Meal time made simple

Cole serves up fresh
dinners for families on the go

By Lisa Tarrants
Correspondent

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Does meal time with your family resemble a melee of fast food in the back of your SUV as burgers are launched in search of hungry targets, amidst a french-fry frenzy while you are trying to drive from soccer practice to dance lessons?

In today’s fast-paced world jam-packed with activities and errands, many families eat a lot of their meals on the go, literally. One woman, a Hertford attorney, has set out to do something that might change that reality for some families.

“You have so many parents, mothers especially, who feel guilty,” explains Janice Cole. “They’re buying the kids fast food because there is nothing else for them to do at that hour and in the small amount of time that they have.”

When Cole was a little girl growing up in New York City with two older sisters, she remembers meal time being more of an event rather than a hasty chore. The family sat down at the table together and ate a wholesome meal prepared right there in their very own kitchen. And best of all, they shared their day, getting to know each other with every story, every complaint and every joke.

With the absence of that daily meal time, Cole fears families today are missing out, not only on the wholesome meal, but also on the experience that surrounds the meal.

“We have become very disconnected,” says Cole. And, she says, with several computers and televisions in most homes, there is even less togetherness.

To help remedy what many agree is a growing epidemic, Cole has opened a meal assembly kitchen in hopes of bringing families back together at the dinner table.

“When I saw this concept, I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. It made so much sense to me,” says Cole.

So, she opened a franchise called Entrée Vous on Cedar Road in Chesapeake. Although she’s an Albemarle resident, Cole says economically it made more sense to start the business in a more densely populated region. She says she has hopes to open a second franchise in Elizabeth City, but the current economic downtown has her acting more cautious these days.

Basically, they do most of the work for you. They chop, slice, and dice fresh ingredients, mix the proper proportions, bag it up and tack on the simple cooking instructions. You take it home, cook it, and start calling your family back to the table for dinner time.

You have a fresh-cooked meal that takes a lot less time and leaves a lot less clean up.

“This gives them (parents) an opportunity to actually feel like they’re making the meal, because they are actually cooking it,” says Cole. “Even if they don’t put it together themselves, they are actually taking it home and cooking it.”

Customers also have the option of going in to Entrée Vous’s kitchen and putting the ingredients together themselves. Each station is set up with easy-to-follow instructions and the measuring spoons are color-coded for easy recognition.

Each month’s menu includes entrees such as Imperial Orange Chicken, Shrimp in Garlic Sauce, Chicken Cordon Bleu and Holiday Pork Roast.

A regular size entree serving two to three people runs an average of $12 to $13, and a family size serving runs about $20 to $24, roughly equivalent to the cost of meal deals at fast food restaurants for the same amount of people. You can also choose from a variety of side items and desserts.

And with Entrée Vous, there is no minimum order. That is especially appealing to seniors who may be on a fixed income, or have limited means and abilities for shopping and cooking good meals for themselves.

“I’ve had many people talk about ordering stuff that they’re going to take to their parents,” says Cole. “This is an opportunity to be able to take them a meal that they can just put in the oven – not too complicated for them – in small portions that they will eat.”

Renee Davis is the manager at Entrée Vous. One of her favorite customers is an elderly couple that comes in regularly.

“They come in every week and they are just so cute,” says Davis. “They sit on the two stools and they will argue about what they want this week, and they will go back and forth. But he always wins.”