At 14 Thomasina Miers began earning cash ("£100-200") cooking for parents' friends' dinner parties, serving, "as a starter, lemongrass and coriander vichyssoise, for 12". Nowadays – aged 38 and known for her cookbooks and Wahaca chain of Mexican street food restaurants – she sits in her family kitchen in Kensal Green recalling her formative food memory. "I caused a boy I fancied to choke terribly on chilli oil I put on pasta at 16." In her gap year she headed off to Mexico and Central America, "sleeping in a hammock" and eating street food. But her parents insisted she pursue something mathematical.
"After university I had shit jobs – including a prison management consultancy designing staff relocation programmes," she says, sitting at her kitchen's 14-capacity table (crafted from cattle truck panels). "But I found myself coming back to food as my meaningful pursuit." At 26, she met Clarissa Dickson Wright who told her, "Go off to cookery school at once – don't waste more time". And Ballymaloe Cooking School was a total epiphany."
Miers then returned to Mexico, to run the bar of a restaurant in Mexico City, where she met Diana Kennedy, now 91, a heroine and her inspiration, "like a granny". and the author of her favourite cookbook Recipes From the Regional Cooks of Mexico.
Miers's family kitchen is "the heart of the home and my life". Built by her father five years ago it was designed with the idea partly in mind of filming for TV, although "the field of vision proved to be wrong".
The larder has shelves packed with jars and picnic hampers of chillies, jams and chutneys. The kitchen units couple brushed zinc with planks from a cheese factory. Shelves holding a third of Miers's cookbook collection cover half of a wall. The kitchen opens up on to a small garden where ingredients grow and her three-year-old daughter Tatiana plays in a Superman costume.
"I know so many chefs who are heading to Mexico," says Miers, "Mexican food is about to go quite ballistic." OFM
1. HEART-PATTERN TEA-POT
A wedding present, from my wedding list at a French kitchen shop. It's so generous looking. I brew a lot of tea - including with fresh mint or wild fennel from the garden.
2. HOMEMADE JAMS & CHUTNEYS
My chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, my quince jam, my tomato & chilli chutney. A lot of my food is to do with good housekeeping, the pleasure of having ingredients and using them simply and cheaply in multiple ways.
(3) PLASTIC GARDEN TOOLS AND FRUIT & VEG
I grow fruit and veg in the garden. I think if I teach my children about growing and seasons, they'll go through life eating healthily. I'm fundraising to give the local state school an edible garden with beans, vegetables and chickens.'
4. COOK BOOKS
Super special to me are those by Diana Kennedy, originally from Essex, who's travelled around Mexico for 50 yearsI contacted her when I was 28. She met me at the gate of her ranch, at 4pm, with a glass of mescal
5. 100% AGAVE TEQUILAS
Tequila is liquid sunshine. Great for dancing.I discoveredit, after previously being a whisky girl. My father had caught me drinking gin at 16 and hit the roof, saying "You must drink whisky instead".'
6. DAY OF DEAD SKULL
I like skulls, they're quite fun. I bought this Calavera skull in a Mexico City market. My three year daughter is only just taking in what it means.
7. SPECIAL CHILLIES
There are over 200 varieties of chillies and it's my new passion to bring those into our restaurant , even those barely available outside Mexico City, like the chilaca negro.
