Farm Talk Podcast: Interview with Tami Chu of Edible of Ojai & Ventura County

You can also watch this episode of Farm Talk on our YouTube channel.

CLICK HERE to Subscribe!

Farm Talk is sponsored by The Escrow Hub and The Money Store.

Paul Ward: Hi everyone. It’s Paul Ward here, and welcome to another addition of Farm Talk. Today’s episode is brought to you by Escrow Hub and The Money Store. We’re so excited today. We have Tami Chu, the editor, publisher, and owner of Edible Magazine of Ojai and Ventura County. Welcome to the show, Tami.

Tami Chu: Thanks for having me.

Paul Ward: And we’re fortunate today. We’re at Otto and Sons garden in lovely Fillmore, California. So we’ve got a lovely setting today. 

Tami Chu: Yeah, a little warm.

Paul Ward: So, tell us about Edible Magazine. What is the magazine all about? 

Tami Chu: We’re a quarterly magazine, so we publish four times a year with the seasons. We are a food magazine, local food. We focus on celebrating the stories and the farmers and the artisans and people who bring food to your table. 

Paul Ward: There’s so much going on here. How do you decide who to put in the publication?

Tami Chu: That’s a great question. Well, there are a lot of ways that we choose our stories. A lot of times we’ll have writers who pitch stories to us. So people who are in the community already, who know kind of what’s happening, the new things that’s happening. The farmers that are providing for the restaurants, the artisans that are up and coming. So they’ll pitch stories and we’ll say, “Yes, that’s a wonderful story that matches our magazine. Let’s go for it.” And other times it will be that we have a theme for the quarter. So I will look for people who might fit that theme. So say we have like our current theme that’s coming out soon, our winter issue. The theme was fire and ice. So I looked for stories that would kind of fit into that kind of vibe. 

Paul Ward: Interesting. So would that be, maybe a recipe or a cocktail that would kind of fit the fire and ice theme? 

Tami Chu: It can be all of those things. So we do have a whiskey story;  how to do a whiskey tasting that is in that issue. And we also have a story about drought and how the fires and the climate has really changed some of the ways that farmers are growing their food. So that kind of fits the theme. It’s like two ends of the spectrum. Here’s the food that we’re celebrating, that’s fire and perhaps something that’s over ice or whatever. Then there’s the other side of it where the farmers are dealing with fire and you know, the changes that they’re really having to kind of figure out. 

Paul Ward: A lot of recipes, I mean, it just kind of makes my mouth water looking through the publication. Are these practical recipes? And I guess also some advanced recipes, too? So people just kind of pick and choose what they want to make in the publication.

Tami Chu: Yeah. I mean, I definitely try to include between five and seven recipes per issue, depending on how much space we end up having, which is really fun for me because we have to test every recipe. Sometimes multiple times to make sure it’s actually coming out the way that the chef or you know, home baker wants it to come out. And that it’s replicable. So we try not to put any recipes in that people can’t do. Some are more simple, some are a little more complicated. So we try to have kind of the balance so that there’s something savory and something sweet in each issue and something a little more challenging and something a little more simple to create.

Paul Ward: Okay. Well, I am available for taste testing. 

Tami Chu: We have a lot of people who always want to taste-test, so in line, Paul! 

Paul Ward: I totally get it! I also saw that you have a “celebrating culture around the food” component of the publication.

Tami Chu: Yeah, I mean, we definitely do. Our whole goal is to celebrate food and the people who bring it. And food is cultural. There’s a community that’s wrapped around that food and there’s definitely cultural influences that are wrapped around food. And so we try to celebrate the people who are bringing those things to our county. We cover all of Ventura County. So we really try to kind of look at the different cultures that we have. We’ve had chefs from different restaurants with different cultural influences that have been in the magazine. So we’ve had Japanese influences, we’ve had Australian influences. We’ve had you know, basic American food; that’s kind of the mish mash of everybody. So it’s just anything that we can find to celebrate food. We are gonna do it.

Paul Ward: Great. What, have you found to be kind of the most surprising thing about putting the publication together?

Tami Chu: So I’ve owned the magazine for three years. I actually purchased it from a couple who was the third owner. So I’m the fourth owner of this magazine. It started almost 20 years ago; in April 2022, it’ll be 20 years that we’re celebrating. So we are the flagship Edible Magazine. And now there are something like 85 that are (out there). 

Paul Ward: So this is the original here in Ventura County; out of 85. In the nation?

Tami Chu: In the entire, (nation).

Paul Ward: Wow. 

Tami Chu: And we actually have some in Canada now, too, so it’s okay. It’s international now. But we are all licensed by an umbrella group called Edible Communities. What’s really lovely is that the original publisher and owner of Edible Ojai is the CEO of Edible Communities now. 

Paul Ward: Okay. 

Tami Chu: So the original purpose and goal of the magazine is really carried through the entirety of the owners who are currently publishing Edible Magazines. So I was the fourth owner. So coming into it was kind of new. I was not a publisher before I was a writer. I was a nutritionist. I was a teacher. All of those things kind of worked together to help me out.  But there was a lot that I had to learn in a short period of time.  Publishing a magazine is quite a feat, to be honest. So even quarterly, I mean, people who do monthly magazines, hats off to them, cuz it is a lot of work. But yeah, so I mean, what was surprising for me, I think, is just the amount of work that goes into it and how it’s paid for.  You know, we offer it for free to people, but we have to pay for everything. And so it’s completely paid for by advertisers at this point. 

Paul Ward: Oh, interesting. 

Tami Chu: And so our advertisers are incredibly important to us. They are the reason that we get to tell the stories that we get to tell and Otto and Sons is actually one of our advertisers that we just absolutely love. 

Paul Ward: You’re distributed throughout the county?

Tami Chu: Yes. I mean, it’s just kind of multiple locations. Pre pandemic, we had about 170 to 175 locations that we distributed to. During the pandemic that dropped to about maybe 70. 

Paul Ward: Wow. It’s a big drop!

Tami Chu: We lost a lot. A lot of them are restaurants and businesses that had to close during the lockdown and some of them did not reopen. So we are back up to probably close to about 130-135 locations that we’re distributing to. We are also printing close to the number that we were printing pre-pandemic. So we’re almost back to where we were before the pandemic hit, which is great, which is really amazing. And, you know, a Testament to the people that we work with and the stories that we get to tell and the restaurants are open again. So yeah, that’s very helpful for us

Paul Ward: You’re very involved in education in the schools.

Tami Chu: Yes. We actually just started a program this school year. That is our Edible Education Program and we’re very excited about it. We’re working with the Oceanview School District in Oxnard. The nutrition director, Vanessa, came to meet (me). She actually called me out of the blue and said, “Hey, I’ve got a proposal. I don’t know what you think about this.” And (she) proposed this program to me and I just leapt at it. This is my wheelhouse. I was a teacher. I have teaching credentials. This is, oh my gosh! You know, I wanna do this! And so we work together to kind of really develop our program. And what we’re doing now- is I actually have a copy, a couple of copies of our kids magazine that we’re doing, which is just a short little booklet, which is super fun.

Paul Ward: We can post a link online. 

Tami Chu: Yeah. Love those and they have a farmer card on the inside of each issue. We have a farmer that we profile that is providing the harvest of the month for the school district and this card, the kids can actually tear out of the magazine; it’s perforated and they can take it to their local Farmers Market, which is the Oxnard Farmers Market in downtown Oxnard. They trade for food. So they get to do that. And then we’re also doing a video series where my son, who is 16 and started when he was 15, is the host. He gets to go and interview the farmers and look at their farm and see what’s going on. Then we get to go and interview a chef and the chef makes a recipe for us and we all get to taste it and we enjoy that.

Paul Ward: And the kids are doing that too?

Tami Chu: This goes to the schools. So our video is for the schools. Okay. It is posted on our website, but it’s obviously primarily for the school district. 

Paul Ward: Kind of third and fourth graders that are learning?

Tami Chu: Actually the Oceanview School District is K-8. So we kind of plan the whole program for quite a, you know, gamut of ages. So we’ve got some things that are very, you know, middle school oriented and some things that are kind of, you know, upper elementary and some things that are a little bit more for the younger kids.

Paul Ward: I’ve always been surprised too, that we live in a farming region, but it’s interesting that the kids don’t even really, a lot of ’em. don’t even really know where their food came from. You’re really providing a service because they just go to the grocery store and think that’s where it absolutely just popped into the world.

Tami Chu: It’s totally true. I mean, I homeschooled my kids because I mean, I have credentials, so I figured I was qualified. After my youngest, my oldest child was in school and I realized I was doing more of the work than the teachers were when she would come home. I was like, why am I sending this child to school if we’re doing it all at home? So we started homeschooling 15 years ago and part of my homeschooling was taking the kids out to show them the world and where food came from. So, I was even a publisher. I had visited as many farms as I possibly could; you know, within a hundred mile radius. For me, it’s kind of a natural progression to really educate kids on where the food comes from. I think it’s really important. 

Paul Ward: Do they go on field trips too? I mean, I know that they’re going to the Farmers Market to trade or are they going on field trips too?

Tami Chu: I’m not a hundred percent sure how they’re doing the curriculum and how they’re incorporating the curriculum. But yeah, I think there are some, and I know that they are potentially bringing in some farmers. I know one of our favorite farmers was in our set. I think our second issue was Evan Graham Arango from Ojai Roots. He was fantastic. I mean, talk about educating kids; he spoke at a kid level a hundred percent and told really amazing things about regenerative farming and so I definitely highly recommended him to come into the schools and talk to the kids. 

Paul Ward: That’s awesome. So in the three years that you’ve been doing the magazine what have you found in terms of changes to the publication and also the end of history in general?

Tami Chu: Well, I mean, there’s actually been a lot of changes primarily because COVID happened one year into me owning the magazine. And there are actually some Edible publishers who had purchased months- just like a couple months before the lockdown started. So it was pretty radical <laugh> But yeah, I mean, our first issue was spring of 2019 and I had just the biggest, wonderful blessing to have the previous owners work with me for three months. So from the beginning of the issue until it was published is kind of how long the process goes. And they walked me through every step. Held my hand through the design process, through the story editing, through the, you know, working with the printer and figuring out how long that was gonna take from the time it got to the printer to the time it got to my house where we actually have it delivered.

Paul Ward: Right.

Tami Chu: Because I work out of my house, we have the magazines delivered to my garage. And so we load up the cars and deliver magazines throughout the county for about two weeks. So every three months I have to make room in my garage for four pallets.

Paul Ward:  It’s a lot of magazines!

Tami Chu: Which is fun but it keeps my garage, you know, somewhat unorganized; at least for part of the season. So they helped me tremendously. I feel like I had an advantage over some publishers that are starting from scratch because I just had these very generous people who were really helping me. And then we had about a year where I learned a ton. I learned more about design and how to place ads and what the ads have to look like and the specs, and, oh my gosh! So many things. By the time I felt like I was really getting it,  right about spring of 2020; March is when our magazine came out.

Paul Ward: Oh no God! That was the month wasn’t it?

Tami Chu: That was the month. So I had just finished placing my last pile of magazines in one of the restaurants or businesses and we heard about the shutdowns about a week later. So we had heard that it was kind of coming and then the shutdowns happened March 15th. My magazine sat in piles, enclosed.

Paul Ward: You must have been freaking out.

Tami Chu: What do we do at that point? The businesses who have paid now for advertising; how do we do this advertising? So during COVID, I pretty much switched gears. I started a database on my website that told who was open and where you could get takeout and spent way more time working on that than I worked on the magazine prior. So instead of like, you know, being at home and all of a sudden not having anything to do, I had triple the work, trying to make sure that we told the stories of how people were surviving. 

Paul Ward: So you were providing a service at that point. 

Tami Chu: I mean, that’s pretty much the only thing we could do. I mean, it was either shut down everything or try to get out there and support the people that were, you know, trying to survive. And we’re one of those that are trying to survive. And so what else can we do? You just have to go out and help the community. So we really focused on that and that was a good two or three months. We decided to postpone our summer issue that year, because people weren’t open. How could we do this? I lost about 40% of my advertisers because who had money at that point, you can’t advertise with nothing, you know? So we actually did end up printing a month late.

Tami Chu: I printed about a quarter of the number of magazines and they went pretty fast and people were excited to have something that was, you know, light and, and happy. I mean, we were telling the stories of people, but one of my goals with the magazine is to tell inspirational stories. You know, we live in times that are very challenging and there’s a lot of struggle. If we can tell the stories that give people a little bit of joy; that’s why my hair is the color it is, ‘cuz I just want people to go, “Whoa, that’s cool!”  I wanna tell the stories that are inspiring so that people have that taste of joy when they taste the food too, you know?

Tami Chu: So that’s really our goal, you know, we tell the truth, but try and add something that people can do. If it’s a hard story, like the climate change, you know, right. We try to add something like, here’s something you can do. Here’s the truth of it but we’re not dead. <Laugh>  You know, we’re still surviving and there are ways that we can survive better and we can do it better together. That’s kind how we do things. The restaurants are open again and that’s our favorite thing. My favorite part of the job is going out and meeting people at restaurants and getting to try all of the food. There’s a new restaurant in Moorpark. It’s called M on Maine. We got to go visit because it’s like, Hey, there’s a new restaurant. Let’s go check it out. Do we wanna tell the story? Do we wanna meet people? The food was delicious so we will probably tell that story at some point. That’s definitely my favorite part.

Paul Ward: Very cool. Yeah. So you mentioned regenerative agriculture. Do you focus at all on helping folks grow food in their own backyards?

Tami Chu: We do. We actually have several articles on the website that have been in the magazine that have been in previous issues about how to grow things. Generally speaking, I try to include if we have space, sometimes it’s a little tight for space, but I try to include what it’s growing in that season. It not only includes what the farmers are growing, what you can find at the farmer’s markets, but also what you can grow. And what you can plant during that season. So if the magazine comes out in March, our goal is, here’s the things that you can plant now to have ready by summer or by the end, the season of this magazine, essentially. My first issue in spring of 2019, we did a community garden article and so we talked a lot about the different community gardens that are in Ventura County and what people are growing and how you can get a plot at a community garden if you don’t have a backyard, or if you don’t have a patio where you can have pots. We definitely are encouraging people to grow their own food. Where your food comes from is the most important topic, I think. If you can’t get to the Farmers Market or if you have space, definitely turn your lawn into a garden. <Laugh>. We did that in our house. Our front yard is a garden and we’re turning it into a butterfly sanctuary. It’s either gonna be food for the animals or food for us. That’s the only thing that should be getting water at this point, because there’s really not enough water for any other thing. So we definitely have tons. I can give you a couple links that you can add to help people grow things in their own space or in their local community garden.

Paul Ward: Very cool. How do people find, I mean, not everybody listening and watching as in Ventura County, how do people find your publication as well as maybe other Edible Publications, wherever they’re located?

Tami Chu: You can find us online at EdibleVenturacounty.com. On Instagram and Facebook at Edible Ventura County and on Twitter, which we don’t post very much on Twitter. We’re just not that active. It’s Edible VC at Edible VC. You can also subscribe to ANY of the Edible Magazines at ediblecommunities.com. They have a subscription where you can get a discount if you buy two or more of the Edible publications. It’ll come right to your house. That can be for anyone, anywhere in the world. Our publications are all in North America right now, but you never know there could be some overseas at some point. You can also subscribe to our magazine on our website and it’s a great Christmas gift, birthday gift, Valentine’s gift. You know, in the spring, for an Easter gift, throw it in your kid’s Easter basket <Laugh> Or somebody’s Easter basket. It’s a great gift for the foodie in your life to have a magazine that really talks about; our stories are local, but the recipes don’t have to be, so it’s for anybody really.

Paul Ward: That’s great. I made a deal with my wife that I’ll buy the ingredients  if she makes the dish.

Tami Chu: That’s a good deal.

Paul Ward: Yeah. Whatever she needs, I’ll buy it. 

Tami Chu: I should make that deal with my husband. Doesn’t work that well.

Paul Ward: Tami Chu, thank you so much for being our guest on this edition of Farm Talk. We’ve loved having you and learning all about Edible of Ojai & Ventura County.

Tami Chu: Thanks for having me, it’s been delightful.

Paul Ward: And we want to thank our host today, Otto and Sons here in lovely Fillmore, California in their lovely rose garden setting. We also wanna thank our sponsors, The Escrow Hub and The Money Store. Thank you so much. And join us again for the next episode of Farm Talk.