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027: Tara Austen Weaver: How to Get Started on a Garden

April 17, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Tara Austen Weaver of Tea and Cookies on The Dinner Special podcast talking about food writing.
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Tara Austen Weaver of Tea and Cookies on The Dinner Special podcast on How to Get Started on a Garden

Tea and Cookies

A life-long traveler and adventurer, Tara is trained as a master gardener and permaculture designer. Editor of Edible Seattle and writer of the award winning blog Tea & Cookies.

I am so excited to have Tara Austen Weaver, author of the new book Orchard House: How a Neglected Garden Taught One Family to Grow, here on the show today.

On Food Writing:

Tara Austen Weaver of Tea and Cookies on The Dinner Special podcast talking about food writing.

It’s funny, I actually fell into food writing completely by accident.

I had always been a writer, but I mostly wrote travel and then I went to graduate school and was writing some fiction and non-fiction. It’s funny, because I didn’t pick up on it at the time. But a lot of people in my workshop group, I was writing a novel that was in Japan, people would say, “When I read your chapters, I always find myself at the refrigerator afterwards, looking for something to eat. I love the way you write about food.” But it never occurred to me.

Then I got sick, this was at the end of 2005, after the holidays. I got really sick and I was in bed for two months, really just exhausted. We didn’t know what was going on. Years later, it was discovered that I had had mono. But the doctor never, it never occurred to him.

So I was just tired, but I couldn’t really do anything. I had discovered food blogs in about November of that year. I just followed a link. Blogs were pretty young then and I had never heard of a food blog. I thought, “Huh! I’m not interested in this weird blog thing but food blog sounds interesting.”

I just fell into this world, and here were these people who were so passionate about cooking and food. In the geeky way that I was. They are having dinner parties and talking about their recipes and posting pictures. And for a couple of weeks, I just read blogs.

No one had been blogging more than a year then. But it was wonderful and it was this community. They all seem to know each other.

And then, it was January 1, I just decided to start a blog. I thought that I would just do it for a couple of weeks until I felt better and could go back to work. And I didn’t even put my name on it. It was anonymous and it was just sort of my little secret. I didn’t tell my friends and I certainly didn’t want my writing clients or editing clients to find it. But it was the most fun writing I had ever done, and I was posting everyday.

It was so much fun to go to the market and have a reason to make these recipes and to share them, and then other people started leaving comments. It just sucked me in. And it was actually about three years that I didn’t have my name on it.

The food blog world was really small back then, but within a month or two, editors started contacting me and asking me to write about food. Maybe just one or two, but that never happens. I had been a writer up to that point. So it was just kind of amazing.

They responded to the voice on the blog and I said in my bio that I was a professional writer, so they sort of assumed that I would be able to do these jobs. It just took off. After three months, a friend of mine who is an agent, read a post and she said, “You should write a book about this.” So that turned into a book contract, it really just happened very organically.

On Her Interest in Cooking:

Tara Austen Weaver of Tea and Cookies on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her interest in cooking.

I have a mother who’s a horrible cook. She will tell you this, the joke in my family is that my brother and I learned how to cook in self-defense.

My mom was a single parent when I was growing up and still. And we had a couple of babysitters who lived with us.

Some of them were horrible. But we had one in particular who really liked to cook. She would take the plums that fell off our tree and make jam, and make pickles. She would make kimchi, which was sort of hippie 1970s, 80s, Northern California, white person kimchi. But it was really good and she made like, we called it baby kimchi. A version for us without spices, but we really liked it because it was salty.

I think that that was the spark, seeing someone enjoy themselves in the kitchen. She was with us for awhile and then she moved away. And at that point, we were sort of growing out of needing babysitters. I was about 13 I think when I started taking over all the cooking for my family. I enjoyed it and my mom hated it and she wasn’t good at it, and so I would give her a shopping list and she would go and bring back the ingredients I wanted.

Mollie Katzen actually, who wrote the Moosewood Cookbook. I feel like she was my cooking teacher, because I would just make all the recipes.

When I was on the tour for my first book, she came to my event and I had sent her a copy of the book because I mentioned her in it. She had emailed me to say how much she enjoyed it. And she came to my event and I didn’t have my copy of the book to show her. I really, really wanted to.

It’s funny, because I came to this as a writer and not as a recipe developer or chef or anything like that. So I’m always surprised when people make the recipes. And in the beginning, I was actually terrified. Like it worked for me, I hope it works for you. But people do say, sometimes they’ll leave a comment and say, “I make this all the time, every time I get sick, I make this.” It’s like part of my family and my kitchen, goes into their kitchen and their family. It’s a lovely thing.

On Her Book, Orchard House: How a Neglected Garden Taught One Family to Grow:

Tara Austen Weaver of Tea and Cookies on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her book Orchard House.

The book is set in Seattle and it is a story of a somewhat broken family, which will be mine.

I was looking for property for my mom who wanted to move to Seattle, because my brother and I both live here. In the process, I discovered this sort of not totally exciting house that happened to be on half an acre of land within the city limits which was really, really unusual.

I put it on the list of properties to look at just because I was curious. I said, “If we have extra time, let’s go see it.”

We did, we went and we all just fell in love with this yard. It was completely overgrown. It’d been neglected for about 10 years. Blackberry vines everywhere and it just felt like a secret garden.

My sister-in-law and my nieces were with us that day and the girls were running wild in the sunshine and coming back with berry juice all over their face, and their arms full of Asian pears and it just was this magical moment.

My mother decided to buy the house and moved to Seattle, and all of us were going to work together to bring the garden back to life. Of course the garden sort of ends up bringing us back to life, bringing us together. So yeah, it’s about growing food but also a lot about family and community in Seattle. Which I find to be a really unique community, and discovering unexpected things and overgrown deserted locations.

I didn’t go into it thinking I would ever write about it. A friend of mine when she heard me talking and heard how excited I was about the garden, she was the one who said, “You really need to write about this.” It really has been a pretty unexpected journey but a really wonderful one.

On Getting Started with a Garden:

Tara Austen Weaver of Tea and Cookies on The Dinner Special podcast talking about getting started on a garden.

I recommend starting with herbs. Because they are not that hard, and tremendously rewarding and it will save you so much money because you don’t have to buy an entire bunch of rosemary to get one sprig.

I don’t know about you, but I always have these bunches of herbs that are getting slimy in my fridge because I didn’t use all of the cilantro. But they are rosemary, thyme, oregano. These are some very chives as well, very hardy plants. If you’re putting them in the ground especially.

I think a lot of people try with house plants or grow herbs in their kitchen and get discouraged because they die. The problem with putting something in a pot is that it’s going to dry up pretty quickly. And most people put things in pots that are too small.

So the plant looks great at the nursery, it’s in a pot. But when you get it home, you actually need to take it out of that pot and put it in a pot that it is generally twice as big. Those roots need somewhere to go.

I grow herbs in my kitchen in the winter, because actually this huge garden is at my mother’s house. I don’t live there, so I need some herbs for my kitchen. I generally expect that they are going to die at some point in the winter. Sometimes they make it through all the way and I put them in the ground in the spring, but often times especially if I get to travel anywhere, they die. I just accepted that that is part of the process.

I think that is another thing, is that sometimes plants when taken out of their native environment will die. One of the gardeners in my clinic, the master gardener says, “You just have to accept that this is part of the cycle of life and gardening means sometimes death.”

On Good Resources for Starting on a Garden:

Tara Austen Weaver of Tea and Cookies on The Dinner Special podcast talking about some good resources on gardening.

I love Gayla Trail, who is is a Canadian garden writer and she has a site that she’s been keeping for probably a decade now called You Grow Girl. I think she has a fantastic approach, series of books.

Margaret Roach is out of New York or Massachusetts. She was the garden editor for Martha Stewart for years, her site is A Way To Garden.

The third person I would point you towards is Willi Galloway, who is out of Portland, she used to live here in Seattle. She has a great book particularly if you are a food person, it’s called Grow Cook Eat. She talks about growing food but also has recipes, so you can trace the whole cycle. It’s a really inspiring book.

Those are three people who will not steer you wrong. And there is an entire garden blog community that I am just starting to explore.

The other book that I think is really great and I’ve had a copy since I was in high school, but it’s sort of encyclopedic but a good resource is Barbara Damrosch, who is a very famous garden writer and I bought her book when I was in high school. I think it’s a Garden Primer, that is a resource that I’m always going back to.

The Pressure Cooker:

(*The camera angle’s not the best but Tara shares a ton of really good information. Thanks Tara!)

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I’m watching a lot of garden shows these days, Alys Fowler‘s series out of the BBC is really fantastic. It’s all about edible gardening. So that’s kind of cooking and garden related.

What are some food blogs or websites we have to know about?

I have a lot of friends who have been blogging since my early days and I’m sure you know all of them. So I’m going to tell you about a more recent blog, The Yellow House. She lives out of D.C. in the Virginia countryside, and it’s beautiful, beautiful writing. Really lovely recipes and gorgeous photography, I’m a huge fan of her work.

Who do you follow on social media that make you happy?

I’m going to call out a rising star here in Seattle, Brittany Wright, and her Instagram’s feed is Wright Kitchen. She is an upcoming food photographer and does these amazing color gradients with food, just go look at her feed. It’s really inspiring.

What is the most unusual or treasured item you have in your kitchen?

I have a lot of tea pots that people have given me as gifts that I really treasure. I actually love everything in my kitchen that has been a present, because every time I use it, I think of that person and I feel like I have my people with me when I’m cooking.

So even a set of measuring spoons that were a gift from friends, it really is, I feel like my people are around me.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love.

Eggplant. When I was a kid, I used to lie to people and tell them that I was allergic to eggplant because I could not take it. It was often prepared in bad stir frys where it gets bitter and soggy.

I grew up in the kind of culture and hippies do not know how to make good stir frys. They needed some Asian cooking classes back then. But I went to Greece when I was 20 as a student living in Europe. I ate eggplant prepared well for the first time ever and now it’s one of my favorite things.

What are the few cookbooks that make your life better?

I’m editor of a food magazine now out of Seattle and I get all of the new cookbooks that come out, so I’m drowning in cook books a little bit these days. But I have to say that Heidi Swanson, her site is a 101 Cookbooks, I love her work because she really looks at ingredients with a fresh eye.

She has a new book coming out that is inspired by her travels. I feel like she takes ingredients from different cultures and uses them in really fresh and inventive ways. And the other culture I know the best is Japan. Sometimes she’ll do things and I go, “Oh, I never thought that you could do that with it.” So I love people that make me think differently.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I listen to podcasts when I cook, I don’t actually listen to music.

I cooked all of the food for my book launch party, which is a bit of a crazy thing. I also actually grew all of the food, it was all from the garden. My kitchen looked like a caterer set-up. I was running around frantically and I actually put on a whole bunch of Taylor Swift and played it really, really loud to get me through the experience. So whatever works.

Keep Posted on Tara:

Tara Austen Weaver of Tea and Cookies on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.

My blog is teaandcookiesblog.com and I’m on Facebook and Twitter. Instagram is my favorite, favorite thing.

Have Tara's Special Dish Recipe Sent to You Now:

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    Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: 101 Cookbooks, A Way To Garden, Alys Fowler, Author, Barbara Damrosch, BBC, Brittany Wright, Edible Seattle, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Garden, Garden Primer, Gardening, Gayla Trail, Grow Cook Eat, Heidi Swanson, Margaret Roach, Mollie Katzen, Moosewood Cookbook, Orchard House: How a Neglected Garden Taught One Family to Grow, Seattle, Tara Austen Weaver, Taylor Swift, Tea and Cookies, The Yellow House, Willi Galloway, Wright Kitchen, Writer, You Grow Girl

    002: The Incredible Spice Men: How To Overcome The Fear Of Using Spices

    February 20, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

    Tony Singh and Cyrus Todiwala of The Incredible Spice Men on The Dinner Special podcast talking about the idea behind The Incredible Spice Men.
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    Cyrus Todiwala and Tony Singh of The Incredible Spice Men on The Dinner Special podcast on How To Overcome The Fear Of Using Spices

    The Incredible Spice Men

    I am so excited to have Cyrus Todiwala and Tony Singh, The Incredible Spice Men, here on the show today.

    Cyrus and Tony are award winning chefs and restaurateurs, stars of The Incredible Spice Men TV show, and authors of The Incredible Spice Men cookbook.

    That’s just naming a few of the things that they’re up to.

    They are truly incredible.

    On How They Met:

    Tony Singh and Cyrus Todiwala of The Incredible Spice Men on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how they met.

    Tony: It was 2000. I’d just won ITV Chef Of The Year and I’d heard about Cyrus doing amazing things with British produce and contemporary and traditional Indian food, and what I was doing up in Scotland was traditional Scottish food with an Indian twist. I came down and I met Cyrus and we’ve known each other ever since then. We were in the Academie Culinaire together, we’ve done Master Chef.

    We’ve come across each other in competitions and everything, so, since 2000.

    On The Idea Behind The Incredible Spice Men:

    Tony Singh and Cyrus Todiwala of The Incredible Spice Men on The Dinner Special podcast talking about the idea behind The Incredible Spice Men.

    Cyrus: I use a lot of British produce from different farmers dotted throughout the country and make Indian food with it. We did a program in the restaurant for a few weeks called The Twisted Brit and then a second program called The Twisted Scot. They became very popular, so I was talking to some people about how that would make a great series because we are taking Indian food but twisting it to be British and twisting it to be Scottish.

    The idea came about by asking how about if we take British food and twist it with a bit of spice? In the search for a partner, they came across Tony, they loved Tony, asked me if I knew Tony. I said, “Of course I knew Tony.” We did a little bit of a promo together.

    Tony: Yeah, we did a promo tape for them.

    Cyrus: Yeah, a very casual promo tape together. It worked like magic, the BBC approved, and bingo, we had a program.

    They thought of many, many names. They actually wanted to call us The Spice Boys.

    On Being Cooks:

    Tony Singh and Cyrus Todiwala of The Incredible Spice Men on The Dinner Special podcast talking about being cooks.

    Tony: We were always hungry and to sustain that hunger or to make it more bearable, you always helped your mother in the kitchen. From an early age, I always helped out in the house. My mom was a great cook and from then, I’ve always liked to cook.

    I’ve been cooking since I was 16, so I learned to be a good cook. I’ve always been a great eater.

    Cyrus: For me, in my community, I’m known in Bombay as Khaadraas which means greedy pigs. I even started here what is called a greedy pigs club, a Khaadraas club.

    Like Tony, always hungry. There was a big hole in the belly somewhere that needed filling up, but our moms, fortunately for us, were excellent cooks, so were our aunts and grand aunts and everyone else. I grew up around food all the time.

    Living in a joint family was a very good experience and then, of course, my uncle owned a hotel as well, so whilst I was in boarding school I could go visit his hotel and live with him for a while. That increased the desire to cook more food.

    Eventually, I went into catering school, passed out, got a job at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay.

    Tony: The rest is history.

    We’re so fortunate to have a hobby that’s our job and that is so pleasurable. You know what I mean? It’s just very, very, very fortunate.

    Cyrus: That is so true, isn’t it? The best part about our business is it is never consistent. It always changes. Every day is a new day and everyday there are new people and new customers.

    Tony: New challenges.

    Cyrus: New challenges.

    Tony: New ingredients.

    On Cooking With Spices:

    Tony Singh and Cyrus Todiwala of The Incredible Spice Men on The Dinner Special podcast talking about cooking with spices.

    Tony: The main thing is not to be afraid. That’s the biggest hindrance people have with spices, because they equate that to heat, which is not the spice. Well it is a spice, but it’s chili. Chili adds heat, spices add flavor and color.

    Cyrus: Flavor, color, body, but, you see it today if you look at most of the larders in the western world, most homes would have nutmeg, would have cardamom, would have cloves, would have peppercorns, would have cumin, would have coriander.

    Many people are keeping turmeric now, which is a very common ingredient in homes and you’ve got chilies. Actually, if you have cinnamon, cardamom and clove and peppercorn already in your house, and you’ve got chili, cumin, coriander and turmeric and that’s all you need, really. You don’t need many, many more.

    As your talent develops and as you get better, you can keep adding to it. Your experimentation value gets better and you get more spices and condiments into your larder. These are basic.

    Tony: It’s like the show shows. Do one of your traditional dishes that you’re comfortable with and just change one of them. If it’s got, say, cinnamon in there, try and take it out and put another spice in there that’s a dessert. Go for cardamom, go for ginger, or nutmeg, yes, star anise. Just add one spice or take one spice away and exchange it or use a spice in it.

    There’s a lot more spice than what you would call spice, because people say “Oh, nutmeg. That’s not a spice. I use that in my grandma’s rice pudding,” or peppercorns, the spice that changed travel. People went looking for pepper.

    Cyrus: Pepper, pepper was the one.

    Tony: These things just need changing but have no fear trying because anything you make, you’re going to eat the evidence anyway. If it’s not good, then you don’t do that again.

    Cyrus: The main thing is the fear. Once they get over that threshold, they will really enjoy their cooking. Really, really enjoy it. Most western food goes very, very well with a little bit of spice here and a little bit of spice there.

    On The Incredible Spice Men Cookbook:

    Tony Singh and Cyrus Todiwala of The Incredible Spice Men on The Dinner Special podcast talking about The Incredible Spice Men cookbook.

    Tony: Normally, you shoot the series and then you do the cookbook, and you have a few months to do it. We had to do it all in six weeks?

    Cyrus: Six weeks. In six weeks, while on the shoot. It was a nightmare.

    Tony: Writing the recipes, getting them checked. It was lucky we’ve got kitchens for the chefs to check everything but they’re dishes that we’ve used before.

    It goes back to the recipes. We made sure were accessible, they weren’t daunting, they were very familiar. That’s why we went with them.

    Cyrus: The publishers from Random House put in a lot of effort into it. They knew it was a deadline deal and they put a very good crew onto it. The crew was chatting with us all the time whilst we were on set filming.

    As soon as we came on a break, we’d get a phone call, “I’m making this. Tell me, something doesn’t look right over here. Can you help me with this?” and we could help on the phone.

    They re-adjusted the recipe so it would look easy for the home cook.

    The Pressure Cooker:

    Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

    Cyrus: Very few but Saturday Kitchen definitely on most Saturday mornings. Master Chef sometimes.

    Tony: I’m the other way. I’m a junk food fiend. Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. It’s great because it’s loads of people eating hearty, sometimes a bit calorific, but hearty, rib-sticking dishes.

    Cyrus: Oh, right, okay. That’s the one where they eat the big portions.

    Tony: No, no, no. See, I don’t like that. That’s Man Vs. Food. I can’t stand that show.

    Cyrus: No? Okay. Yeah, very few actually. There’s no time, unfortunately, for us.

    You know what? I haven’t seen a single episode of our series yet.

    Last year, where did you have the best meal and what did you have?

    Tony: I’ve had so many. Assado. I was going to say, that was lovely because we had octopus. I’m still waiting for chef to give me the recipe. It was fantastic.

    Cyrus: Actually, we had a great meal at a place called Dabbous. A very creative chef. He only does course menus, so only fixed menus, only set menus. There is no a la carte there, but his food was really good.

    Dabbous in West London. Very good, excellent. That was one of the best meals we had this year.

    If you were to have dinner and movie with each other, what would be for dinner and what movie would you guys watch?

    Tony: Oh, that’s a hard one.

    Cyrus: Something funny, definitely.

    Tony: Yeah, Airplane! or Blazing Saddles. You know what I mean? It’s switch off kind of stuff and going back to the food, cheese and macaroni with lobster.

    Cyrus: Oh, yeah?

    Tony: Yeah.

    Cyrus: Something very simple. It could be a shwarma. It could be something like that, really easy.

    Good fish and chips. A very good fish and chips.

    Tony: Something that you don’t need to think about but you know is going to work.

    What are some cookbooks that have made your lives better?

    Tony: La Technique and La Methode by Pepin, the French guy in America. Fantastic. As a student, they were the best.

    Cyrus: I use a cookbook very often which is from a lady that cooks food from my community and she researched it very deeply.

    Bhicoo Manekshaw, her name is, and it’s not known everywhere in the world. She has gone to the depths of the villages and brought the food out that we city boys would never had got an experience of knowing. That’s the one I use all the time. It’s sitting on my desk even now.

    It’s called Parsi Food and Customs. Because I’m a Parsi.

    I pick up ideas from that and then I have to double up them to suit 50, 60, 100 portions.

    I am discovering things that my mother would have known, my grandmother would have known, but I, sadly, didn’t have the exposure to know.

    What is something all home cooks should have in their pantry?

    Cyrus: L-O-V-E.

    Tony: I would say sharp knives.

    Cyrus: A must have in the kitchen is a heat-resistant rubber spatula.

    Tony: That’s just being posh.

    Name one ingredient you cannot live without.

    Tony: Chili.

    Cyrus: Coriander for me, fresh coriander.

    Tony: Fresh green chili.

    Cyrus: I could live without it but I would be very depressed if I didn’t get to eat it regularly.

    What music album or song pairs best with The Incredible Spice Men cookbook?

    Cyrus: Space Odyssey.

    Tony: Yeah, exactly. I was going to say The Muppets. Animal’s drum rolls.

    Cyrus: How about Jungle Book, you know?

    Tony: Yeah.

    Cyrus: That song is one of my favorites.

    Tony: Yeah, it’s good.

    Cyrus: The Bare Necessities Of Life. And food is the bare necessity of life.

    Keep Posted on The Incredible Spice Men:

    Tony Singh and Cyrus Todiwala of The Incredible Spice Men on The Dinner Special podcast talk about how to keep in touch.

    Tony: We have a Twitter account, The Incredible Spice Men. Cyrus has his webpage, I have my webpage, TonySingh.co.uk. The Spice Men have a Facebook page as well.

    Cyrus: The Spice Men, we’ve got @MrTodiwala on Twitter or just log on to CafeSpice.co.uk. They can fire any amount of questions they want at me.

    Have Chef Tony Singh’s Special Dinner Dish Recipe Sent To You Now:

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      Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Academie Culinaire, Airplane!, Assado, BBC, Blazing Saddles, Cajun Food, Chef, Chef of the Year, Cookbook Author, Cooking Show Host, Cyrus Todiwala, Dabbous, Diners D, Indian Food, Indian Spices, ITV, Jacques Pepin, Khaadraas club, La Methode, La Technique, London, Man VS Food, MasterChef, Parsi Food and Customs, Saturday Kitchen, Scotland, Space Odyssey, Taj Mahal Hotel Bombay, The Incredible Spice Men, The Muppets, Tony Singh

      Hello! I'm Gabriel Soh, home cook, food enthusiast and your host of The Dinner Special podcast.
      Everything here on The Dinner Special is an experiment, just like with cooking. Thank you for listening and being part of the adventure.

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