edible notables
HEALTHY BEGINNINGS
Local caterer provides a fresh take on baby food.
WRITTEN BY FARAH VITALE
PHOTOS BY KYLE DAVID JONES
While shopping the baby food aisle at the grocery store, you might just grab the jar with the fewest ingredients listed on the label because it seems to be more natural. But is it actually healthy? According to Whitney and Josh Deri, it’s important to know what’s in your baby food because it can play a great role in their health, development, and future relationship with food. This is what prompted the Deris to create their own line of baby foods, Petite Chef.
Both received their chef training at the Culinary Institute of America in New York. Upon finishing their internships in Napa Valley, the couple moved to Florida and opened their own catering company, Dough Catering. They later decided to relocate the company and move back to Whitney’s hometown, Reno.
Then, about a year ago, after Whitney happened across a baby food recipe book, she and Josh got to thinking that this was something both of them could do in the Reno-Tahoe area. Hoping to create healthy change in the baby-food industry, they work to both prepare and deliver healthy baby food that’s freshly made each day in the Reno area.
Local ingredients
The couple only buys local ingredients, with no preservatives. And they only heat ingredients to the maximum temperature that still allows each vegetable, plant, or protein to retain its color and nutrients.
“For both of us, it’s very important that people are aware of what they are feeding their children these days,” Whitney says.
They say Petite Chef is unlike most of the organic baby food from the grocery store, which they say is made in advance and heated to high temperatures to keep them shelf stable, depleting nutrient content. Whitney points out that she and Josh don’t need to take such measures. Products are made fresh in a commercial kitchen in Sparks (One World Kitchen) and delivered throughout the Reno, Sparks, and Lake Tahoe areas the next day. They place the food in BPA-free plastic containers that they sanitize and re-use. Their products have a shelf life of one week, or they may be kept frozen up to one year.
Another benefit, they say, is that Petite Chef foods expose babies early on to a broad range of flavors.
“We cook with a lot of different spices and herbs so [babies] get used to them,” Josh says. “So when they turn 4 or 5, they’re not fighting you on eating something out of the norm.”
Three stages
Petite Chef offers products in three stages based on children’s ages, with price points at $40, $60, and $80. Deliveries are comprised of 24 ounces of food for stage one, 48 ounces for stage two, and eight full meals and snacks for stage three. The stages start with simple vegetable or rice cereal purées, and then thicker purées of easily digested meats and non-allergenic fruits are introduced. The third stage provides complete meals with different flavor combinations.
Since the baby food is only available for order online or by phone, the couple’s goal is to open storefronts in Reno; San Francisco; and Austin, Texas. Also, they would love to teach classes to educate people on how to make their products and explain why using local ingredients is important.
“We want to help make the full connection between us, the families, and the community,” Whitney says.
Petite Chef baby foods can be ordered at http://www.Petitechefbabyfood.com or by calling 775-843-5297.
Farah Vitale is a senior at the University of Nevada, Reno, and plans to graduate in May with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Her favorite pastime is cooking, and she loves it so much that at one point she even thought about becoming a chef. She decided to stick with writing about food instead.
