Chicago - September 21, 2009

Plate Night

Home Cooked Catering Private Chef Service

In your wildest dreams, you’re Grant Achatz’s protégé.

In reality, you call your microwave baby.

Get your ass out of the kitchen — and usher Aaron Crumbaugh’s in. A former chef at The Peninsula Hotel (and model, Amazing Race 6 contestant, and stay-at-home dad, among other things) owns Home Cooked Catering, a new private chef service specializing in intimate gourmet dinner parties.

Working within your budget, Crumbaugh concocts three-, five-, or seven-course menus based on your tastes. He preps off-site but does most of the cooking at your place, favoring contemporary American dishes with ingredients plucked from Green City Market.

Options range from lobster salad (fennel, mango, shaved radish) to grilled filet mignon (braised short ribs, wild mushrooms, truffled parsnips). With enough notice, Home Cooked will provide decor and a waitstaff.

Feel threatened?

You can nuke it out.

Home Cooked Catering (310-927-4966 or homecookedcatering.com).