Amy Aloe ’02 is the head chef at a cabin in the wilderness of northern Maine. Amy studied molecular biology at Kenyon College and received a master’s in genetic counseling from the University of Pittsburgh. After accepting a fellowship position in 2011 at Baystate Medical Center, she soon realized what she had suspected all along – she liked genetic counseling in theory better than practice.

After deciding to take a break from her “chosen” path, Amy went out to pursue her passions. She began working as a naturalist with the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC), an outdoor recreation and conservation organization in New England. She was placed at Mizpah Spring Hut at Mt. Pierce in New Hampshire’s White Mountain National Forest. One of her job responsibilities was cooking throughout a 14-hour day for up to 60 people. As a part of this role, she and her fellow staffers had to carry food and supplies on their backs from the nearest road, a 2.7 mile trek!

When the position ended, Amy became a cook at a more upscale AMC lodge, the Gorman Chairback Lodge and Cabins. Here, she made 7 mile journeys to the lodge with food supplies in minus 20-degree temperatures on a snowmobile.

Amy was recently promoted to head chef at another AMC lodge, Little Lyford. “I’ve finally decided to stop denying the creative side of myself,” Amy said. “I am a nurturer at heart, and I feel like that’s why I thought of health care. I’ve always wanted to make the world a better place, and now I feel like I am doing that at the most basic level – through food.”

You can follow Amy’s culinary and woodsy adventures on her blog at www.cookingscraps.com.