Click here to order The Beginner’s Guide to Meal Prep
A few months ago, I posted some extremely embarrassing photos of my very messy pantry to my Instagram stories begging for help-- it had gotten so bad that I was willing to share my secret shame and was even considering hiring a professional to get the mess under control. Instead, my friend Tarn who worked at BuzzFeed at the time reached out to me mentioning that a pantry redesign would make an excellent video and asked if I’d be interested. The answer was a resounding “duh!” She also floated the idea of doing a few very casual vlog-style videos about my work doing meal prep professionally (AKA as a personal chef) for BuzzFeed’s Goodful channel.
I was definitely open to it, but a bit apprehensive at first. I wasn’t sure if people would care or find that type of content interesting. But I put my initial reservations aside, agreed, and set out to document a day in my life while I shopped, meal prepped for, and cleaned up after a client.The video went live on BuzzFeed’s YouTube channel and I’m happy to say that my gut feeling about the level of interest was completely off. (Many) people watched it and had (a lot of) things to say.
There were definitely quite a few very funny comments (“I feel like this is a job where she meets some rich single guy that she learns to love in a generic rom-com sort of way”) but there were also so many wondering about the mechanics of what I do (“I NEED THIS IN MY LIFE!!!!”, “OK I’ve had the idea to do this before, my question is though how do I get started?”, and “More vids on this!!!!”). I was also inundated with Instagram direct messages asking for advice on how to make meal prep a manageable habit. As I dug myself out of my DM response hole, I spotted a pattern. Most people were experiencing a few key barriers that are basically stated as:
- I don’t know how/where to start with meal prep!
- Meal prep feels too time consuming!
- I’m not even sure what or how much to cook!
If you're struggling with these barriers as well, click here to order the book
As I answered these questions via individual messages, I also realized it was important to me to share those answers as broadly as possible; home cooked food is healthy for the body and spirit. And for some people, meal prep makes getting home cooked food on the table more approachable. Empowering more people to cook is incredibly important to me and I saw a clear path to do just that. So, the idea for The Beginner's Guide to Meal Prep was born.
Working on this book has been a true joy and I’m so excited to share it with you. It contains:
- Menus for two weeks of meal prep with fool-proof recipes for each item on the menu
- Detailed and shoppable grocery lists
- A step-by-step game plan to get you cooking quickly and efficiently
- A full list of tips I’ve gathered during my time as a professional meal prepper