Andrea Ragonese of Bristow recently opened Cibo Subito Personal Chef Services. Cibo Subito, pronounced "CHEE-boh zoo-BEE-tow" is Italian meaning “food at once,” which is what she provides as a visiting in-home chef.
Cibo Subito Personal Chef Services cooks meals in the clients’ own kitchens that they can eat throughout the week. Additionally, the company offers catering for small parties as well as in-home cooking lessons and demos.
Ragonese started Cibo Subito as a continuation of a small catering business she ran while her family was stationed on a U.S. military base in Naples, Italy. Despite the excellent Neapolitan food, Ragonese soon found her friends on base missed their favorite multi-ethic dishes that were so common in the states.
“You can’t even get spaghetti and meatballs easily,” Ragonese said.
Because Naples’ restaurants only served regional dishes and had no take-out, the only way to get those meals was to cook them at home.
So, as a stay-at-home mom with a love of cooking, Ragonese would do just that, preparing those dishes at home for her family, friends and neighbors. Soon, a hot food delivery business was born.
Upon her return to Virginia, Ragonese first returned to her previous career as a mechanical engineer. But after a few years, she found she missed being a personal chef.
“I just missed the cooking, so I decided to go back to this,” she said. “It’s lots of fun.”
As the owner and head chef of Cibo Subito, Ragonese began by working alongside her mother, Darleen Herrick, a retired school teacher and a Neopolitan-Sicilian American.
“Mom lives with us,” said Ragonese, “and we have just as much fun doing this together as anything else.”
To make her business work in an area with almost unlimited take-out options, Ragonese realized she would have to repurpose her business. She found that despite all the restaurants, people preferred their families eat more home cooking than they usually had time to prepare.
Cibo Subito fills that need.
Ragonese meets with people to discuss their dietary needs, allergies and food preferences, then she will schedule a time to work in their kitchen to prepare the meals they have requested. Clients generally order 3-4 meals per week, plus side dishes, but orders vary by client.
Shay Carls, one of Cibo Subito’s clients, said it is her best option to provide healthy, home-cooked meals to her family on a regular basis.
[/caption] “I work at home, so I would like to think that I have time, but I don’t. This is much easier for me to pull it out and just finish cooking it,” Carls said.
In fact, her entire family now prefers Ragonese's cooking.
“She’s a fantastic cook. My son has food allergies, so she’s really good at working around that and making it specialized for my family,” Carls said.
More recently, Ragonese took on a business partner, Amie Francis.
Francis, a mother of five young children, said she wanted to join Cibo Subito because eating healthy is so important to her. With her she brings information about nutrition and organic eating, including how to avoid genetic modified organisms (GMOs), preservatives and unnatural colors or flavors.
“I believe in this and the way of eating, and I believe more and more people should eat this way. Junk in is junk out,” Francis said.
To make sure their clients are eating a healthy diet, Francis said that she and Ragonese will grocery shop for them at stores like Trader Joes, Wegmans or Whole Foods that offer more healthy, natural food options.
It is very important to the two of them because both women have had family members who have survived cancer. Herrick is a breast cancer survivor while Francis’ husband is a leukemia survivor who is now cancer-free.
“The oncologist said, ‘do whatever your doing,'” Francis said, so now the entire family eats healthy and chemical-free meals on a daily basis.
[/caption] And because they also care about eating locally-grown foods, the women of Cibo Subito can be found at the Bristow Farmers Market on Devlin Road on Sundays from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., where they will share recipes and sample foods made using only Bristow Farmers market ingredients.
Last week they shared a meatball recipe using Martin’s Beef and onions straight from the market. Next week they will be back with a new easy recipe.
They will also be introducing their in-home chef services to local residents who may be short on time to cook or want someone to show them how to introduce their family to healthier options.
Ragonese said they can cater to tastes and dietary needs of all clients or household sizes, and they will leave the client’s kitchen better than they found it.
Readers wishing to contact Cibo Subito for more information about in-home cooking, cooking lessons or catering can call 703-753-9866, visit CiboSubito.com and their Facebook page.
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