Have a Restaurant Dinner in Your Home

During the holidays, we host dozens of people coming through our home to share good times and food. We love to cook and entertain, but the constant kitchen rush and clean-up can become tedious. Usually, at some point during seasonal dinners for Thanksgiving or Christmas, I look to the ceiling and hear a confused little voice inside my head asking, "Why did I think this was a good idea."

At those moments, an operation like Kitchit – launching in Chicagoland this Thursday –becomes very appealing.

With Kitchit, you can have a professional chef come in to prepare dinner for you …and if you want, you can actually share costs with your guests…which may sound awkward, but needn't be.

Now, obviously, for holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, we're not going to invite people and charge them admission.

But for general get-togethers of food enthusiasts who realize that eating a chef-driven meal at a private home is going to be less expensive and probably more fun than eating at a restaurant, the Kitchit option is definitely desirable .

At the recent Chicago Food Film Festival, I chatted with Ian Ferguson, founder and owner of Kitchit and a sponsor of the festival.

According to Ferguson, Kitchit offers "the ability for groups to 'split the bill' very comfortably, just as they might at a restaurant. In other words, we encourage casual social groups to effectively create a 'DIY pop up restaurant' in a private home, where each diner pays his or her own way."

This kind of set-up is not going to be for everyone. There is a trend, however, among  economically challenged twenty- or thirty-somethings to have events in their homes where everyone throws in a few bucks to defray the cost of a meal prepared by the host. 

Or, for those of us who are older and simply prefer to have excellent food made for us while we socialize with guests, well, of course, Kitchit helps there, too.

You can find out more about Kitchit at http://www.kitchit.com/how_it_works