The Gourmet Next Door

Amy Finley
Born	1973 (age 43–44) San Diego, California
Education	École Gregoire-Ferrandi
Culinary career
Television show(s) The Gourmet Next Door

Amy Finley (born in 1973 in San Diego, California) is an American cook and writer, who was the winner of the third season of The Next Food Network Star awarded a commitment to host a cooking show on the Food Network. Her program The Gourmet Next Door premiered on October 14, 2007, and aired for six episodes before Finley, citing a family crisis, controversially cancelled further episodes and moved with her husband and children to a rural farm in Burgundy, France, an episode she chronicled in How to Eat a Small Country.

Finley is a married mother of two children, a son named Indiana and a daughter named Scarlett. She attended Valhalla High School in El Cajon. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from UCLA in 1995, after which she worked for the University of California, first at her alma mater, then at UCSD, where she was a science writer for the San Diego Supercomputer Center. She is the former assistant editor of Appellation Wine Country Living and Sun Valley Magazine. She met her husband and graduated from the École Gregoire-Ferrandi in Paris in 2001, worked briefly at the influential Rose Bakery in Paris in 2003, and in 2004 published a travel book on Italy, The Adventure Guide to the Italian Riviera. Since appearing on NFNS she has written for Bon Appetit and San Diego Magazine and has appeared on The View and The Splendid Table on NPR in addition to other national and regional magazines, television and radio programs. Her culinary inspirations are French grandmothers and Julia Child. Her food writing has been influenced by Waverly Root.