TOWN OF DICKINSON (WIVT/WBGH) – Our latest Food and Farm Showcase features a local woman who is using the third chapter of her life to share her love of food.

Amy Wieber launched Flaming Bag a year ago.

It’s a meals to go and catering business that utilizes the Commercial Kitchen at the Broome County regional Farmers Market on Upper Front Street.

Each Wednesday, Wieber posts a menu online with a choice of 4 to 5 meals and side dishes for customers to order.

They are then picked up from the Farmers Market on Tuesday evenings.

There’s no subscription and customers can pick up as many dishes as they like, enough to feed a large group, or for one person to spread out over several days.

Wieber is originally from Long Island and came to Greater Binghamton for graduate school before spending 20 years working at UHS.

But when COVID arrived, she decided to pivot.

“I’ve always loved cooking. We would do small pasta parties, meals with friends. Then it started expanding out and I thought life is too short to not do what you love. This was my passion and this is what I love,” she said.

Wieber says that while her meals to go cannot accommodate special orders, she does try to include meals options that are vegetarian or vegan, gluten-free and Keto friendly.

She says she has a wide palate, with globally inspired dishes from the Mediterranean, Austria and Thailand but alos traditional American comfort foods such as meatloaf.

And Wieber says she focuses on fresh ingredients, including some lesser known ones.

“Some people think that they may not like an ingredient. For example, I love brussel sprouts and I’ve gotten people to eat brussel sprouts in a variety of ways. My style of cooking is really to try to challenge the people who are eating the food, to try something new and different either in the ingredient or in the form of cooking.”

Wieber says she plans to start partnering with CHOW to cook meals for the less fortunate.

Her menus are posted at Flaming Bag Food dot com at 2 p.m. every Wednesday.

Orders must be in by Sunday and then are picked up between 5 and 6:30 on Tuesdays.

The meals come fresh with instructions on how to reheat and can be frozen.