But she seized the moment to promote a new idea she had been working on. Carole said she soon would be preparing meals for pick-up at her Los Gatos kitchen by patrons who like the convenience of fast food but want the nutrition that "home-cooking" provides.

The woman was enthralled. By the time Carole reached her home in San Jose, a friend of the woman had emailed an order for a pick-up meal. That was two weeks ago.

"Since then, I've picked up two more customers," Carole laughs. Her goal is 200.

This is an era of harrying freeway commutes, after-school schedules crammed with extra-curricular activities and exhausted parents. Sit-down family dinners have suffered.

"There's a certain allure to driving through a fast food place and picking up ready-to-eat meals when you have a car full of hungry kids," says Jennifer La Rue, a Lafayette mother of three and a frequent Los Gatos visitor. "In spite of the fact that it's not real food nutritionally, sometimes the convenience factor wins out."

The combination of good nutrition and convenience are what make Carole's program interesting. Here's how it works:

A call to Carole will reveal what the meal choices are. A $50 entrée feeds four to six people, including side dishes like vegetables prepped for cooking or pre-cooked and ready for heating. Ready for oven or freezer, entrees are undercooked so they won't dry out. Salads are packaged and accompanied by Carole's own bottled dressings.

She's in the Los Gatos kitchen on Tuesdays, and meals can be picked up then. She's taking out ads to spread the word. "I just plan to come in and start cooking and hope to God somebody reads my ad and calls," she smiles. As the program attracts more customers, more days in the kitchen will be possible. Presently, she juggles schedules with other chefs who work out of a cooperative kitchen in Los Gatos on Victory Lane, a street bordering a parking lot behind the La Cañada Building.

"I want to have my own kitchen," she says. "Supply and demand will dictate that."

Eventually, orders and payment will be handled via her website.

Carole's meals are made from fresh ingredients purchased the day they are prepared. On this day, she is folding generous portions of salmon in pastry, called salmon pillows. Other choices include beef Madagascar. "I use butter, never margarine unless requested," she emphasizes. "My meals to go are fresh and wholesome with no hydrogenated fat. I can prepare for almost any dietary need, like the Swank diet for people with Multiple Sclerosis or meals for people on Weight Watchers."

Cooking comes naturally to Carole, 63, who gave birth to six children within 10 years, teaching all of them to become competent cooks. In her 20 years of professional cooking, she has prepared health-conscious meals for the San Francisco 49ers and the Oakland Raiders. She has been a personal chef for hundreds of local families, operated her own restaurant ["Caffe Al Mare"] in Santa Cruz, cooked meals for the homeless through two agencies and earned a certificate from The California Culinary Academy in San Francisco.

Carole in Your Kitchen may be reached at 408.978.2986.