It's a good point about eating at restauranta vs. hiring a chef; in my limited norcal experience, it cost less to have a come-and-cook chef weekdays than it did to routinely eat out, and it was substantially more awesome in several ways.
Despite it costing less, though, several of my fellow Americans thought the chef was like, bourgeois, or pretentious, or something.
(I would still do it, except now I have a wife who cooks, and resists my lobbying to outsource this function...)
My college-age daughter LOVES to cook and finds it relaxing. I call her my "personal chef" and have basically turned over all household food stuff to her, freeing my time for other things.
