Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Amy Freeze. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Amy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?

As a teacher and a chef, I am not what anyone expects. Most teachers aren’t competitive chef’s on the side and most chef’s aren’t also educators. However, I’ve been able to merge the two. In our farm-to-table dinners, we serve unique dining experiences while at the same time teaching our guests about food sourcing and exciting ingredient combinations. I hope that I’m never simply seen as an ordinary or mediocre cook. I want our guests to go away having eaten well and learned a few things about food.

Amy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m neither the typical chef nor typical teacher. For the past 24 years, I’ve been a high school English teacher in a small, rural town in central Florida during the day and at night, weekends, and holidays, I’ve worked as a private and competitive chef. In 2013, I won the National Pie Championship as a home cook and gained my first entry to World Food Championships. Since then, my culinary career has taken off, and my daytime students become my taste testers and servers at private events.

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

My sous chef came on board as a member of my competitive cooking team in 2015, when I needed someone who could draw on plates in chocolate. Fast forward 8 years, and now, she is the team member in charge of making our competitive dishes look phenomenal and my right hand keeping our farm-to-table kitchen running smoothly. My biggest piece of advice is to look to your friends as untapped resources.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

I began competitive cooking as simply a home cook. After winning the National Pie Championship in 2013 and gaining my first entry to World Food Championships, my culinary career began. We started by hosting small farm-to-table dinners at a local, historical landmark & garden. We hosted 4 dinners a year (1 per season) and we thought that was awesome. Covid shut that down, and we, like many small businesses could have called it quits, but after a pandemic pause, we were in the right place at the right time and hooked up with a local winery. We now host events, dinners and cooking classes, monthly, which gives us the good fortune of combining our love of cooking for others and teaching how to cook. This summer, we took it one step further and hosted a culinary camp for kids ages 8-14.

Contact Info:

• Website: gourmeteveryday.net
• Instagram: gourmeteveryday_
• Facebook: gourmeteverydayblog

Image Credits
Jeremy Freeze