Author and chef Amy Thielen had never spent much time in Austin before Wednesday. But after arriving Wednesday evening, the former host of The Food Network’s “Heartland Table” spent all day yesterday becoming familiar with the city.

“I love the downtown,” she said. “I love all of the natural waterways coming through Austin. The people seem to like culture, like arts, books, food, things that I care about, which I appreciate.”

Thielen, a native of Park Rapids, was in town per invitation from the Austin Page Turners. Her memoir “Give a Girl a Knife” was chosen for this year’s City Wide Read event.

“I’m really excited they chose it,” she said. “It’s an honor to have your book chosen for the entire city to read and celebrate. It feels really special to me because (my book) is a lot about the Midwest and northern Minnesota. I come from a small town and the book is about that place. It feels nice to have a little bit bigger town than Park Rapids, but still a small town, reading my book.”

Thielen’s day was busy, beginning with a tour of the Austin Public Library, where she conducted a morning writer’s workshop. After lunch at Tienda Y Taqueria Guerrero, she spoke to Austin High School students in Knowlton Auditorium. Following dinner at Piggy Blues BBQ, she gave a presentation at the Hormel Historic Home, where she discussed her book, writing about food and the special place of Midwestern food in the greater culture. Those in attendance with a copy of “Give a Girl a Knife” or her James Beard Award-winning cookbook “The New Midwestern Table” were able to get their books signed.

In “Give a Girl a Knife,” Thielen related her experience of moving from Park Rapids to work in restaurants in New York City. She described the two places as “so opposite and so different that they almost meet.”

“When I lived in Brooklyn, it felt almost like a small town,” she said, “I think it’s human nature to create that. When people live in a small neighborhood in Brooklyn, you see the same person at the bodega everyday, you see the same people in the subway. There is this repetition of faces and it becomes a really small community. I think that’s what people mean when they say ‘I love New York.’ They love that small interaction that is really not that dissimilar from Minnesota.”

“There’s no Thai takeout in Park Rapids,” she added. “That I miss.”

For her, writing the book was about recapturing what she called “taste memories.” One of her most significant taste memories was that of her grandmother’s potato doughnuts.

“My grandmother had a recipe for potato doughnuts and they were so tender and super soft,” she said. “I found the same recipe, down to the quarter teaspoon, in an old cookbook from the 1920s and they were called ‘spud nuts.’ When I made those, I took them to a book signing and a guy took a bite of one and, with powdered sugar pouring out of his mouth, he asked, ‘Are these potato doughnuts?’ They’re instantly recognizable.”

When asked about the current state of Midwestern food, Thielen simply said, “Midwestern food is still in flux.”

Thielen will be attending the Women Chefs and Restaurateurs Conference next weekend in the Twin Cities.