor food choices, they reason, won’t affect them in the long run, but a personal chef could be a recipe for financial disaster.
“Nobody thought it was in their reach [to have a personal chef]…Now it is.” – Komal Shah-Kapoor
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‘Food is the last thing to go’
Shah-Kapoor’s interest in the universal aspect of food was piqued while doing research at Wayne State University in Michigan on the interplay of food and culture for her dissertation. Food, she realized, was the most enduring aspect of a culture.
“The language can go, they way you dress can go, the customs can go, but food is the last thing to go in immigrant communities,” she said.
It’s a truth she experienced firsthand while pregnant, she said.
“I always went back to Indian food,” Shah-Kapoor said of her cravings. “Not pasta, not pizza, not tacos, but just my Indian food.”
Other people, she knew, also craved “what mom used to make at home,” whether it be Indian, Italian, or Jamaican. Shah-Kapoor decided she would not return to her corporate job as director of research for global spa resource company Spafinder, but instead would start her own business.
How it works
One needs look no further than the name Cook Aunty to figure out what Shah-Kapoor’s business is all about. “In India, whenever you wanted someone to cook food, it was usually someone like an auntie you asked,” she said. “[The name] brings a homey feel.”
Those interested can call or e-mail Cook Aunty at www.cookaunty.com, at which point Shah-Kapoor selects a cook specially qualified to cater to their needs. Her chefs can prepare seafood, Italian, Indian, vegetarian, and even Jamaican cuisine, and come from various stages in their professional career, with some even working full-time as chefs in prominent restaurants.
According to Shah-Kapoor, “[With your typical professional chef], it’s not affordable to make it a habit. Mine are as good, as creative, but cheaper.”
The cook will arrive at client’s home and use their ingredients to make a meal comprised of four entrees and two dishes, enough to feed an entire family – and maybe even have leftovers to bring to work the next day. Each service takes about three to four hours.
“Healthier, often gourmet food, is available to [clients] in their own fridge,” Shah-Kapoor said. “Food is often just lying around and they don’t know what to do with the ingredients. The cooks can make something of it.”
The $60 price for the meal, according to Shah-Kapoor, makes it actually cheaper to have a cook at home and have gourmet food than to go out to eat at a restaurant.
“Starting off, nobody though it was in their reach [to have a personal chef] in terms of price,” she said. “Now it is.”
Clients don’t have to worry about fumbling through their purses or wallets looking for money to pay the cooks. Instead, they can go directly to the Cook Aunty website and pay for the service through PayPal.
So far, according to Shah-Kapoor, she’s had about 4,000 hits on the website.
“Some people are just curious about what it’s like to have a cook in the home who speaks gourmet,” she said, adding, “It’s almost like having a cleaning service. It’s one of those things.”
Her clientele come from Northern New Jersey and Manhattan, which she attributes to the large number of two-income families in the area who are too tired to prepare a meal after a long day’s work. Already she has recurring clients who order from Cook Aunty on an almost weekly basis.
Other services
Cook Aunty also offers a food shopping and delivery service “for customers who literally don’t even have salt at home,” according to Shah-Kapoor. It also offers a catering service in which cooks deliver homemade meals to clients.
The service can also provide for special occasions, such as game day or any celebration.
For a closer look at the service, one can enter the “Win a Cook” sweepstakes up on the Cook Aunty website. And for the holidays, Cook Aunty offers e-gift cards.
“There are so many different options, and I think everyone can take advantage of that somehow,” Shah-Kapoor said.
For more information, visit www.cookaunty.com or call (646) 400-8542.
Deanna Cullen can be reached at dcullen@hudsonreporter.com.