An Amanda of All Seasons

Like a sip of sweet southern tea on a warm summer day, it’s hard to have a bad day after having a conversation with Amanda Lane.

Originally from Standord, Kentucky, Amanda has called Saratoga home for nearly a decade. For most of that time, she has worked at Valley Foods & Liquors where she greets everyone—especially children—with a beaming smile.

“About two weeks from the time I moved in [to Saratoga], I got my job here and I’ve been here ever since,” said Amanda. “I love working here. I love the people and talking recipes with people.”

As if her sunny disposition wasn’t enough to make her stand out, probably one of the most noticeable things about Amanda is the various ways she styles her blonde hair. On a daily basis, she will have her hair styled in different ways to reflect the various seasons or holidays. The summer brings with it sunflowers while fall brings leaves and pumpkins. It’s something that Amanda enjoys and her customers seem to enjoy it, too.

“People come in and are like ‘I just had to see what you did with your hair today,’” said Amanda. “I really like it and people really like it, too. So it’s win-win. It makes people happy, it makes me happy.”

Where Amanda really seems to shine, however, is the weeks leading up to Halloween. Customers are likely to see her wearing different costumes, in the past having dressed as Minnie Mouse, Marilyn Monroe or even Vault Girl from the popular ‘Fallout’ video game series. While customers enjoy her style throughout the year, it’s the children with whom Amanda seems to connect with the most. Seeing the children is one of the things she enjoys about working at the grocery store.

“Kids are really honest with their emotions and them just being excited to see you, it just makes you feel good. It’s so unbelievably sweet,” said Amanda, who doesn’t have any children of her own. “I don’t have any children. There’s a huge age gap between me and my two youngest little brothers, so I was the one who stayed home when they were younger. So it’s like I had two.”

While Amanda appears to be an extrovert while working at Valley Foods, she said she is more of a homebody. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t get around town—often seen on her noticeable yellow bicycle—and visit the shops downtown. That trip to Saratoga’s downtown often includes a stop at Bridge Street Bargains. She prefers to spend most of her time playing video games, reading or spending time with her two cats: Cream and Sugar.

When it comes to video games, Amanda said she doesn’t prefer one console over another. She owns an XBox, a Playstation, a Nintendo Switch and several older consoles. This gives her a large backlog of to-be-played video games, giving her the option to play “what sounds fun at the time.”

As for reading, Amanda enjoys a little bit of everything.

“Right now, I’m reading a lot of manhwas, mostly Korean-based manga,” said Amanda. “Isekai stories where they’re taken to another world, mostly fantasy stuff.”

Manhwa are Korean comic books, similar to Japanese comic books or manga. Originally introduced to the United States in the 1980s, manga didn’t really take hold until the 2000s. Now, it is estimated the industry generates around $240 million a year. From 2019 to 2022, 28.4 million copies were sold in the United States.

Isekai, meanwhile, is a subgenre of Japanese fiction in which the main character is transported to another world. This world is typically a fantasy world but can include a parallel world or a video game world. The displaced in these novels may or may not be able to return to their original world.

Along with manga and manhwa, Amanda also likes to read Stephen King. She lists ‘Carrie’ and ‘IT’ as her favorite King novels, even though the latter ruined clowns for her.

As if all that wasn’t enough, Amanda also enjoys drawing, painting, sewing and baking.

“I do love drawing, but I do like painting. I do watercolors sometimes and acrylics. I’ve done a few oil [paintings] but they are very long, drawn out sort-of things so I haven’t done very many,” said Amanda. “During Christmastime, me and my mom like to enter the Festival of Trees. Last year, we did one [that was] ‘Starry Night’ themed and I hand painted all the wooden ornaments for the tree and it went over really well. 2020 was when we did our first tree and we did a Grinch-themed tree. That particular year, it was the second-highest bidded tree.”

The Grinch-themed tree included hand-painted ornaments of the Grinch holding a medical mask with the words “2020 Stink, Stank, Stunk.” The sentiment appeared to be shared by the Rustic Bar, which commissioned Amanda to paint 30 more similar ornaments.

“We did a ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ themed one and I actually hand sewed a Jack Skellington doll,” said Amanda.

When it comes to baking, Amanda’s current obsession is sugarplum danishes.

“They were much easier to make than I thought they were going to be,” said Amanda. “My mom had been wanting them because she used to get them at Starbucks, but they are a very seasonal item. So I looked them up and [they were] super easy.”

She still remembers her very first attempt at baking by herself when she made a peach pie. According to Amanda, the first attempt saw her mix up tablespoons and teaspoons resulting in a very salty crust for the peach pie.

“I’ve not made that same mistake much more,” said Amanda. “The only other time I did that, I’m blaming my dad because, who keeps a giant thing of curing salt above the stove.”

Whether it’s visual art or baking, Amanda seems to like to take the do-it-yourself approach.

“I love making things from scratch,” said Amanda. “Anytime I can make it with the stuff I have, I would prefer to do it than have to buy a bunch of extra stuff with the exception of puff pastry.”

Now nearly 10 years into calling Saratoga her home, Amanda doesn’t appear to regret leaving her home state of Kentucky. According to her, what really makes the area special is the people.

“The people really make the place,” said Amanda. “They’re salt-of-the-earth people and they are who they say they are.”