People who pick up Amy Heyd’s new book, “Saints at the Dinner Table,” will find original recipes for every season and taste, as well as a fresh look at the lives of 12 saints and holy people and how their spirituality is revealed in each dish.

A closer look shows something more, however.

The basic stock for the book is love — love for cooking, love for tradition, love for family. She has seasoned it with a desire to leave something for her three children that will give them a flavor of what’s important about life and faith.

“I’m always looking for ways to teach my kids the right thing,” Heyd told The Catholic Post before a book signing at Lagron-Miller in Peoria last week. “I’m in a Bible study and I love it when you read something and then sit with your friends and talk about what it really means and how to apply it and what am I supposed to be doing?”

As she was researching “Saints at the Dinner Table,” Heyd looked for men and women who had a lesson to share. In addition to a story illuminating some aspect of the saint’s life and recipes to go with it, she includes a meal prayer and suggests a number of questions to discuss during dinner.

“Because I love cooking — I love to celebrate with food — I thought what could be better than to prepare a meal and celebrate this saint and then talk about it,” said Heyd, who lives in Cincinnati. “After I’ve gotten to know these saints, when I prepare the meals I’m thinking about what makes them special.”

She is quick to point out that while she takes great joy in working with food — she was a finalist in the Pillsbury Bake-Off in 2000 and her recipe for Chocolate-Cherry Crisp can still be found on the Pillsbury Web site — she is not a professional chef. She holds a degree in marketing from the University of Dayton, where she took two cooking classes.

“None of them require a master’s degree in culinary arts to prepare,” Heyd promised. “Some of them are more time consuming than others, but a lot of them I tried to make easy and quick to prepare because most people today don’t want to spend a ton of time cooking.”

Published by St. Anthony Messenger Press, “Saints at the Dinner Table” can be found at Lagron-Miller for $19.95. A number of signed copies are still available. For more information, call Gina McKenna at (309) 674-5143 or (800) 322-8116.