Transcript
Tom Heath
Good morning. It’s a beautiful Sunday in the Old Pueblo and you’re listening to KTDT Tucson. Thank you for spending a part of your brunch hour with us on your downtown Tucson Community sponsored rock and roll radio station.
Tom Heath
This week we’re going to speak with Alan Thomas Kohler. He’s the owner of Arizona Baking Company and we’re going to find out how local ingredients make their products a little more uinique and how they are continuing this bond that’s been established for over 4,200 years at the base of A Mountain.
Tom Heath
Today is April 18th. My name is Tom Heath and you’re listening to Life along the streetcar. Each and every Sunday, our focus is on social, cultural and economic impacts in Tucson’s Urban core and we shed light on hidden gems everyone should know about. From A mountain to UArizona and all stops in between, you get the inside track right here are 99.1FM and streaming on downtownradio.org. We’re also available on your iPhone or Android by downloading our Downtown Radio Tucson app.
Tom Heath
On the show, our website addresses Lifealongthestreetcar.org. That’s where all of our past shows are held. You can reach us by emailing contact@Life along the streetcar.org. You can also find our podcast on just about any platform where podcast are held: Spotify, iTunes. IHeartRadio, heck you can even ask your smartsmeakerto pay to play The Life along the streetcar broadcast.
Tom Heath
We’re going to start Today’s Show with a look at kind of the new Festival format. We are in the midst of the 29th Arizona International Film Festival. It’s traditionally held downtown, in years past, we would have seen it at The Screening Room, but for obvious reasons, they’ve decided to take this to a new location. Fear not the film festival is underway. It started on Thursday and it’s going to continue here for some time up until next Sunday the 25th.
Tom Heath
We saw this happen with the Folk Festival as well. They went to this combination of outdoor venue in addition to online streaming and Facebook and zoom. We’re starting to see this combination come into play. So if you’re looking for information, you can always head over to FilmFestivalArizona.com for information on the International Film Festival, they’ve got their venues all lined up but they’re going to have things at the Mercado, Club Congress, Main Gate. They’re also going to do things at Johnny Gibson’s and Atherton Gallery. So they’re going to have things spread out and a lot of their events are online as well. And I think that is the the new format you look at online and in person, and those two ingredients make for a very successful Festival. I think we’re going to see that for years to come.
Tom Heath
And speaking of ingredients to make things successful kind of excited to have Alan a Kohler on our show today. He is an associate professor at the University of Arizona, but that has no bearing on why we’re talking to him today. He’s actually a Michigan native. He spent some time in New York. He’s a former chef and no matter where he’s lived. He’s always been fascinated by the local ingredients that are available in different regions across the country.
Tom Heath
So when he moved to Arizona, into Tucson specifically, he was quite surprised to see the history and culture of our food heritage, that 4,200 years we’ve talked about, and he formed Arizona Baking Company to tap into that rich history and culture. He uses local ingredients for his wheat and other items that he puts in his mixes for cookies and brownies.
Tom Heath
He’s got Partnerships with some cool folks here in town and we talked with him by phone to get a sense of how he got from Michigan to Tucson and what we can expect from some delicious Mesquite chocolate chip cookies.
Alan Thomas Kohler
AZ Baking Company is you know, the quintessential small business here in Tucson, a community minded bakery. We launched in 2019 and you know, we have this mission of being embedded and fully engaged in the community, not just through the the way that we sourced ingredients but in the way that we partner with local organizations around town. Have a significant presence in the community and really highlight the sort of local Heritage Food economy that’s here in a Baja Arizona.
Alan Thomas Kohler
We primarily make premium baking mixes. We have a Mesquite chocolate chip cookie mix and a Mesquite chocolate brownie mix and they’re all retail facing for the home chef, where you know, people around Tucson and people are traveling Tucson can sort of work together or work with these local ingredients that are typically somewhat hard to find a little bit expensive and a little bit, you know, difficult to work with for the average home chef.
Alan Thomas Kohler
I came to this for that reason, loving these ingredients but knowing that most people don’t necessarily have access to them because those reasons, and what we do is we we put together these really frankly amazing recipes for the the chocolate cookie and for the Mesquite brownie, that highlights the white Sonora week, which has been grown here since The Sixteen hundreds. Just wonderful, sort of soft low gluten Heritage, you know wheat that made popular and really highlighted by a lot of the area Bakers and chefs like Don Guerra from Barrio bread.
Alan Thomas Kohler
That is growing, we usually get hours from BKW Farms up in Marana and but you know a couple of other purveyors and Farmers around town that we also use a Mesquite flour, which is wild harvested from the Mesquite tree that grows in and around the Sonoran Desert. It’s wild harvested by the Tohono O’odham community and we purchase it through Santa Clara Co-op Farm. Once again, it’s a part of our mission is to not only sort of highlight these local ingredients, but Really be a part of the community by by sourcing ingredients that are grown harvested and milled within 25 miles of here.
Tom Heath
You know, I want to talk more about the importance of that because that is a key component of what you’re doing, but you started this conversation using the word quintessential, which leads me to my next question. How does a professor of English at the University of Arizona get into baking, was it just to impress me with words like quintessential?
Alan Thomas Kohler
So it’s a simple but a fairly long story. So I grew up, you know, I’ve been a foodie my whole life. I started working in professional kitchens when I was 15, 16 years old and I’ve always sort of gravitated towards what we could find around us and what’s been growing here with wild and cultivated all around us.
Alan Thomas Kohler
So that foodie passion is deeply ingrained in me, I grew up in northern Michigan and we go hunting for morels every year. we you know be out there wild foraging for the ramps and leaks or you know, anything else that’s sort of just grew to about and I really I really love this connection to the land. And so I did a I said work in professional kitchens when I was pretty young and I continued even as I went to undergrad at University of Michigan and you know majored in Psychology that the same time I was paying my way by working in the kitchens at you at U of M.
Alan Thomas Kohler
Fast forward a little bit and I I was a chef at a restaurant in the Upper West Side, the Cafe Des Artistes in Manhattan, and so this was this was sort of the career path that I was on. But you know, I’m that kind of person it has a lot of interest and so at one point I pivoted and really want to travel a little bit and I spent some time in East Asia about 10 years on and off, but about ten years and that’s where I started getting it to Applied Linguistics, which is what what by sort of academic background is in. Second language acquisition and teaching, but even then, through my travels and living in East Asia, like I’m always seeking out the food not only restaurants but in the home kitchens and what grows there and what’s wild and what’s, you know part of the food culture in these places.
Alan Thomas Kohler
So we moved back to Tucson, when we moved to Tucson in 2012, I came here for my PhD at the U of A and again, you know, I was just just blown away by what’s he You know people I had no idea what I was coming into had never been to the desert before, certainly not the Sonoran Desert, and and you know, the Mesquite tree was one thing they really captivated me. I had a tree in my front yard and I saw the pods and I read about in heard what people were doing with the drying in the grounding of these pods and then began to dig into the history a little bit.
Alan Thomas Kohler
But at that point, you know, I also knew that I wasn’t really finding a lot of great accessibility for Mesquite flour, for example, and and I had tasted a lot of you know, I thought that I might be able to do a little better with with some Mesquite flour that a lot of the things that I’ve been tasting and so I kind of develop some recipes on my own and at one point I thought you know, I think other people would like this.
Alan Thomas Kohler
So that’s essentially how it was born from this sort of passion project as it’s you know, this love of my exploration of the Sonoran Desert. It was in 2019 there and then I plaid and went to the Heritage Food Startup Challenge, put on by McGwire Center for Entrepreneurship and Startup Tucson and Tucson Sity of Gastronomy, and I wound up winning that that day, then I went through that sort of boot camp style start up coaching seminar.
Alan Thomas Kohler
I won that which got me a place in the idea of funding pitch competition later on, but it also got me a spot at the Tucson Meet Yourself a couple months later, and at that point, you know, I had experience working with Mesquite flour and white Sonoran wheat on my own but I had nothing more than an idea and from two months from winning the Heritage Food Startup challenge, about two months later at Tucson Meet Yourself. I launched AZ Baking Company and it was kind of a whirlwind.
Alan Thomas Kohler
But that first day of Tucson me yourself. It was it was incredibly well received and we sold out of our product that first weekend in a couple of hours and I knew that I was sort of on to something. I wound up winning the Food Vertical Room at the Idea Funding Pitch Competition little while later which again gave me a little bit more sort of startup capital and its connection to Startup Tucson. And that is how I started, you know, been growing it over the past couple of years.
Tom Heath
Somewhere in between when you got here in 2012, and when you launched your company in 2019, I don’t know the exact if I think it was 2015 or so Tucson was recognized as a UNESCO City of Gastronomy, and that sort of that designation, we’ve talked about this on the show in the past, that designation really is a homage to how well the current chefs are using the ingredients that have been in this area for 4 or 5,000 years and it sort of seems to fit right in with with your plan for the white Sonoran wheat and the Mesquite flour.
Tom Heath
Ttell me a little bit about the importance: why is it important that we’re using the ingredients that are harvested here grown here? What makes that different than using something from a different part of the country?
Alan Thomas Kohler
Well, I mean there’s there’s there’s a myriad benefits to it. One, there are some really great arguments to be made for eating local in terms of conservation practices and really trying to cut down on ingredients getting shipped all over the Place., that sort of not being wonderful for environment. There’s also, you know, just the idea that we have this food is is everything right? Food is absolutely everything, we all whether we admit it or not think, (blank), you know, and just live our lives around food. When we are able to sort of see where our food comes from and such an intimate way, when were able to you know, All the farmers that are growing the white Sonoran wheat and we know the people that are Milling the Mesquite flour and we’re able to sort of talk with people about how these products have been in this region, like you said, for sometimes thousands of years. It gives you the sense of place it gives you the sense of history and you know, I don’t mean to romanticize it may be too much but I’m not sure you can, it really is a way to be connected to the land. And to the history and to each other in the present day as well, you know food is everything.
Alan Thomas Kohler
Fiid is identity, food is sustenance and and instead of buying a cookie mix that’s made from its mass sort of mass-produced wheat flour that is grown in a ton of different places all over, tip to a central location, you know produced and put out when you make something as simple as a cookie or a brownie with flower that’s been milled down the road from you and you know, that’s interesting unique Mesquite flour that’s sustained the region for thousands of years. I feel like it’s valuing everything that food is and should be you know what I mean? And you know, I came here again a couple years after I came here when we got that doesn’t Nathan it was a it would be And eye-opening experience for me as well because it takes a while to get into a place and three years into the region. I loved it and I loved everything about it, but it was really amazing to see that sort of recognition, the first of its kind in our country. Since then we just got we just got designated there in their first cohort of Certified Food Artisans in Tucson city of FCstronomy Food Artisans certification process that just finished a few months ago. And so we’re you know, just honored in thrilled to have that.
Tom Heath
It’s interesting to hear Alan talk about his history and how he got to Tucson and his passion for using these local ingredients. We’ll be back to finish up our interview with him and just a moment. I want to remind you that you’re listening to Life along the streetcar on Downtown Radio 99.1 FM and available for streaming on Downtown Radio.org.
Tom Heath
We’re going to finish up our interview here with Alan Kohler of Arizona Baking Company and talk a little bit about some of the alliances and the partnership’s he is formed here in Southern Arizona to make his unique products.
Tom Heath
And your partner’s you mentioned BKW Farms. I think we’ve also talked about Saint Javier, The Coop farming think is where you’re getting your Mesquite flour from and then I saw recently you’re doing work with Mission Garden is that accurate?
Alan Thomas Kohler
Yeah, so what you know to be in community means a lot of different things, right and we kind of touched on that a little bit but I’m always always always seeking out these new collaborations and Partnerships and sometimes you know these sometimes in order to you know, in improve my business and you know get to get out there but also in sometimes just to sort of be you know, as embedded in as engaged as possible in the community. So similar called Farm I reached out to them early on because Sourcing especially when we started sourcing Mesquite flour is a challenge sometimes right? It’s here. It’s in our community. It’s all around but the start a business around this very unique product, you know requires some some work a little bit sometimes and so I want to making some great connections over there and you know the ability to sort of buy directly from them.
Alan Thomas Kohler
I pay retail price not wholesale price for the Mesquite flour that that we use and And it’s just been an absolutely phenomenal relationship. And and yeah, I’m absolutely excited to be to be with them with Mission. Garden is another example the recently, you know, I’ve also worked closely in many different small ways over the past year and a half with its computer Prodigy Network and they have a job training program with the the refugees that they serve and we Barbara When I first started talking about, you know, will is there anything more we can do together? And I and we got together with making burden who is agreed to provide the commercial kitchen and then I’m able to help financially support this this job training program for Miss computer Refugee Network by having by paying them to produce some of the bags which is a really great sort of Trifecta relationship there and then, you know, the other benefit of always seeking out new Partnerships is You never know what’s going to come up and so few conversations later. I started talking with the people Mission garden, and I know that they have a small patch of white Sonoran wheat that they grow there. And so we talked and we figured out that I could say could get some of that that grain that they had just harvested the whites nor we milled then we could make a special run of our bags. With just that weak groan there. And so that’s the kind of flexibility and benefit that you have of being a small business. That’s total community-minded. So right now in the mission Garden gift shop, you can buy AZ baking company Mesquite chocolate chip cookie mix made exclusively from it’s a blend of the flowers from Mission garden and B KW farms. And so that really gives you that that sense of that sense of place again.
Tom Heath
When we met this was a while ago, I think it was that Farmers market and it may been through local first Arizona actually, but we met and you’re sampling cookies. Of course, you are my friend and I came over and I bought a bag it was easy to make and although I think the bag says I’m going to get so many quarter size cookies and I had like three really big cookies. But either way they were really good. But now you’ve grown into brownies, correct? And what’s next on the horizon. Is there any this’ Bread? I mean, what’s the next? Next step or is yeah. Are we done?
Alan Thomas Kohler
No, we’re definitely not done. We’re just getting started. I’m very much excited. We’re finishing up sort of, you know, one of the greatest parts of his job is the recipe testing phase, right, and my children my wife and all my friends will agree with that say them completely because back after batch after batch, you have to iterate and tweak and I really care about food and how it tastes right to you know, not only am I trying to pull together these ingredients and be in community here in Tucson, but everything’s got to taste delicious. So, you know, it’s a great way this this recipe testing is a wonderful phase. Anyway, so the next up we’re looking at pancake mix which will really highlight the white Sonora week with that sort of soft pastry that it’s able to produce and I really sort of fluffy light pancakes that comes out of you know, using that that grain then down the road. We have some other ideas about some scone baking mixes or a couple of other things a great thing about this sort of this kind of product is baking mix is that you know, I’m doing all the sort of heavy lifting with all the recipe testing and getting the things right and in and to be able to highlight these ingredients for breakfast for snack for dessert, you know for for all these different things. I’m very excited to sort of, you know, keep going because I feel like the possibilities are absolutely endless.
Tom Heath
Well how do people find you I mean if they I don’t think farmers markets are as prevalent as they were a year and a half ago. How do people get a hold of you?
Alan Thomas Kohler
Absolutely. So he first and foremost AZbakingcompany.com and we right now I’ve been offering free shipping or free door delivery for Tucson orders, which is a which has been a really great, you know able to sort of just drop off a couple bags and your step is not a better. There’s not a better surprise. I don’t think so easy faking company.com is definitely the easiest way. We’re on Instagram easy baking company, but then we also have a lot of Retail Partners around town. I’m on the shelves at Five Points, XO coffee. And of course food conspiracy Co-op, Sky Island Trading Company up on Mount Lemmon and then recently there’s been a been getting a lot of calls for curated baskets and stuff around town. But those four retail Partnerships, you know, there is growing right now and And of course as I mentioned before Mission Garden as well, but yeah AZBakingCompany.com. We have a lot more information on our website about our product and who we are and it’s a it’s it’s great. Come on, check me out!
Tom Heath
It’s a fascinating story when you start with cookies and get the history of this. It’s such a dynamic story. It’s so appropriate for Tucson and your Urban core when you talk about Mission Garden for thousand plus years of agricultural history right there. It’s it’s great to have you continuing that what what haven’t we talked about though? We’ve covered quite a bit. But is there anything that we haven’t discussed that you want to share with us?
Alan Thomas Kohler
Well, one thing I’m really excited about right now is that we have made it into the semi-finals of the idea finding pitch competition thinking this year, you know startup Tucson. I can’t say enough about that partnership I bio and my company owes so much to their incredible hard work and commitment to all the things that we’ve been talking about today instead of Tucson. Is it mean to shout out can’t be big enough? They’re incredible for small business owners and budding entrepreneurs. And so, you know, they had to delay the again the idea funding annual idea funny pitch competition a little bit because of covid but it’s happening right now. It’s happening remotely and we’ve I’m thrilled because we’ve been able to do compete and and for some some really great resources coming up. So where’s the my finals of that and we’ll see how that progresses. Isis as we move forward the the idea funding final sort of pitch competition and and event is I believe mid-april and so you can you can find out more information by going to StartupTucson.com/IdeaFunding and yeah, so I’m always I’m always looking looking for these opportunities, and I just loved I loved the Tucson and Southern Arizona community
Tom Heath
its absolute pleasure to speak with you sir.
Alan Thomas Kohler
Thank you so much. Tom is really great to talk to you.
Tom Heath
That was Alan Kohler. He is the owner of Arizona Baking Company and talking a really interesting story about how we gets from Michigan to Tucson and how he is found a passion for using local ingredients and keeping our 42 hundred plus years of local culture and food Heritage alive here in Southern Arizona. My name is Tom Heath and you are listening to Life along the streetcar on downtown radio 98.1 FM and available for streaming on Downtown Radio dot org.
Tom Heath
Well episode number 147 is in the books where thank Alan Kohler from the Arizona Baking Company for spending a little bit of time with us here on the show. Next week, we’re going to talk with Kate Green, she is the new director over at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Another one of those folks that have moved to Tucson and making a big impact here in our community. We’re going to find out what’s happening at the Museum and what we can expect for 2021 and Beyond.
Tom Heath
That’ll be next Sunday right here on Downtown Radio at 11 a.m. And of course if you have any topics you want us to share anything that we should be letting the public know about, hidden gems, reach us on our email contact@Life along the streetcar.org. Maybe hit us up on Facebook and feel free to share our post and we will share yours as well.
Tom Heath
Coming up next here we’ve got words and work with our very own Ted Ski, talking about the labor movements with writers and others involved with that effort. We’re going to leave you with a little music today in honor of Our Guest. This is a Aztec Two-step from their 1975 self-titled album and the song is called, “Baking”. My name is Tom Heath. This is a lifelong the streetcar. We’re here every Sunday at 11:00. I hope you have a great week, and please do tune in next Sunday for another one of these episodes. Have a great day.
