Making It Your Way At Loree’s Kitchen

By Nancy K. Crevier

How about barbequed chicken for two of your kids for dinner, a burger with caramelized onion, bacon and Swiss cheese for the other two, and herb roasted chicken with shallots for you and your husband tonight? Sound like way too much work? You can’t possibly find time to do all of that ingredient shopping and make three deluxe meals to cater to your family’s every whim?

If you’ve enrolled in the “What’s For Supper?” program at Loree’s Kitchen in Bethel, putting out a spread for dinner is a snap. In less than two hours you can stock your freezer with ten healthy, elegant entrees to feed a family of four. Then, while your dinner bakes, all you need to do is throw together a salad and slice a loaf of crusty bread. How easy is that?

“What’s For Supper?” is Loree Ogan’s answer to the modern person’s food crisis. Clients select from 12 monthly entrée choices, reserve a spot at one of three weeknight times, or a Saturday or Sunday session, and arrive at the Elizabeth Street location with nothing more than a clean apron, a cooler, and a desire to put together some fabulous meals.

Walking into the compact storefront, you are hit with a wave of delicious aromas. Spices and herbs mingle with the tang of lime and vinegar in the air. The robust scent of coffee lingers, paired with overtones of chocolate and cinnamon. Ready made salads, main courses, breads, side dishes and desserts prepared on site fill three glass food cases in a colorful, appetizing display.

Just beyond the rear case, the storefront opens up into the preparation and cooking area, where Ms Ogan, a Newtown resident, and her executive chef, Bryan Dueysen of Bethel, have set up preparation stations for the meals that evening’s clients will prepare.

It is clear, as one approaches the prep area, that Ms Ogan, the owner of Loree’s Catering, and Mr Dueysen have spent a good deal of time getting ready for the class. A huge butcher block island in the center of the space is divided into eight individual prep stations, and when the class is full, four additional stations are set up at the perimeter of the kitchen.

All of the ingredients for each entrée are diced, sliced, chopped, minced, weighed and stored in handy containers that surround a cutting board, bowl, spoon, spatula and measuring cups. Freezer safe containers, latex gloves and cooking labels are easily within reach and, most importantly, assembly directions are posted directly above each assembly station.

“I tell all of my groups the same thing,” says Ms Ogan. “The first thing you do is read the recipe all the way through.” The directions are brief and clear, and in no time, hands are flying, and ready to go meals are being packed to travel home.

It takes just 40 minutes to put together two servings each of Coconut Chicken, Thai Tilapia, Salmon with Roasted Fennel and Orange, Lasagna Roll-ups, and Broccoli Rice Strata. It is apparent as the class moves along that making these meals from scratch would be beyond the time constraints of many home cooks.

It would take a separate trip to a specialty food store to locate unusual ingredients like the baby chickpeas and daikon radish seeds that speckle the rice. Coconut, mango, diced tomatoes, onions, red and green peppers, minced cilantro and mint, seasoned bread crumbs and reduced sauces and infusions are at your fingertips here. The quality of the ingredients is as good or better than most could do at home – and infinitely more convenient.

Why not just buy the meals already cooked and bring them home? There are several reasons, according to this caterer, who has been in the business for more than 20 years.

“Most of my customers are people who like to cook, people who like to eat, but for some reason don’t have time to do it anymore. But they still like the idea of making meals for their families. ‘What’s For Supper?’ is a way for them to be able to say ‘I made dinner for you’. And you really did. You assembled it all, and you cook it at home.”

A personal chef is an option for some people, but it takes away from the nurturing quality busy people long to give to those they care about. And, says Ms Ogan, a personal chef is expensive. At one of the “What’s For Supper?” sessions participants can make ten choices to serve two for $125, or for $225, ten choices to serve four.

Food that is pre-cooked and re-heated can lose quality, too, says Ms Ogan. All of the meals prepared during a “What’s For Dinner” session are brought home in the raw state where the client can cook them immediately, or as they are designed, freeze the entrees and cook them as needed. When food is not re-heated, it is a better, fresher tasting product, she says.

By having a variety of meals in the freezer, prepared in small quantities for two or four persons, it is the perfect way to keep a family with diverse preferences happy.

“Food that is prepared in the supermarket already has all of the spices and ingredients added. Here,” Ms Ogan says, “you have control over the ingredients and can tailor it to your family. If there’s an ingredient your family doesn’t like, leave it out. If you don’t like mint or cilantro, you can put in just as much as you want.”

“It’s also a way of getting kids to try something new,” says Ms Ogan. Without the hassle of shopping for exotic ingredients, hours in the kitchen and an excess of leftovers, “What’s For Supper?” entrees are the ideal choice for experimentation.

She doesn’t fail to mention another obvious reason people come to Loree’s Kitchen to make dinner: It is fun. It is a place to laugh and chat and commiserate while you scoop and measure. Ms Ogan has hosted office groups, baby showers, bridal showers and block parties at “What’s For Supper?” Repeat customers have brought family and friends, turning an evening of meal preparation into a family reunion.

Ms Ogan, a home economics and business major, began her food career marketing take-home meals from the Ridgefield Stop & Shop in 1981, before moving to Bethel. Loree’s Kitchen moved twice before settling into its Elizabeth Street location in 1991. She has always featured prepared meals in the shop, but the idea of people putting together their own “to go” dinners had been brewing in her brain for many years.

“I thought dinner to go was the wave of the future; I just had to wait for the future to catch up!” she exclaims.

The future touched the lives of residents in other parts of the United States earlier than it did those in the Northeast. Dream Dinners, based out of Portland, Ore., with branches mainly in western and mid-western states, and Super Suppers of Fort Worth, Tex., have offered programs similar to “What’s For Supper?” since 2003. As far as Ms Ogan knows, Loree’s Catering is the only one to offer an entrée assembly program in Connecticut. Like Dream Dinners and Super Suppers, she gears her recipes to appeal to local tastes.

Since starting this program in July 2004, Ms Ogan has seen a steady increase in clientele. Presently, Ms Ogan and Mr Dueysen offer classes three nights a week, a class on Saturday afternoon and a class on Sunday. In April, at her customers’ urgings, she has added three morning sessions, running from 9 to 11 am, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

“You can put your child on the bus, come to class, make ten meals and be back in time to take your kindergartner off the bus,” she says.

The majority of her clients are women in their late 30’s, often with families, or single professionals. They come from all over the state: Danbury, Weston, Norwalk, Middletown – and Newtown.

“Over half of my clientele is from Newtown,” says Ms Ogan. “Most people who come are good cooks,” she emphasizes, “but they’re short on time.”

Having offered “What’s For Supper?” for several months now, Mr Dueyen estimates they have a repertoire of over 100 recipes. Each month features new, seasonal items, which Mr Dueyen and Ms Ogan test from start to finish before putting them on the menu. They harvest their recipe ideas from magazines and books, adding their personal touches, and tweaking the recipes as they go along. Because they do have repeat clients with favorite requests, they have begun to roll over one or two recipes from month to month.

When leaving the store, which is located just beyond the Bethel railroad tracks, laden with a feast-filled cooler, it’s hard to keep the lyrics of Arlo Guthrie’s classic folk song out of your head:

“You can get anything you want, at Alice’s restaurant. Walk right in, it’s around the back, just a half a mile from the railroad track. You can get anything you want, at Alice’s restaurant.”

Substitute “Loree’s Kitchen” and there’s no wonder the song is stuck in your head.

What’s not to like? The shopping, the chopping and even the mopping are done for you. The hardest thing you have to do is remember to take the meals out of the freezer.