About West PA Chefs
West PA Chefs is a group of Independently owned and operated Personal Chef Services providing Customized Meal Solutions to a variety of clients in Western PA and bordering counties in Eastern OH and the Northern Panhandle of WV.
The group meets at least 6 times per year to provide support, networking and continuing education opportunities to its member chefs and is open to all personal chefs in the region regardless of national association affiliation.
If you are interested in becoming a personal chef and would like more information on Personal Chef Training options, please visit the Culinary Business Academy website at CulinaryBusiness.com.
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West PA Chefs at Farm to Table Event
Chef’s Carole, Catherine and Tim will set up booth, pass out samples during the show and Friday Night Food Tasting and appear on the Demonstration Stage during the 2 day event, Friday and Saturday, March 26-27, 2010 at the DL Lawrence Convention Center in Downtown Pittsburgh.
The chef’s will represent their individual Personal Chef Services as well as West PA Chefs, which is the Western PA Chapter of the United States Personal Chef Association. The chapter is comprised of independently owned and operated Personal Chef Services and has member chefs located throughout the Western Pennsylvania Region. These chefs serve areas in Western PA as well as the bordering counties in Eastern Ohio and the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia.
Chef Carole from Organic Personal Chef Service, Chef Catherine from Catherine’s Personal Chef Service and Chef Tim from Dinner Magician Personal Chef Service have teamed up to share a larger booth space with another Western PA business, Soap Alchemy, which makes a variety of Natural, Hand Crafted Soap. Chef Tim is also the marketing director for Soap Alchemy. While Soap and Food generally do not mix, both the chefs and the soap manufacturer rely on using only the best food grade ingredients in their services and products and all are concerned with using the most sustainable and locally available products available for each of their businesses.
Chef Catherine and Chef Carole will both participate in the food tasting event to be held from 5 to 8 pm the first day of the event. Chef Carole and Chef Tim will both share the demonstration stage at 4 pm on Saturday, March 27 to talk about personal chefs and how people concerned with eating local and sustainable can utilize the services of a personal chef to help them achieve their goals. They will also prepare a recipe for those in attendance at the demonstration.
Conference Highlights:
- Farmers Market
- Cooking Demonstrations by Chefs and Dieticians
- Presentations by researchers and scientists about the benefits of eating local food
- Local Food Tasting on Friday night: Learn More
- Saturday morning networking breakfast for Exhibitors
The event will be held at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Downtown Pittsburgh from 10 am to 5 pm each day with the food tasting to be held on Friday evening from 5 to 8 pm.
West PA Chefs Exhibit at Good Taste! Pittsburgh
Member chefs Marcia Schuller, Carole Ortenzo, Tim Hering, Catherine Amatangelo-Alfaro, JoAnn Bohonik and Jennifer Whirlow
Members of the Western Pennsylvania Chapter of the USPCA recently pooled their resources for exhibit space at the annual Good Taste! Pittsburgh Food and Cooking Show. This regional food show featured over 100 exhibitors as well as special guests The Ace of Cakes, Duff Goldman and Sherri Shepard from The View. Anticipated attendance was for between 5,000 and 8,000 people but as of this writing, the count has exceeded 12,000 people.
The show was a great opportunity for our members to showcase their cooking styles, market their own businesses as well as promote the Personal Chef Industry to people from all over the Western Pennsylvania Region. From the time the doors opened at the start of the show until they closed that evening, we had a steady stream of people visiting our booth, sampling our food and talking to us about what a personal chef is and asking a variety of questions.
West PA Chefs Booth at Good Taste! Pittsburgh 11/07/09
We had a prime booth location which was clearly visible from the entrance of the convention center and we had the good fortune of being directly across from a rather large booth whose entrance was around the corner from us so there was never a large group of people gathered in front of our booth blocking our entrance which is what seemed to happen for many exhibitors due to the unexpectedly large crowd of people in attendance. (The Fire Marshall had to stop people from entering the building until others had left since at times it was nearly impossible to move.) We’ve been assured that next year’s event will be held in a larger venue. It was also helpful that we were in the same row the led to the beer, wine and spirits section of the event.
West PA Chefs had a steady stream of visitors at the Good Taste! Pittsburgh Show
What’s a food show without samples? We had plenty of those! Each of us provided a different item and made enough for a couple hundred samples. Chapter Treasurer Chef Carole Ortenzo CPC® from Organic Personal Chef Service provided an Organic Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Soup with Red Beans and Spinach and Chapter Secretary Chef Marcia Schuller from Heart Healthy Personal Chef Service provided a Vegetarian Vegetable and Barley Soup. Our FAGOR Multi Cookers as well as my FAGOR portable induction cooktop made it possible to heat these to temperature in no time as well as keep them warm for service.
Chef Catherine Amatangelo-Alfaro of Catherine’s Personal Chef Service provided some Gluten Free Pumpkin Spice Muffins, Chef Jennifer Whirlow of Denim or Diamond’s Personal Wellness Service provided some Pumpkin Spice Hummus and Lemon Dill Hummus and Chef JoAnn Bohonik of My Secret Chef PCS made some Caramel Corn. Chapter President Chef Tim Hering provided a variety of colorful, fruit flavored Spritz Cookies. Due to unforeseen circumstances, Chef Melody Domaratz of Your Dinner Secret Personal Chef Service was unable to attend.
Many visitors to our booth seemed interested in purchasing (or perhaps even “borrowing”) our table set up. We used a variety of colorful table settings to make a table for two indicating we bring people together for dinner. We displayed the food samples across two tables toward the back of the booth with our marketing materials off to the side. We figured out rather quickly that having that many of us in a 10 x 10 booth was a challenge and will likely opt for a larger space on our next trade show outing.
This show was a fun and great experience for all involved. Everyone did a great job and we learned a lot getting ready for this show as well as doing it. We had a chance to bring the personal chef industry, our business and our chapter in front of a large group of people who may not otherwise have had the chance to see or hear about us and we met and talked to a lot of people during the 8 hour show! Each of us was able to meet and speak with a variety of people who had never heard of a personal chef and there were several business owners who expressed an interest in having one or more of us come to speak to their groups, teach classes for them or do demonstrations for various events.
Many of the member chefs of West PA Chefs also got a chance to showcase their Gift Certificates which are perfect gifts for those hard to buy for people on your gift giving list! What better way to show that special someone you care than by getting them a personalized chef service from one of our talented chefs? For specific information regarding a personal chef near you or near a loved one, please visit the Member Chefs page!
Hope everyone has a great holiday season!
Chef Tim – President West PA Chefs, the Western PA Chapter of the USPCA
For more images from the show, please visit the West PA Chef’s at Good Taste! Pittsburgh Photo Gallery.
Western PA USPCA Member Chefs Usher in Beginning of Personal Chef Season!
Celebrate the Season by Bringing the Family Back to the Dinner Table to Enjoy a Restaurant Quality, Home Cooked Meal Without Having to Shop, Cook or Clean Up!
Members of the Western Pennsylvania Chapter of The United States Personal Chef Association LLC (USPCA) are excited to usher in the beginning of Personal Chef Season in Western PA and Eastern Ohio! Their intent is to bring notice to a special segment of the service industry and to help their clients find the time to bring healthy, nutritious and home cooked meals back to their dinner tables.
With spare time becoming more the exception rather than the rule and time that used to be spent around the dinner table is now time spent running from one obligation to another with fat and preservative laden foods being consumed on the run, the need for using the services of a Personal Chef is on the rise.
Personal chefs come to their client’s homes to prepare custom meals for a wide range of clients and situations, including home meal replacement, dinner parties for up to 30 people, cooking classes, interactive cooking parties and menu consultations. Clients using this special service represent active households, seniors and individuals with restrictive or special dietary needs.
Each Western PA USPCA Chapter Member Chef owns and operates his or her own independent business and will work personally with up to 20 unique clients per month, usually preparing a variety of meals at once in the client’s own kitchen. The chapter currently has 11 active members serving the Western PA and Eastern Ohio area, while there are over 20 combined USPCA and non affiliated personal chefs in the entire region.
The direct tangible benefit to hiring your own chef will be the time saved in the actual meal preparation and the associated shopping, while still enjoying palate specific meals at a surprisingly reasonable cost. Those who choose a chef to cook for a dinner party will no longer need to spend countless hours in the kitchen and will have more time to actually enjoy their party and the company of their guests. The time and money saved as well as the health benefits of having preservative free meals at your fingertips is incalculable. . .
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Western PA USPCA Member Chefs Usher in Beginning of Personal Chef Season!.