The problem
Sunday is fine. Wednesday is where it goes wrong
The week turns into toast, a takeaway and the same pasta twice, and not because anybody forgot how to cook. Nobody decided in advance, and nothing was ready.
Prep sheet 009 — the week
Cook it Sunday.
Eat it Thursday.
A chef and a nutritionist come to your kitchen. You cook a week of dinners with the chef, eat one of them that night, and label, cool and freeze the rest yourself. Nothing arrives cooked and nothing leaves the house.
One session. Your kitchen, your freezer, your dinners. The nutritionist comes with this session and with no other.
A week of dinners is a planning problem, not a cooking one
Most people can cook. Fewer can decide what to cook at seven on a Wednesday with nothing out of the freezer.
The fix
Four bases, made once, that become different dinners
A braise, a tomato base, a pot of pulses and two trays of roast veg. Made in quantity by you, with a chef beside you, to a plan built round the nights you are actually in.
The limit
It is dinner, not a programme
Your nutritionist helps you build a week you will actually eat. Not a dietitian, and anything medical is a conversation for your GP. Nobody here will weigh you, mark your plate out of ten or promise you anything.
How it runs
Two calls, one shop, one session. The length follows the tier, which follows how many you are feeding.
From the first call to a Thursday you did not have to think about
The week before
Your nutritionist rings
Who is eating, which nights you are actually in, what you are sick of, and any allergy or diet the week has to be built round. Anything else you choose to say about anybody’s health stays between you: we do not ask for it, and none of it reaches our systems or your chef.
A day or two before
Your chef rings
Ten minutes, as on any session: the dishes, the kitchen, and how much your freezer holds. Your chef goes through any allergy with you again, because they are the one cooking.
On the day
Your chef shops
The same day, on the way to you, to the plan. Nothing is stored or prepared anywhere but your kitchen.
First hour
Knives out
All the prep, done by you with your chef at your elbow. Your nutritionist is in the room saying why it is these four bases and not four others, and does not cook.
Second hour
Everything on at once
A braise in the oven, a pot on the hob, two trays roasting. This is the part that teaches you the most: what can be left alone, and what cannot.
Towards the end
Tonight’s plate
One dish gets finished and eaten. The rest comes off the heat and into tubs to cool.
Before we go
Labelled, cooled, frozen
Every tub gets what it is, the date and how to reheat it, in your handwriting. Into your own freezer inside two hours. The washing up is done, as it is on every session.
Later that week
You, on your own
Take one out and reheat it once, until it is steaming hot all the way through. It is on the label.
What it costs
Every figure here is the one the booking questions show you, and everything that applies is in the total from the second question.
The session, plus £130, plus the shopping
The session is priced by how many you are feeding: £120 for two, £220 for three or four, and from £380 for five to eight. The nutritionist is +£130 on top of whichever that is, and comes with this session and with no other. Sessions in PL8 and PL10–PL21 carry the same £20 travel charge as any, and a morning start is +£25.
Ingredients are bought by your chef and billed at cost afterwards, with the receipt. This is a week’s shopping, not an evening’s, so your chef gives you an estimate on the call before they shop. Freezer tubs ride on the same receipt unless you have your own.
The room
Your kitchen, and a freezer with a shelf cleared in it.
What we need from you is freezer space and a clear worktop
Clear a shelf of the freezer before we come. Your chef asks how much it holds on the call, and that, not ambition, sets how much gets made.
The Week Ahead takes no other crew. There is nothing for front of house to serve and nothing for a drinks specialist to pour, so the booking questions do not offer them.
Questions
The ones this session raises that an evening does not.
Before you ask
- Is this a meal prep service?
- No. Nobody cooks for you somewhere else and drops off tubs. You cook it, in your own kitchen, with a chef beside you, and it never leaves the house.
- What does the nutritionist actually do?
- Rings you before the chef shops, builds the week round the nights you are in and what you will actually eat, and is in the room on the day to explain it. Your nutritionist does not cook. Not a dietitian, and anything medical is a conversation for your GP.
- Can I add a nutritionist to an ordinary session?
- No. They come with The Week Ahead and with nothing else.
- What do you need to know about our health?
- Only what we have to cook round. The booking asks whether anybody has an allergy or a diet to design round, yes or no, and the detail goes to your chef and your nutritionist on their calls, because one plans the week and the other cooks it. Anything else you choose to tell your nutritionist stays between you: we do not ask for it, and none of it reaches our systems or your chef.
- Are they vetted like the chefs?
- Anyone who enters your home through us holds a Basic DBS check. Level 2 Food Safety is the chef’s, because the chef is the one cooking with you, and your nutritionist does not cook.
- Who washes up?
- We do, as on every session.
Next
Book The Week Ahead
Six questions, the whole price before you commit to anything, and a chef suggested with the reason. The nutritionist is already in the total.