Amanda Mary Batchelor
January 13, 1965 – October 21, 2021
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AMANDA BATCHELOR
Amanda Batchelor’s shopping lists tell a rich story of an impassioned foodie and dinner party host. With printed recipes and grocery basket firmly in hand, Amanda composed exquisite culinary dishes long before cheering friends took their first bites. Now only an empty table and empty chairs remain after she succumbed on October 21 at 56 years of age to advanced cancer at Bridgepoint Health Centre in Toronto.
Though her soft heart led to a calling in nonprofit fundraising, most recently at North York General Hospital Foundation, feeding her family and friends was Amanda’s main joy in life. Here Ina Garten was the real head of her profession. Amanda owned all the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks, each suitably dog-eared. The more butter, the better, was her motto. Invitations to Amanda’s dinners, especially holiday affairs, had cachet. With prized saucepans, skillets and stirring spoons to hand, she would have water at a roiling boil or the fat and juices of her roasted chicken or meats wafting the air before her dishes, plated and crowned with fresh herbs, arrived at the table to applause. Amanda would nod modestly while waving her guests to tuck in and top up their drinks. But arguably her greatest achievement was to pull together from her youth, university, her years working as a stocktrader’s assistant on Bay Street and then in public relations and philanthropy an extraordinary coterie of friends and young protégés.
She was never more nurturing and protective than when dining out one-on-one with her irreplaceable girlfriends, confiding and dishing about boy problems, climbing the workplace ladder or landing The One as they clinked wine glasses — because stories don’t tell themselves. The increasingly anguished texts and emails friends sent Amanda as her terminal illness progressed only underlined how lovingly and loyally this wise sage had touched their lives with intelligence, laughter and affection.
Always cutting a certain style in life, Amanda preferred fine materials, intense friendships, Dutch bikes, big round readers, dry wit and her pearls and silver necklaces. When in doubt, pop your collar, she’d advise. Amanda glowed when speaking about her parents and upbringing in Oakville, Ontario. But despising office bullies tempered her sympathy for the privilege from which she came. After E.J. James School and Oakville Trafalgar High School, Amanda graduated from TASIS American School in London, England where she embraced 80s Brit Pop and Delia Smith cookbooks. She followed a communications degree at Carleton University with public relations and fundraising management degrees at Ryerson University and Humber College. A need to change lives through good causes led her to work at JVS Toronto and The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation, followed by East Metro Youth Services and Crohn’s and Colitis Canada.
In her final exit from palliative care, amid impressively caring doctors and nurses, Amanda died on her own terms, having flown free from pain and a body no longer her own. Set for burial by Kopriva Taylor Funeral Home in St. Jude’s Cemetery in Oakville, next to late parents John and Mary Lou Batchelor, she leaves behind brother Patrick, sister Brooke (Richard Graham), twin brother Anthony (Mary Wainwright) and nieces and nephews Georgia, Charlotte Elizabeth, Chloe, Duncan and Catharine. And she is also survived by her husband of 18 years, Etan Vlessing. Tears dry, memories fade, but legends live on, as will Amanda as she reaches heaven by the rays of a rising sun. The family asks remembrances be made through donating to The Amanda Batchelor Scholarship Fund at Humber College.
Our most sincere sympathies to the family and friends of Amanda Mary Batchelor January 13 1965 October 21 2021..
Kopriva Taylor Community Funeral Home
Death notice for the town of: Oakville, Province: Ontario