Tara Thomas: Creating Communal Well Being Through Food

Squarespace is celebrating Black History Month by elevating the voices of Black creatives and entrepreneurs who nourish and care for themselves and their community through the unique expressions of their work.

For Brooklyn-based vegan chef Tara Thomas, passion lies at the intersection of cooking, urban farming, and organizing to address environmental issues. Thomas has developed a following around her efforts to educate and eliminate barriers to accessing local and regionally grown food, particularly for marginalized groups. She recently talked with Squarespace about how her identity informs her work, the motivation that underpins her success, and why food is a foundational element of community.

Squarespace: You’ve established yourself as a skilled vegan chef. What first inspired you to pursue this career path?

TT: I transitioned from being an environmental engineering student into a chef about three years ago. My passion lies in inspiring a regenerative environment through food, from the soil to the table. The environmental issues that I had been studying were devastating but we were practicing tactics that didn't truly touch on the root of the issues. The environmental issues we see today are the result of exploiting land and people for hundreds of years and still today, as we see many fall into the margins — especially Black, Brown, Indigenous, and/or Queer folks. Cooking, urban farming, and organizing to engineer a reality that uplifts the intersection of environmental issues is my joy.

SQSP: How does your identity inform your approach to your work, if at all?

TT: I am a Black woman. My identity informs compassion, strength, and lineage through my work. Growing up, I endured a lot of violence through racism in a predominantly White community in Portland, Oregon. I would escape into nature and utilize that space to create moments of joy for myself — I would love to share those discoveries. Today, as a chef I am able to alchemize my environment through taste. I'm now cultivating these ingredients at the community garden, and the organization I cofounded, Breaking Bread. I see that many other Black Women are not given the privilege to eat from the land due to food apartheids that has traumatized Black communities for generations. Nutrient abundant, diverse, delicious local and regionally grown produce is not just for the affluent. It should be available for everyone.

SQSP: What role does community support — both offering it to others, and being a recipient of it — play in sustaining your business?

TT: Community support is an act of giving time, resources, and truth in the space that I create with others. A business sustains when there is community. It's so much beyond the money — it’s about those who are a part of the journey in support of the vision, therefore sustaining one another's wellbeing. Everything must run through cycles. There is no linear sustainability. 

SQSP: How has your work been impacted by the pandemic, and how have you pivoted in response?

TT: I have pivoted into my passion to organize my community through connecting my network, and through creative escapades to bring awareness to issues. Prior to the pandemic I did a lot of private dining events, and I'm truly interested in the power of the source of food to improve our global environment. Like everyone else who was displaced, I’ve been pivoting into myself to see and truly give myself the opportunity to pursue my true passion. This has come in the form of recipe development, urban farming, fundraising to support the network of BIPOC and/or Queer folks in the food space and donated weekly CSAs. I've pivoted inwards and that brings me a lot of joy.

SQSP: How does your online presence support your work?

TT: My online presence allows me to be in many spaces with my message. I feel grateful to have built a community in such an expansive space. The first thing I did when I started my business three years ago was launch my website. Ever since then I've been able to connect, document, and evolve in my career. I like to utilize these spaces to reflect community and myself creatively. Connection is so important to my methods and an online presence evolves that tenfold.

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