Photograph by Kathy De La Torre

Kevin Koebel, chef and owner of Custom Cuisine, prepares and delivers meals.

Busy people dine at home thanks to Custom Cuisine

By Suzanne Cristallo

Why do people eat out? It's a question Kevin Koebel decided to analyze during his many years as a chef. He concluded that local restaurants are booming mainly because people don't want to cook at home.

"They're not dining," he observes. "They're out eating--nearly every night of the week--to avoid the chore at home."

This insight gave Koebel the idea to start Custom Cuisine, a home-catering service that offers custom-designed menus of meals that take no longer than 10 minutes to prepare.

"All the sauces are made, the vegetables mixed. Only the protein--like a filet mignon or a salmon steak--is uncooked," he says.

The meals are delivered in Asian steamer baskets to the customer's home refrigerator, complete with instructions. All the weary commuter must do is heat the side dishes and the cooked entrée (such as pot roast or lamb shank) or grill the uncooked entrée (such as seasoned steak).

A good example of a fully prepared meal is Koebel's braised Moroccan lamb shank with apricots, chiles, currants, mire poix (a mix of celery, carrots and onions) and a Riesling braising liquid, to be served over toasted almond and parsley couscous. Total prep time is five minutes.

Koebel creates menus after interviews with customers, during which he determines their likes and dislikes. For a minimum of two meals a week, prices are from $25 to $50 a meal. Dinner parties of up to eight can be prepared and served by Koebel, with larger groups accommodated by additional serving staff.

"It's a little more expensive than restaurant eating, but look at what you enjoy," he says. He ticks off the advantages: no tipping, no parking hassles, comfortable and familiar surroundings, no strangers, no special dressing ("You can dine stark naked, as far as I'm concerned," Koebel says) and plenty of quiet time uninterrupted by service staff.

"Plus, you're learning how the meal is made, and you're eating when you decide," he says. "People are spending $600,000 to $700,000 on their homes and aren't even enjoying meals in them."

He thinks Custom Cuisine is the solution.

Koebel, 30, born in Los Angeles but reared in Canada, enjoyed a rural lifestyle surrounding the management of a 4,000-head sow operation run by his father, an agricultural specialist. "I love pigs!" he exclaims of the animal regarded as the most intelligent among barnyard animals. "I don't think there's an animal I respect more."

It's those feelings he has to justify when he looks back on his first job at 14 in a slaughterhouse. "It was a time in my life I'm not real proud of, but it was a responsibility I had to assume."

It also was part of a varied career that started when he was 11, harvesting potatoes and cutting and rolling lawn sod for a wage. It continued through a variety of restaurant jobs in his teens and the realization that he had to escape the "old mentality" of his surroundings.

He moved to Santa Cruz in 1988, where he learned prep cooking, then on to the California Culinary Academy for a degree. He worked as a pantry cook for Ernie's in San Francisco, opened a bakery in San Diego, served as a pastry chef at Saratoga's Plumed Horse, opened an American restaurant for the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, was a cafe chef in Paris, a pastry chef in Seattle and finally an executive chef with California Cafe in Corte Madera, where he spent the past two years.

Koebel settled in the South Bay for love. He met his fiancee, Renata, in Paris in 1995. He later flew to San Jose on weekends to visit her. He says he soon realized, "I needed to have her forever." The couple now lives in Los Gatos and plans a 2000 wedding.

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To reach Custom Cuisine, call the 24-hour message center at 408.391.4523; or home: 408.395.7326; or email them at kkoebel@ix.netcom.com.

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