When you're a good cook, it's not uncommon for friends to joke about you being their personal chef.
Sometimes, they're serious.
That's what happened to executive chef Tim Mulderink back in 2010. At the urging of friends, he started cooking fresh meals for two with his wife and delivering them. Before he knew it, his business had taken off, and he named it The Chef and His Wife.
"At that time I was the executive chef at the [Volkswagen] auto plant and just doing this as a hobby," Tim Mulderink said.
Since then, he's completed the Co. Starters class offered by the Urban League of Greater Chattanooga and gone full time with the business. It's expanded from the Mulderink home kitchen in East Brainerd to a commercial kitchen at the couple's church, Silverdale Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
From beef stroganoff and green enchiladas to lasagna and chicken potpie, the meals Tim Mulderink prepares are typically comfort foods, cooked with healthy, unprocessed ingredients, he said. Items from The Chef and His Wife are portioned into containers that include two sodium-controlled, 450-calorie-or-less servings, then frozen.
"What you're getting is the kind of food you would get if you came to our house to eat," said Louise Mulderink, the chef's wife.
Each Sunday, a menu is posted on the business's website and emailed out. Customers are asked to order from the site by Wednesday. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are spent preparing and freezing meals. The food is delivered on Saturday or Monday. If a customer isn't home during the delivery time, they are asked to leave out a cooler with payment for the order inside.
Prices typically range from $10-$16 per item and delivery is complimentary for orders of $32.50 or more. Orders that don't meet that threshold can be picked up or delivered for an additional $10 fee.
Homemade granola bars from The Chef and His Wife's kitchen have also made the regular menu and are for sale at both Yoga East and Enzo's Market downtown.
"One of the goals we have is to eventually have a storefront so people can pick up on the way home from work or on lunch," Tim Mulderink said.
The Chef and His Wife also offers some catering services. For more information or to place an order, visit thechefandwife.com.