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With enticements like fortune, fancy cars and free loot, who wouldn’t want to be famous?
Amy Finley, that’s who.
In 2007, Finley was on the fast track to becoming the next Rachael Ray after she won The Next Food Network Star (the seventh season premieres June 5 at 9 p.m. ET) and got her own show on the network, The Gourmet Next Door. But after just six episodes, Finley walked away.
At the time, she cited a “family crisis” as the reason for the self-cancellation of her show, and now, four years later, has published a book detailing that family crisis: a marriage that was in shambles due to her sudden rise to fame. How to Eat a Small Country is, in Finley’s own words, “two books in one”: first, a tale about regional food and the tracing of familial roots; and second -- though perhaps more meaningful -- the story of a woman who gave up what she wanted to save her family.
iVillage recently spoke with Finley, a mother of two, about the book, her life post-Food Network and what she learned along the way.
Why was your husband so reluctant for you to become a star?
Greg didn’t want to be married to the next Rachael Ray, but he also didn’t want to be married to the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or a military officer -- his thing was that this is a job that’s going to be so preoccupying that he wasn’t sure he’d get me back. So Greg felt that his privacy was being invaded by the show -- it wasn’t because of the camera, it was the ability to feel like he and I are just “he and I” to each other. The fact that we know the most about each other was something that, in his mind, was about to be ripped wide open.
How did you approach him about the book then?
We talked about it, and what was funny was -- and I understand it because I think I read in the same sense -- in a book you can read yourself, and even read about things you’ve done, and somehow you still feel like it’s a character, because it’s just a version of yourself. But you also have the ability to be the editor who knows everything that’s been kept out. And so the things that felt the most personal were things I just didn’t put in there.
What made you audition for The Next Food Network Star?
I was feeling lost in the period of stay-at-home parenthood, when you’re in a panic about who you are. I remember when I actually got cast on the show, one of the things I was most excited about was that I was going to have a reason to go shopping and buy myself some real clothes because I would need to actually get dressed.
How did you get through those moments of panic before?
I don’t think I did get through them well! (Laughs.) The reason why I started the book with the phrase “Desperate times call for desperate measures” was because that’s how I felt a lot of the time -- I felt a little desperate. The first years that you’re home (with kids) seems reasonable, it’s explainable to future employers, but by the time I got to, like, five years, I started wondering if I could even go back and do the same thing I was doing before.
You said earlier that you didn’t go to France to write this book. Why did you go?
Ultimately when we were in France, I was trying to put my sense of self back together again. A part of it had to do with learning to surrender to the idea that really and truly, children had changed my life for forever in such wonderful ways, and yet also ways where I wasn’t going to go back to when things were neat and uncomplicated, and there were easy solutions that would seem to present themselves. Everything was going to be a compromise, and the compromises would sometimes feel like they were 20/80 and sometimes they would feel like they were 50/50, and the point was to have a voice again with Greg -- where I wasn’t just being silent and making everything his fault because that was a very easy way to not have to change anything.
What have you learned from all this?
For me it’s realizing that there are two things that get you through it: One is gratitude and one is courage.
What’s next for you?
To keep writing, first and foremost, and to keep cooking. I was a writer before I ever went to cooking school, so this has been a neat way to bring both of those pieces of my life together. I really want to keep writing and to keep writing especially about food, and that intersection between food and our lives, because that’s the thing I always thought was the most interesting about food -- not just the recipes or the trend of the moment.
