Cooking For Others…It’s Just What I Do

I’ve always enjoyed cooking for people, and that not only hasn’t changed, but has only increased. As a kid, I started making “garbage eggs” (as we’d called them) for my grade school friends, chopping up, sautéing, and scrambling veggies and choice leftovers from the fridge with some eggs.

When I learned to bake challah during my youth, I was quick to share my first loaf with my rabbi and his wife, who were delighted. Similarly, and just as young, my first forays into simple cheesecake preparation were shared with friends and family to great accolades.

In college, I began having friends over to my small studio apartment for light holiday meals. Once out on my own and beginning to develop my cooking style, I prepared dishes to my roommates’ delight. Even before I was married, I’d established a culinary presence within my family for many of my recipes to be included as perennial mainstays at our holiday gatherings. After marrying, I immediately began hosting our own holiday gatherings, family celebrations, casual dinners, and myriad theme parties, where I made all of the preparations and did all of the cooking.

At a time when my mother was ill and wouldn’t eat, I flew back home to prepare foods I knew she would enjoy, and nourished her back to health.

After moving to Colorado and establishing my kitchen, my culinary efforts continued, and I started sharing many of my dishes with our neighbors who, in turn, started referring to me as “AmyDash,” as I would deliver my wares through the neighborhood. One neighbor joked that she’d gained five pounds since we’d moved in!

Before welcoming visiting family and friends who come to stay in our home in the mountains, I send out in advance the questionnaire I’ve created to glean as much information as I can regarding each visitor’s dietary considerations and restrictions, likes, dislikes, etc. I joke that it’s in poor form to cause one’s guests anaphylactic shock (which, I know, is no joke, especially this far from urgent care). Some still think I’m joking when I say that it’s more a function of making my life easier in the preparations than for their enjoyment, but there’s a great deal of truth to that (I make no secret of the challenges that living remotely can present). Based upon their responses, I curate a complete menu for the duration of their stay, and then I get to work executing it. Some of our earlier guests often joked about how I not only created a menu, but actually laminated it, which they took home for others to ogle. Bottom line is, the whole thing makes for a much more seamless and enjoyable visit for everyone.

Over the past few years, I began creating elaborate holiday gift offerings, including homemade candies, cookies, pastries, cakes, bread, and flavored spreads, which I’ve distributed locally, as well as shipped nationally. These truly are labors of love, gifts of love and gratitude from my heart, deeply steeped in the belief that we don’t give to receive.

Since purchasing a camper two years ago, my husband and I joined (less than a year ago) an online service where we offer fellow RVers the opportunity to park their rigs on our property for a few nights while traveling through the area. It wasn’t long before I started welcoming our overnight guests with a freshly baked loaf of my crusty Mountain White Bread. More recently, I started including a jar of one of my flavored butters to accompany the bread. The response to this latest effort has been overwhelming. They all tell me I’m being so nice, when I feel like I’m just being so “me.” It’s just how I roll.

There’s not a meal I make, a recipe I create, a dish that I share that I do so for accolades, praise, reciprocity or anything of the kind. It’s what I do. It’s who I am.

After a recent stay, one RV guest with whom I’d shared my newly launched website left me the warmest, kindest note. I cannot deny that it warmed my soul to be acknowledged and appreciated for these things I do, whether it’s cooking or writing, that come from my heart. It merely gives credence to, and even more so drives home my credo of making connections through the art, heart, and soul of cooking.