Prior to her penchant for aggressively hand-weeding dandelions for hours, harvesting buckets of serviceberries, or planting successions of deer tongue lettuce, Amy didn't grow up enjoying going outside (because it was hot and because she'd already been at swim practice for several hours a day). But the outside was ever-present in the Myers household: her father was a middle-school biology and botany teacher and tended a greenhouse of unique orchids that he bred himself—“plant sex on the kitchen table!”—which was also home to a rescued turtle he fed with earthworms.

He tended a large garden that, in addition to beautiful roses, produced a dozen strawberry rhubarb pies a year, plentiful cabbage and onions that filled Mason jars full of Polish kapusta, buttery Romano pole beans, and huge pumpkins that were larger than Amy herself. He also raised a number of apple trees which produced copious Apple Betty and regularly visited his mulberry tree for an afternoon snack. Her family would forage for wild blackberries growing on a roadside adjacent to the undeveloped land north of their Barrington, IL home.

Unlike my family, Amy’s ate out regularly, whether Barro’s pizza after a swim meet or a formal meal with her grandparents at the Medinah Country Club. One characteristic of Amy’s “food” upbringing that differed from mine is that the presentation mattered as much as the food itself — whether at a nice restaurant or a home-cooked meal.

Amy's mom also made classic 1970s comfort food that included French toast slathered in cinnamon, turkey tetrazzini, and her renowned pot roast. Each of her grandmothers had their specialty dishes whether Grandma Brown’s German pancakes or Grandma Myers’ roast lamb.

Amy’s family traveled. Trips to Florida’s Gulf coast, New England, and the north woods of Wisconsin were all part of Amy’s upbringing, which exposed her to a broader variety of American food experiences. But her palate expanded greatly during her first overseas trip to France on an exchange program when she was 11. She still remembers the food from that experience: rabbit (which remains a favorite to this day), horse meat, and lamb’s brains—and of course, all manner of French pastries and confections. She travelled several other times to France during her school years, developing near-fluent French by the time she was in college, which further shaped her absolute adoration for French food. This is probably why in later years (after we met) she has been more willing to try exotic dishes that I probably would avoid, including baby pigeons in Dubai, elk foot in Urumchi, and sea urchin au gratin in Barcelona.