New beginnings are hard.
November 24, 2025
I’m a big believer in new beginnings, and in change, but I’ll be honest: this one took me a year. A year of procrastinating, second-guessing, and trying to muster up the courage to put myself out there like this. I write for a living, but somehow writing for myself—for something that feels personal and important—felt terrifying.
Life didn’t slow down, either. In the weeks I meant to send this out, my dad landed in the hospital, then assisted living. We had to clean and sell my childhood home. We moved my mom from a far-away memory care facility into the one connected to my dad’s community. It was a whirlwind of Medicare and care consultant calls, movers, realtors, packing, staging, and parenting two kids. Somewhere in there, I also turned 46. Boy, do I know what “Sandwich Generation” means now.
So yes—beginnings are hard. But they’re also exciting. And strangely, sending this out during Thanksgiving week feels fitting.
My daughter Lily brought home a Thanksgiving worksheet last week listing what she’s grateful for. There were the usual suspects: family, friends, our house—even “school” and “the planet” got a mention. But in bold, black marker, right in the middle, she wrote “life,” and underlined it.
That one word hit me straight in the gut. After months of talking about my parents’ health, she saw the bigger picture before I could articulate it myself: nothing else exists without life. And acknowledging that is the ultimate reframe.
Because the truth is, I get to cook. I get to feed myself and my family.
I’m alive. I’m breathing. My hands work. My brain still works (for now). I can write, develop and think through recipes—or ignore them completely and cook from instinct. I can teach. I can share. I can feed the people I love. That’s what “Cook Like a Chef” means to me.
My mom, Karen A. Levin, is the first true chef I ever knew. A prolific recipe developer and cookbook author—she lost her ability to cook in 2022, one year after being diagnosed with Primary Progressive Aphasia, a rarer form of frontotemporal degeneration (the same disease Bruce Willis is battling). She was 75 at the time, though looking back, she was showing symptoms closer to age 70—not finding the right words, having trouble changing Lily’s diaper, making typos in text messages and then later, looking checked out at events and struggling with driving and bill-paying. This disease is cruel, younger-onset, and steals language, movement, and independence long before memory. My mom doesn’t have Alzheimer’s disease, so she still recognizes me. Her joy is still there. Her light is still there—but it’s all been dimming these days
This newsletter is for her.*
For her legacy.
For the thousands of recipes she developed and the countless lessons she taught me through osmosis—standing beside her in the kitchen, acting as her unofficial sous chef long before I went to culinary school.
About that — and a little about me: I went to night culinary school at Kendall College while working full time as a staff editor for a B2B food industry magazine (back when Reed Business Information was still around in the Chicago suburbs). I earned my professional chef certificate, published six cookbooks (plus a few collaborations), and eventually went freelance in 2010. Since then, I’ve written for food industry magazines and editorial outlets, telling the stories of chefs, restaurants, the business of food, and all the ways food brings us together.
Before that, I was a crime and courts reporter for the Chicago Tribune’s breaking news service, until the low pay, late nights, and darker stories nudged me back to what I’ve always loved most — food — thanks to a childhood spent cooking with my mom, tagging along on her restaurant reviews, and soaking up the joy she found in Les Dames d’Escoffier. I’ve now been a member for more than a decade, just like she was.
My goal here is to share not only what I learned from my mom, but also from the many chefs and friends I’ve worked with over the years — so you don’t have to be a slave to recipes and can learn not just how to cook, but also how to manage your kitchen, plan your week and feed yourself (and others) with real confidence.
As a professional recipe developer myself, I’ll still share those recipes from my books and my mom’s archives as well as from my chef network—because they’re awesome and a great starting point. But I feel it’s more important to understand the why behind cooking—the techniques, the instincts, the little shifts that help you think like a chef so you can open your fridge, see what’s there, and cook something satisfying and soulful.
Because life is short, and it’s definitely too short to not eat well. That’s what my mom always said and she’s so right. And Liy’s right—I should be thankful just for life. Dinner doesn’t need to be boring. And cooking—even the simplest form of it—is one of the greatest ways to stay alive, connected, and nourished.
So here’s to new beginnings. And here’s to cooking like a chef.
*A huge thank you to my founding members for helping me kick off this newsletter and raise funds for The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration. Your support helps bring awareness to FTD so that, hopefully one day soon, fewer people and families will have to suffer. A portion of all paid subscriptions from this newsletter will go directly to the association to support education, research, and the search for better treatments—and ultimately, a cure.
What We’re Cooking This Week
It’s Thanksgiving! It’s also my mom’s favorite holiday of all time! Here are some favorites from my mom’s popular “Cooking Class Holiday Recipes” cookbook published by Publications International, Ltd., in the 90s, but that still stand the test of time:
(plus a recipe for a Basic Cornbread to use)
This book has made its way off our bookshelf and into our kitchen every year since we took over as our family’s Thanksgiving hosts five years ago. For sides, here’s a recipe for Green Bean Casserole with Kale from my Lake Michigan Cottage Cookbook and a recipe for Fluffy Garlic Mashed Potatoes I adapted from my mom’s collection. We also like to roast sweet potatoes and serve them with my mom’s Pecan Maple Butter (if my sister-in-law Nicole is attending, though, we swap the pecans for walnuts since she’s allergic to pecans). For dessert, here’s my mom’s Holiday Apple Pie recipe (plus a Basic Pie Dough recipe if you want to make your own) and a recipe for Libby’s Pumpkin Pie that my mom sometimes used. Top with Blender Whipped Cream.
Happy Thanksgiving!
On deck next week: I’ll introduce you to one of my chef friends for some fun tips and recipes!
Love this, Meils. What a great way to honor your awesome mom. Hugs.
Congratulations, Amelia! It’s a wonderful tribute to your mom.