Amelia Avery
Home Cook & Recipe Creator
Amelia Avery grew up in the modest kitchen of a farmhouse outside Des Moines, where the scent of simmering stew was as constant as the Midwestern wind. Her mother, a former schoolteacher turned home cook, taught her to coax flavor from pantry staplesâcanned tomatoes, a tin of beans, a handful of herbsâturning everyday ingredients into meals that felt like a warm hug. Amelia remembers the night her grandmother slipped a handwritten note into a jar of pickles, urging her to "never let a recipe become a rule," a moment that still informs her approach to cooking.
After earning a degree in culinary arts at the University of Kansas, Amelia spent a year touring family-run diners across the United States, cataloguing the stories behind comfort dishes that have survived generations. From a saltâcured pork belly in New Mexico to a buttery chicken pot pie in upstate New York, she observed how food can serve as both memory and identity. Those roadâtrip notebooks later became the backbone of seasonallyrecipes, a site launched in 2024 to preserve and share the kind of homeâcooked nostalgia that once filled her own kitchen.
Today, Amelia's kitchen is a laboratory of nostalgia, where she blends tradition with the seasonal bounty of local farms. She says the drive behind her everâgrowing collection of 200+ recipes is simple: to create dishes that feel like a family gathering, even when eaten alone. In a world of fleeting food trends, she remains steadfast in her belief that the best meals are those that bring people together around a table, anchored by love and a pinch of patience.
I believe comfort food should be a passport to memory, not a relic of the pastâif a dish doesnât make you feel like youâre home, itâs not worth making.
At a glance
- Over 200 original recipes developed and published on seasonallyrecipes
- Featured in the New York Times Food Section (2024)
- Guest chef on the national TV show 'Home Cooking Live'
- Winner of the 2023 American Comfort Food Award
Good food is a hug you can taste â Amelia
