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Jonathan Carr is a personal chef who goes into people's homes to prepare and serve personalized dinner parties, give cooking demonstrations, teach cooking lessons, cater cocktail parties, birthday parties, or any other excuse you can come up with to be pampered by a personal chef. Aroundmaine.com was invited into Carr's kitchen for an interview. The "man with a pan" gave us a free cooking lesson, and we brought back a step-by-step video for preparing and cooking a rack of lamb with a walnut crust. CLICK HERE to watch the video.

Did you work in restaurants before you got into this?

"I have a bachelors in computer information systems and a masters in business administration...Both of my parents worked when I was young. I'm the oldest and I was responsible for [preparing] the family meals at night. I learned to cook from my mother and my grandmother. As I got older, it was something that I really liked to do. I was in a job I wasn't happy at, and at the time it was a big boom of personal chefs in the news and print media, so I started looking into it. I took about a year and a half and researched the Portland area to see what was available for personal chefs and found that there was a demand for it. So, I quit my job as a computer programmer and started this business."

What's the most common thing people are lacking in their kitchen?

"I don't think people think about having sharp knives...a lot of people have great pots and pans...top-of-the-line stoves, refrigerator, everything, but the thing they don't have [is] sharp knives. I bring a knife sharpener with me. A lot of times, I'll go over to check-out the kitchen beforehand and see if there's anything I need to bring with me."

"I did a client awhile back...she had a perfect kitchen. She had the Viking stove, the dual wall ovens, top-of-the-line everything. This was a birthday party for her husband and it was a surprise. He came home and one of the comments he made to me was, "I'm glad someone's finally getting some use out of this kitchen."

What is your rate?

"I have a flat fee. I feel that when people call me, they want to know right away what the fee is going to be. If I say, well we gotta decide the menu and then do the pricing, I think that turns people off. They want to know right then and there what the fee is going to be. For a party of 10, I'd bring another person as staff with me. It's $100 per person. And that includes the food, I do all the shopping, the cleaning, and the cooking up as well. I don't do any alcohol. I don't have a liquor license and the State doesn't allow me to serve alcohol."