I was beyond excited to get to be in on a phone interview with Amy Thielan of Heartland Table. Amy is a former chef who had the wonderful opportunity to work under world renowned chefs. She has done cooking from NYC to her own small hometown in Minnesota. She’s a mom, a blogger and gets to work out of her home as a work at home mom. She hosts her own cooking show on the Food Network where she relishes making food from her heartland. Comfort food that has a different flair then say someone from the South like me.
She left NYC after having her first child to become a mom with reasonable working hours. I can’t imagine the amount of hours needed to run a large kitchen restaurant. 75+ hours is not conducive to being the parent we all want to be. So she left NYC and moved home. She began with her blog and writing small columns for local papers. This led to other opportunities to write for larger papers. She found her voice writing for these smaller papers and then planned to write her cookbook. The cookbook led to her potential opportunity to working for food network and where she’s at today. What a great uplifting story of being able to do what you love and balance being a mother too. I love how her show gives you the backstory of her family, recipes and how she obtains the food she cooks. For example, Matt the butcher we occassionally get to see and hear from this season. Her husband helps her a lot and they both garden together. Learning about her life in the show just makes it more inviting for me to watch as a mom. Make sure you check out Heartland Table on Food Network this Saturday at 10:30 am EST. I’ve got my dvr set because as a mom I’m usually at the local bowling center with my boy! Check it out and let me know what you think? Have you watched it before?
And Information about Amy:
About Amy Thielen
Amy grew up a few miles from the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Minnesota and graduated from Macalester College. She spent seven years cooking professionally in New York under David Bouley, Daniel Boulud, Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Shea Gallante.
Since returning to Minnesota in 2008, she has written for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Men’s Journal, and Saveur, and won a James Beard Journalism Award in 2011. Her cookbook, The New Midwestern Table, a collection of 200 Heartland recipes, was published by Clarkson Potter in September 2013. Amy lives in the country near Park Rapids, Minn., with her husband and their son.
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