Tagan Engel
Producer/contributorTagan Engel is a guest co-host of Seasoned. She brings more than 25 years of experience in food systems and justice work. After a decade as a chef, baker and caterer in NYC, Boston, and through travels to Brazil, Nigeria, and Israel/Palestine, she returned to New Haven, her hometown, to merge her passions for food and social justice. She became deeply involved in community organizing on local food justice efforts, partnering with community members, businesses, organizations, and the city to create solutions to school food, equitable access to nourishing food, culturally connected cooking education, community and school gardens, food workers rights, sustainable supply chains, and supports for BIPOC food entrepreneurs. She led efforts to pass the first community driven city food policy plan, establish the Food System Policy Director position for the City of New Haven, and founded the Kitchen at .
Tagan currently hosts podcast/website where she records inspiring stories of food and creative social justice, and consults on related work. She is a Resident Fellow at the and the where she advises on community driven liberation practices, regenerative agriculture and food systems, and racial, economic and social equity. Tagan is a founding Board Member of and a Mentor and Advisory Board Member with . She was a co-creator of the 2020 New Haven Cultural Equity Plan and a 2018 Inspiring Equity Story Fellow. Tagan is a wife and mother of two teenagers in a family that she loves with abandon. She is an Ashkenazi Jew, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors - whose legacy of story and liberation she carries on - and an Iyanifa in the Yoruba orisa tradition.
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We’re talkin’ about beer-can chicken with PBS host and James Beard Award-winning cookbook author Steven Raichlen. Plus, the Seasoned team gathers to reflect on the show's four-year run.
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We’re celebrating Pride with a drag dinner at The Port of Call in Mystic. Guests include chef Renee Touponce, Jade Ayala, and performer Dro Lopez-Fierce. We also report from a community dinner at the New Haven Pride Center. Plus, meet Chantal Tafari, the baker behind Likkle Patty Shop in Windsor.
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Janusz Domagala, from The Great British Baking Show, talks about his very personal cookbook, 'Baking with Pride,' and school's out, ice cream's in; a Middletown teacher gives Mr. Softee a run for his money.
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Chef Chrissy Tracey shares stories and recipes from her book, 'Forage & Feast' and "The Chicken Chick" Kathy Shea Mormino explains exactly what chickens need—and don't—to be safe, happy, healthy backyard pets.
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Food reporter Priya Krishna joins to discuss her new cookbook and preview an event at The CT Forum. Samad Gardens Initiative teaches newbie gardeners how to grow food, and Mercado Popular is a CSA grocery improving access to fresh food in Hartford.
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This hour on Seasoned, we talk about the best ice cream shops in the state with people obsessed with local ice cream. Plus, meet the owner of Sweet Claude's and learn about the cows that produce the milk for UConn Dairy Bar.
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Horticulturist Renée Giroux talks about her approach to farming and the role small family farms play in offsetting climate change. And, author Susan Spungen gets you excited about spring cooking. Plus, Karyn Bigelow is building a community for Black beekeepers.
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Meet the co-owners of the coffee shop at the Hartford Public Library. Pair books with wine, and learn about the Durham Public Library's Cookbook Club and Teen Test Kitchen. Plus, surprising things cooks might find in the Library of Things.
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Science teacher Xander Lowry is our guide as we tap trees, gather sap, split wood and make syrup with local students. Plus, Jeremy Whipple, of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, talks about the prized syrup made at the Mashantucket Sugar Shack.
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We're talking with local creators in the food space: Kat Ashmore, the chef behind @katcancook, and David Milton, aka @thedamgram and @thedamtok. Plus, we drink traditional chai with siblings who turned the Muslims of the World (MOTW) Instagram community into a local café.