How to Choose a Home Cook
Starting from how your household eats, and what makes an arrangement last.
Knowledge · Home Cook Services
Preparing Your Kitchen Before a Home Cook Starts
A kitchen is a room with a hundred small conventions that nobody in the household has ever had to explain. Most early friction with a cook is one of those conventions going unsaid. An hour of preparation before the first day prevents nearly all of it — and none of it requires anyone to change how they cook.
When this is useful
In the Days Before Someone Starts
This assumes an arrangement has been agreed. If you are still deciding, how to choose a home cook is the earlier step.
- A start date is set and you want the first week to go smoothly
- This is the first time someone else will cook in your kitchen regularly
- Your household keeps particular conventions that need to be explained
- A previous arrangement drifted into daily small corrections
What households should know
Show the Kitchen, Then Write Down the Pattern
Four things. The first two take about an hour between them and prevent most of what otherwise turns into daily correction.
1 · The walk-through, in the kitchen
Twenty minutes physically showing the room: where staples are kept, which shelf holds what, how the stove and any appliances work, which utensils are used for which purpose, where things are put back. Almost everything a new cook gets wrong in the first fortnight is something nobody showed them — and demonstrating once is far quicker than correcting three times.
2 · A rough weekly pattern rather than a daily decision
Sketch what the week usually looks like: which meals, roughly what kind of thing, anything that always appears and anything that never does. This is not a fixed menu and should not become one — it is a starting shape that removes a negotiation every morning and lets groceries be planned instead of improvised.
3 · State the household's conventions as conventions
Utensils that are kept separate, ingredients that do not come into the kitchen, a particular way something is prepared, what happens to leftovers. Say these plainly and show them during the walk-through. A cook does not need the reason — only the instruction. Where a requirement has come from a doctor or dietitian, give it in writing exactly as it was given to you.
4 · Agree how you will talk about the food
Decide how the household says a dish was not right, and how the cook says something is missing, has run out, or cannot be done in the time. Arrangements where only one direction is established do not last. The hiring conversation is the natural place to settle this.
Practical considerations
The Practical Arrangements
Ordinary household logistics. Nothing here is food-safety guidance or a standard any kitchen is required to meet.
Groceries and who buys them
Who shops, who decides what is bought, how money is handled and recorded, and who says when a staple has run out. Settle all four rather than just the first.
Storage that makes sense to someone new
Staples grouped logically and labelled where a container gives nothing away. Obvious to a household that has used it for years; not obvious to anyone else.
Equipment that actually works
Check the stove, mixer and pressure cooker before the first day, and show how anything temperamental behaves. A cook fighting the equipment produces worse food in more time.
Timings and kitchen access
When they arrive, how they get in, and whether the kitchen is free at that hour. A cook and a household both trying to use the kitchen at once helps nobody.
What happens after cooking
Whether utensil washing and wiping down are included, and where leftovers go. This is the most common unstated assumption in the service — write down what was agreed.
Water and somewhere to keep their things
A place to leave a bag, and water within reach. Small, easily overlooked, and it signals that this is a professional arrangement rather than an errand.
General guidance vs our service
Where This Guidance Ends and Our Service Begins
Everything above is general and holds however you arrange a cook. This is the narrow part the cooking help we provide is responsible for.
What Quality Care can help with
- Briefing the cook on your household's preferences and conventions before the first day
- Agreeing meals, timings, groceries and kitchen cleanup with both sides in advance
- Identity, address and background verification, completed before anyone enters your home
- Passing on a written instruction from your doctor or dietitian exactly as given
- Being reachable locally if the arrangement needs adjusting
What we do NOT advise on
- Food safety standards or certification. The suggestions above are ordinary household organisation, not hygiene guidance and not a standard your kitchen must meet
- Nutrition and diet. We do not advise on what anyone should eat, portions, or the health value of any food
- Medical diets. These come from a doctor or dietitian. We follow them as written; we never design or adjust them
- Meal plans, weight guidance, or food as treatment for any condition
- Pay, employment law or contracts — ask a qualified professional
- Promising that the cooking will suit your household
We place cooks into homes and brief both sides before a placement starts. Anything to do with health, diet, or a prescribed way of eating belongs with your doctor or a qualified dietitian — we will place someone who follows their instruction exactly as written, and nothing on this page is a substitute for that advice.
Common questions
Questions Households Ask Us
Should we be at home on the first day?
If you can, yes. Twenty minutes showing where things are kept, how the stove and any appliances work, and which utensils are used for what saves far more time than it costs. It is also much harder to explain a kitchen over the phone afterwards.
How do we handle utensils that must be kept separate?
Say so plainly at the start and show which are which during the walk-through. Whether the reason is household practice, a preference, or something a doctor has specified, the cook does not need to know why — only what to use and what to keep apart.
Who decides the menu day to day?
Households vary. Agreeing a rough weekly pattern at the start works better than deciding every morning, because it removes a daily negotiation and lets groceries be planned. Leave room to change it — a fixed menu nobody can vary becomes a burden on both sides.
How should we raise it when a dish is not right?
Directly, early and specifically — which dish, and what you would prefer instead. General dissatisfaction is impossible to act on. Most early mismatches are about seasoning or method and correct quickly when described precisely rather than left to build up.