For Alison Milwe Grace, owner of Wilton-based AMG Catering and Events, her love of cooking started when she was in elementary school baking for her friends.
“I love to bake and I would bring my bakes to all my friends and realized that it made them super happy,” Grace recalled. “So I think that was probably like an ‘aha’ moment for me.”
Grace’s love of cooking and the knowledge she gained along the way has now culminated in her first cookbook, Savor — Recipes to Celebrate. The book is available on Amazon and at Grace’s catering kitchen at 196 Danbury Rd.
The cookbook — described as a collection of Grace’s favorite recipes, themed classes and menus — contains over 20 celebratory menus for occasions such as Cinco de Mayo, a backyard barbecue, or for guests on New Year’s Eve.
“I went back and forth trying to figure out how to organize this book. It’s organized by holidays, but when I say holiday, I don’t mean Christmas. It’s called Recipes to Celebrate. So basically what I’m trying to convey is that there is always an occasion and a reason to make a good meal and celebrate something with friends and family,” Grace said.
Grace said the cookbook was something she thought about doing for about 10 years. As someone who has appeared on two Food Network shows — “Kitchen Casino” and “Supermarket Steakout” — and has had her recipes appear in numerous publications, Grace has done many interviews when she was asked what her next step would be.
“I’m always like, ‘Oh, I think I’m going to write a cookbook.’” Grace recalled. “I was just sick of hearing myself talk about it and not do it. So I woke up one morning and was like, ‘That’s it. I can’t listen to myself talk about it. I have to just do it.’”
The process of putting together the cookbook, which took around 14 months, was intensive.
“Everything was new to me. It was really hard to choose which recipes I wanted and to organize the recipes. It was really hard for me to figure out what title I wanted, what theme I wanted,” Grace said. She also had to plan which meals to take photos of.
“Food photography takes forever. I only did one photo per three recipes. In a perfect world, I would have liked to have had a picture for every recipe, but literally the book would not have come out to print for probably another year,” she said.
Feedback for the book has been very positive, but has also provided Grace with some ideas for the next one.
“What I’m finding is I’m getting tons of requests for things that aren’t in the book. Everyone’s like, ‘Why isn’t this in the book? Why isn’t your butternut squash bisque in the book? Why isn’t your Caesar dressing in the book?’ I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I have to write another book!’” she said, laughing.
In addition to teaching adults in her catering kitchen, Grace is the culinary arts teacher at Staples High School in Westport. She is also a James Beard Scholarship recipient.
Most recently, Grace has been nominated for Caterer of the Year for the 2024 Crazies Awards, an annual awards gala hosted by the Connecticut Restaurant Association. (Fans can still vote for Grace online.)
After managing restaurants earlier in her career, Grace discovered that what she really wanted to do was cooking. After graduating from what is now the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City in the mid-1990s, Grace worked for and learned from several caterers and chefs before starting her own catering company in Connecticut 28 years ago.
Grace said she has always enjoyed a challenge.
“I just like to constantly take myself out of my comfort zone. I think it keeps me kind of relevant and alive in my career,” Grace said. “I love to check things off a list and I am so happy that I don’t have to hear myself talk about writing a cookbook anymore and that I actually did it.”
Book signings Grace has scheduled include Thursday, Nov. 21 from 5-7 p.m. at LA Home at The SoNo Collection (100 North Water Street, South Norwalk) and Monday, Dec. 23 from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at the Westport Farmer’s Market (7 Sylvan Ln., Westport).