By day, Anna Cowart worked as a speech therapist at Springhill Memorial Hospital in Mobile. At night and on weekends, she cooked multi-course dinners with wine pairings in other people’s homes. In 2022 she was running The Cowart Kitchen, a private-dinner business that grew almost entirely by word of mouth and Instagram.
Cowart has loved cooking her whole life. She learned in the kitchen with her father, Mark Ryan, who taught her how to build a sauce, which flavors go together and how to season and cook meat. Those lessons became the basis for the menus she now plans for clients.
An Easter Dinner Started It
The business began with a family holiday. One Easter in Magnolia Springs, Cowart decided to do something fun and fancy for her family. She printed a menu, paired a wine with each course and set the table with her mother’s fine china. She had a great time, took photos and posted them on Instagram.
People noticed. Before long, friends and acquaintances were asking her to cook special dinners for small groups in their own homes. One early job was a dinner for twelve women from a tennis team on their way to a state tournament. The pattern repeated: each time she posted a dinner online, at least two more requests came in.
Magnolia Springs was a fitting place to start. The small Baldwin County town sits on the Magnolia River under old live oaks, and it is known for having the only year-round mail route in the continental United States delivered by boat. Families gather there for holiday meals, which makes it a natural place for a dinner like that first Easter spread.
An Instagram Following
She had started the Instagram account, which she named The Cowart’s Kitchen, simply as a place to show off the recipes she was creating. “I love all food,” she says. “I like to experiment, and I’m getting better at figuring out what works.” She is especially fond of Chinese food, and her favorite dish to make is a saucy Chinese chicken with coconut.
Studying Wine
Wine pairing is central to every dinner, so Cowart studied it formally. She earned a Level 1 sommelier certification and was working toward Level II. Sommelier training covers grape varieties, wine regions, tasting and the basics of pairing wine with food and serving it well.
Classic pairing advice gives a cook a place to start. Crisp, high-acid whites go well with oysters and delicate fish. Richer whites suit buttery sauces and crab. Rosé works with summer salads and fruit. Structured reds are the usual choice for steak and other red meat. Formal training teaches how to use those guidelines and when to ignore them. Each course’s wine should match the weight and flavor of the dish, and the courses should build toward dessert.
She puts that training to use in a personal wine-shopping service for clients. She also keeps extra stemware and dinner plates on hand for hosts who don’t have enough for a full table.
How a Dinner Comes Together
“It’s truly so rewarding to have a client ask, ‘Can you do something for me?'” Cowart says. Most of her wine dinner menus lean upscale, and each one uses her own recipes and includes wine pairings.
She does almost all of the work herself, with some help from her husband, Michael. For each event she:
- Plans a custom menu with the host.
- Researches and picks wines for each course.
- Buys all the ingredients.
- Cooks every dish at home first as a practice run.
- Preps, cooks and serves the dinner in the client’s kitchen.
- Cleans up afterward.
A single event takes 10 to 12 hours from planning to cleanup. She is careful about that last step. “I want to leave the kitchen as clean as I can get it,” she says.
Menus and Pricing
Cowart offers three-, four- and five-course dinners for groups. The price depends on the menu and the ingredients. “Do you want lump crabmeat or watermelon?” she asks, pointing out that a menu built around Gulf lump crab costs more than one built around summer produce.
She also relies on help from the butchers at Fresh Market, who she says “are eager to help you learn about what works with what.” Getting that kind of advice at the meat counter is one of the ways she keeps learning.
Why Private Chef Dinners Are Popular Here
Private dinners fit the way people entertain in coastal Alabama. Tennis teams, supper clubs, birthdays and anniversaries often bring friends together at someone’s home instead of a restaurant. A private chef lets the host enjoy the evening instead of spending it at the stove. Gulf seafood, Baldwin County produce and good wine give a cook plenty to work with.
For Cowart, the work has been a creative outlet that runs alongside her career in health care. Her experience also shows how social media can help a home cook reach new clients: each dinner she posted was, in effect, an ad for the next one.
What Was Next
In 2022 Cowart was building a website to hold the recipes she had developed, along with information about wine, soups, salads and her services. Readers can find her work on Instagram under The Cowart Kitchen.