Editor’s Note: This season on The Gomes Guide Podcast, I’m pulling up a seat with friends from the food world, chefs, cookbook authors, wine experts, and tastemakers for conversations about flavor, hospitality, travel, and connection. Think of Season 4 as a gathering around the table, one delicious conversation at a time.
There’s something that happens when you sit down with someone who truly loves food — not as a performance, not as content — but as the actual language they use to connect with the world. That’s exactly who Amanda Haas is. A cookbook author (four books in, fifth on the way), former culinary director at Williams-Sonoma, recipe developer, and founder of Amanda Haas Cooks and House of Haas Live on Substack, Amanda has spent decades teaching people that cooking doesn’t have to be perfect to be meaningful. What it has to be is real.
In our conversation, we went deep on food, travel, midlife, and the radical act of just… doing the thing. Whether that’s hosting a dinner party in a house with no art on the walls yet, or building a whole new chapter of your life from scratch. Amanda brought the warmth, the honesty, and — naturally — the lemon.
🎧 Click on the above audio link to listen to our podcast interview on Substack, or find and listen to “The Gomes Guide Travel Podcast” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
The Grandmother Effect
Every great cook has an origin story, and Amanda’s starts where the best ones usually do — at her grandmother’s table.
“Whether she was making pot roast or tuna noodle casserole, she would serve an English muffin with raspberry jam next to it and just make it a little fancy and fun. She just put love into it.”
That early memory of food as ritual — as something worth doing with intention — never left her. It’s the thread that runs through everything she does now, from her test kitchen days to her live cooking videos on Substack.
The Two Cuisines That Made Her
Ask Amanda where she always returns in the kitchen, and the answer is immediate: Mexico and Italy.
Growing up in Arizona gave her a foundation in real Mexican cooking. Time spent in Italy did something else entirely.
“I always go back to Italy. It just felt like my absolute place. You’re just taking the best, freshest things and making something delicious.”
Good olive oil. Great garlic. Some tomatoes. A little cheese. That’s the philosophy — and honestly, it’s hard to argue with.
The Anti-Inflammation Message (Before It Was a Buzzword)
Amanda wrote The Anti-Inflammation Cookbook before “anti-inflammatory” became the wellness world’s favorite phrase. Her advice then — and now — is refreshingly unsexy: just cook at home with real ingredients.
“It doesn’t mean just all vegetables. It means legumes, beans, rice, any great beef, chicken, fish, vegetables and fruits. Just incorporating real ingredients into your diet will make a huge difference.”
She’s not selling a detox. She’s selling Tuesday night dinner. And I think that’s exactly why people listen to her.
What Williams-Sonoma Taught Her About Confidence
During her years as culinary director at Williams-Sonoma (where we met, when I was the PR Manager at Williams-Sonoma), Amanda spent her lunch hours teaching corporate employees to cook in the test kitchen. What she learned wasn’t about technique. It was about fear.
“Food can smell fear. When you’re nervous, intimidated — that food knows. But this is a joyful process. There’s no such thing as messing up.”
Her whole approach comes down to this: the invitation matters more than the execution. People want to be gathered. They don’t actually care if the soufflé fell.
The Midlife Permission Slip
This is where the conversation got real. Amanda is an empty nester, divorced, building something new — and she’s not framing any of it as loss. She’s framing it as finally.
She quoted her friend Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action:
“Men are taught to chase their desires. Women chase obligation.”
Amanda’s response to that? Relief. Recognition. And a kind of ferocious clarity about what this season of life actually offers — if you let it.
“I wake up every day being like, this is my life. What do I want to do?”
We also talked about how losing estrogen in midlife does something unexpected: it makes it genuinely harder to people-please. Neurologically. Which, she and I both agreed, is maybe the best plot twist of the whole thing.
A Love Letter to San Francisco
Since we both live in San Francisco and deeply love food, it was only natural that we spent time talking about the city. Amanda moved back a couple of years ago after two decades away — and she’s been rediscovering it on foot, neighborhood by neighborhood, without a car.
“To be here every day and walk out my front door just feels like such a privilege.”
She talked about morning coffee at Saint Frank on Polk Street, Greek food at Souvla on Chestnut, tacos at Tacolicious, oysters at Popi’s Oysterette (where the chef shops the Ferry Building farmers market every Thursday and Saturday — Amanda sometimes tags along). And for a special occasion: Dalida in the Presidio, which she fell hard for.
What struck me most was the affection behind all of it. She’s not restaurant-hopping for content. She’s building a life in a city she loves, supporting the people who feed it.
“If I’m going to give my money somewhere, it’s going to go to someone who’s putting this much love and time in.”
Our conversation moved beyond food too — into live music spilling out of North Beach bars, nights at Bimbo’s, outdoor concerts, the arts revival happening all over the city. It reminded me that San Francisco’s magic was never just about the restaurants. It’s the spirit of the place.
For all the grim headlines San Francisco has endured these past few years, Amanda and I can tell you firsthand: the city has never felt more thriving. The creativity, the food, the energy — it’s all here. San Francisco is back.
Retreats, Bali, Fiji — and What Travel Actually Does
Amanda has hosted retreats in Fiji and Bali, and has one coming up locally in the SF Bay Area at Cavallo Point in Marin this fall. Her take on why they work isn’t mystical — it’s practical.
“It allows you to connect with yourself in a way you can’t do when you’re at home. I have the best intentions every day to meditate… and then I have to change the laundry.”
Bali felt immediately familiar to her — the people, the culture, the ease of it. Fiji surprised her with its food rituals: cooking fish, vegetables, and coconut milk over an open fire on the beach.
The Rapid Fire Round
One ingredient on almost everything? Lemon. Always lemon. “The richer the dish, the more I want it.”
Dream dinner guest? Jennifer Garner. “She embodies what I try to share — it’s just about doing the thing and bringing people together around food.”
Ultimate food escape destination? Italy always. But if she wants to blow people’s minds? Mexico City.
Last meal on Earth? Chicken tacos from Tacubaya in the East Bay (double-poached chicken, cucumber tomato salsa, shallow-fried crispy tortilla), a seared ribeye with great fries, pizza or pasta, a lemon curd tart, and — even though she doesn’t drink alcohol anymore — “a glass of Italian red in my hand, just enjoying the smell.”
Final Thoughts
I walked away from this conversation thinking about the word Amanda kept coming back to: permission. Permission to cook imperfectly. Permission to host in an undecorated house. Permission to reinvent yourself at 50. Permission to put lemon on literally everything.
She’s not teaching people how to be chefs. She’s teaching them how to stop waiting until they’re ready — and just do the thing. Whether that’s dinner for six or a completely new chapter of your life.
You can find Amanda at amandahaascooks.com, on Instagram at @amandahaascooks, and on Substack at Amanda Haas. Go follow her live cooking shows on Substack - you’ll be so glad you did!
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Meet Amanda Haas
Amanda Haas is a best-selling cookbook author, culinary instructor, and public speaker who has spent decades helping people cook—and now live—in ways that truly support their health. At 53, she is navigating midlife in real time, living with chronic pain and complex diagnoses including Lyme disease and autoimmune disorders. Rather than accepting symptom management alone, Amanda is actively seeking answers—partnering with traditional physicians, naturopaths, and chronic pain specialists to get to the root causes of her illness. She approaches her health as an informed, curious participant, continually learning and listening to her body.
Formerly the Culinary Director at Williams Sonoma, Amanda led the brand’s test kitchen for seven years, overseeing the development and testing of more than 120 food SKUs annually, launching wellness and gluten-free initiatives, and teaching millions of home cooks through classes, live demonstrations, and video. She was also the first to host live cooking demonstrations with celebrity chefs for major media events.
Amanda is the author of four cookbooks with more than 120,000 copies sold, including the best-selling The Anti-Inflammation Cookbook. Today, her work centers on supporting women through midlife with practical, evidence- informed guidance that blends food, wellness, and lived experience. She connects with a highly engaged community through Instagram and her Substack, House of Haas, and partners with brands she genuinely believes in to help women find clarity, resilience, and better answers as they age.
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