For Candida Canfield, the commute home from New York City where she was an account manager for Law.com to New Rochelle, N.Y., often featured a call from her son Daniel asking what kids tend to ask as the sun sets: “What”™s for dinner?”
One such call in August 2005 ”“ “Daniel was 18 so we had basically had this same conversation for years” ”“ got Canfield thinking about commuters and food and it changed her life.
“I”™ve always loved cooking,” she said. “But you can get tired of it once in a while. In Westchester, it seemed to me the options were Chinese food or pizza and I began looking for an alternative.”
Canfield hatched a business plan that saw her learning the ropes for a full year before she debuted her company”™s web site (dinnerinhand.com) and actually went into business.
The business now has three legs: home meals, with most of her clients seniors, folks living alone or semi-empty nesters; catering; and daily lunches for two schools: Lyceum Kennedy French International School in Ardsley, N.Y., and Thornton-Donovan School in New Rochelle. Her deliverymen are now plying the roads of Fairfield County, as well, and Canfield is making a concerted push into Connecticut, which offers the same upscale commuting demographic.
Only in the fictional world of TV pitches does success arrive gift wrapped. While Canfield is making strides, she is in truth grading the playing field, assembling the teams and the audience and writing the rule book as she goes. The difficulties become evident upon learning the original idea for the business ”“ chilled food delivered to weary commuters at train stations ”“ turned out to be a misstep “for a number of reasons” and is on hold for now.
Some “eureka” ideas carry themselves across the landscape effortlessly; others require just a nudge from the sales department. Dinner in Hand has more of a hard-work ethos behind it. For a year after that fateful “What”™s for dinner?” phone call, Canfield cooked and delivered and cooked and delivered some more ”“ to 22 tester families who were chosen specifically because they were not close friends and, therefore, would tell the truth regarding service and quality. The families paid only for the ingredients and then played food critics.
Now, the 200 regular clients of the company can order grilled eggplant and zucchini parmesan or coconut shrimp with Thai chili sauce, part of Dinner in Hand”™s just-released summer menu.
Meals are broken down into easy categories that include vegetarian entrees, comfort foods, favorites (crab cakes and marinated steak kebabs find this list), dinner salads and for dessert perhaps a Mexican hot chocolate cake: three layers with spiced chocolate and a “cinnamon-infused whipped cream.”
Canfield dishes credit to executive chef Amy Bach: “I”™m a good cook, a very good home cook. But there”™s a difference with Amy; her food is about three notches higher in taste. She cooks extraordinarily well.”
Canfield grew up on Long Island ”“ Uniondale High School and Hofstra University ”“ but for the last 13 years has called Westchester County home. She is no passive resident, saying, “I wanted to get involved.”
Toward that end she joined the Junior League on the Sound, helping with projects like a new diabetes center for the Sound Shore Medical Center, the Abbott House for foster boys and Project Madres, which works in the Hispanic community. A year ago, Dinner in Hand donated food for 300 for an event hosted by the Larchmont Temple to benefit victims of genocide in Darfur: “A very, very amazing event.” (Catering is now about 35 percent of the business.)
Her son Daniel who started Dinner in Hand, sort of, has now graduated from Temple University. Her partner is Douglas Goldblum, who has four children.
Canfield said the business still struggles, but she radiates that particular confidence that comes from an idea worthy of making it ”“ chef-caliber, ready-made meals in insulated bags with proper labels ”“ and perhaps making it big.
“We try to keep the price points low,” Canfield said, “whether it”™s a dinner at home for two or dinner for 300 at an event.”
