Group cooking offers so much food for thought

• Figure out how to manage shopping and expenses. Will it be done jointly or is each individual responsible for his or her own ingredients?

"You have to be laid-back and go with the flow," Stoakley says. "It's just for a short period of time. It's not forever."

Then again, if coordinating cooking seems daunting, a private chef might be the answer.

That's what Maureen Bee of Fort Collins enjoyed when she and her family vacationed in Acapulco, Mexico, with five other families.

"They cooked all of our meals, did all of our grocery shopping, got all of our booze. Everything," she says.

There were snacks during the day, bartenders at night, a team of cooks in the kitchen and even servers.

"It was like having a restaurant in our villa," she says.

At the end of the trip, the group calculated in the gratuity and split the bill.

To find a private cook, check with your rental company or call caterers at your destination. Many chefs also maintain websites.

Prices vary with the menu and location, but a full service dinner prepared by a caterer hired through CaboVillas.com would start at $35 per person. Breakfasts begin at $15 and lunch $25, says Julie Byrd, spokeswoman for the company, which handles rentals in Mexico's Baja Peninsula.

Still, for Lando, who is so averse to cooking that he eats out as a matter of course, it's a real pleasure to savor the home-cooked meals that come with his summer getaway. And the icing on the cake?

"The real treat is being able to have dinner with my whole family," he says.