Our Stories: Meet Tony

Meet Tony from Season Well

“I was working for Chapel FM, just part-time, and Feed Yourself Well started coming here. And I somehow ended up helping them in the kitchen. I’m not quite sure how! These things just happen. 

I’m quite good at cooking. It’s something that I do a lot of at home. I just started helping here in the kitchen and next thing I know I’ve got a job every month coming here and doing this. I help cook and teach. 

We always use fresh ingredients. It’s great that we can just go into the garden here at Chapel FM and pick stuff and use it straight away. Like the peas that were in the salad today – they’re from the back garden. A lot of the herbs are grown out there as well. 

We come up with the recipes ourselves. One of the most unusual things we’ve cooked was rhubarb curry, which was different! But I think my favourite that we’ve cooked was a vegetarian paella, which was absolutely gorgeous. 

Officially I’m retired. I had to retire because of ill health, but this is ideal. Coming around here and doing a few hours here and there, it’s great. And it gets me out the house. It gets me to meet people. And you get the real feeling that you’re helping somebody. Passing on your skills to them. It’s very rewarding.” 

Season Well aims to get more people using local, seasonal, sustainable food to create great tasting, healthy meals, whilst respecting the environment. They help people learn how to grow food, host workshops and classes on seasonal cooking and share hints, tips and recipes that anyone can try. They’ve had several grants from Leeds Community Foundation, including ones from Transforming Mental Health Grants, Flint Family Fund and Climate Action Leeds.