Q&A with Shazieh Gorji of Agave Pantry

In honor of International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, we’re highlighting some of the inspiring women within the culinary & hospitality community. Today, we interview Shazieh Gorji, owner of Agave Pantry.

What inspired you to pursue baking, pottery, and spice blends all at once?

As a creative and a maker, it is impossible to confine myself to a single niche when all three
facets of my business are brought together and born out of a passion for creating food for the body, soul, and home. Pottery nourishes the house and the soul while our Love Cake and spice blends feed the body. I see food as an extension of the pottery and pottery as a vessel for food.

Can you share how your journey in these crafts began? Did one passion lead to another?

My love of delicious food and handmade pottery is strongly intertwined with my identity as a woman and mother. I was fascinated young by the merging of elements essential to pottery making, the way the intimate process of potting brings me closer to feeling the pull and power of the earth. As the daughter of immigrants from Georgia to Iran, and Iran to India to Pakistan, my love of pottery brought me from Pakistan to the United States to pursue a liberal arts degree at Bennington College that fully realized my passion for ceramics. I see pottery making as an opportunity to make vessels that nourish us just as the earth both holds and nourishes us.

Pottery and food come hand in hand as pottery so often acts as a vessel for delicious food. As my family has moved about the regions of the Middle East, we have merged a celebration of spices that celebrate the food and culture of the many places we have lived. This celebration of spices came with me to the United States and sparked the bakery side of Agave Pantry, as I wanted to create something special that not only shares my history and culture with Tucson but also nourishes the soul.

How do these three creative outlets—baking, pottery, and spice blending—complement each other?

Whether working with my hands literally covered in clay, making Love Cake, or blending spices that bring my Middle Eastern heritage to the flavors of the Sonoran Desert, pottery, baking, and spice blending are all lessons in living and working with the earth to create something beautiful and inspiring.

All three creative outlets of my business are born from a love of nourishing body, soul, and
home. These come together beautifully in the collaborative spirit pot workshops I host at retreats in Tucson or at my backyard studio space. I love hosting these workshops outdoors during a beautiful desert evening with fairy lights and good food abound as participants come together to not only decorate their own spirit pot, a vessel that holds food for the soul, but also to share delicious food and nibbles of Persian Love Cake; together creating space to connect while making memories through food, clay and fire. Here we dream a little and share our aspirations and hopes for ourselves and the world. An elemental alchemy of sorts takes place that is magical.

What is the most rewarding part of working with your hands in so many different ways?

Working with clay is a deeply personal experience that connects me to every piece I make. Every aspect of potting from wheel throwing to sanding and cleaning involves using the hands intentionally to shape a piece into the finished product that sits on your kitchen shelf. It is as rewarding to feel the clay take shape and come to life as it is to mix Love Cake batter and wrap our signature caramels knowing that the result imparts a piece of my story.

What do you love most about baking, and do you have a signature baked good?

I love baking to share a taste of my cross-cultural heritage with the Tucson community through a delicious blend of unfamiliar flavors that excite the tongue and inspire the soul. Our signature baked good is our decadent Persian Love Cake infused with saffron and cardamon, orange blossom, and rose. The Persian Love Cake is a luscious, gourmet cake that is perfect for romantic proposals, engagements, weddings, and celebratory and friendship gifts.

How did you get into pottery, and what kind of pieces do you love to create?

I first came to the United States as an International student in 1999 to pursue a Liberal Arts
undergraduate degree at Bennington College in Vermont. This is where I discovered my love for pottery and a thirst for the endless possibilities offered through this material thus began. Through hands-on studio experience, mentorships, and travel, my approach to ceramics bloomed and took shape. It is a process constantly in flux as my experiences potting in Pakistan as well as past trips to ceramic studios throughout the United States, Turkey, South Korea, and Australia renew and recharge my vision. My love of pottery began with the creation of statement art pieces and transformed into a love of creating functional pottery pieces along with altar pots for rituals and self compassion, all complementing the home, kitchen and soul.

I love making pottery that fills a gap in your home and kitchen. Our little geode bowls are perfect for jams and dips on a cheese board but double as jewelry dishes while our serving platters and bowls are made to hold your favorite summer salads and winter soups. We also absolutely love creating bowls, plates, and tumblers in simple glazes to grace your kitchen table allowing your creations to shine.

How do you develop new recipes and flavors for your baking and seasonings?

I am inspired by the spices and flavors immediate to my place of being and sense of self. Often new recipe ideas and flavor pairings are born out of my love of cooking and baking with what is fresh and in season. In buying local ingredients to cook and bake with, I have only to look outside my front door to the spicy, earthy flavors of the Sonoran Desert or back to my cultural roots in the Middle East to begin experimenting with what might taste delicious with the ingredients in front of me. I also love the book The Flavor Bible, a great resource for pairing any ingredient under the sun! It is a must have for any foodie!

How do you balance time between baking, pottery, and spice blending?

Over the past six years, I have practiced and practiced and practiced balancing the pottery
making, baking, and spice blending that make up Agave Pantry and every year it gets a little
easier. The work is naturally intertwined and gives itself organically to multitasking, as I can pop down to our backyard studio to throw pots or mix spice blends while the Love Cakes are baking. The key is to keep a running list at any given time of open orders to effectively prioritize and stay on task.

As the demand for our pottery and spice blends has happily increased thanks to our loyal stockists, we have been able to occasionally hire members of the community to lend us a hand when needed. We are so pleased to keep the work in Tucson and fuel the incredible maker community we are proud to be part of.

What has been the most rewarding moment in your business journey so far?

The growth of my business would not be possible without the incredible support of the local community, word of mouth and our amazing clientele. Knowing that our pottery is going into homes and being used regularly by people who care about the story behind handmade pieces fuels my creative process. Similarly, baking our Persian Love Cake for weddings, engagements, birthdays, and anniversaries brings such joy as the flavors of my heritage find themselves at the center of meaningful celebrations.

Beyond the personal sense of fulfillment I find in doing what I love, the support of the
community has enabled me to adapt my studio space. For ten years I was a member of the
Tucson Clay Coop, a community studio enabling me to eventually create a makeshift studio
under a tent in my backyard. I glazed and fired my pots there for another year before I was able to finally purchase my own kilns. Not only was it grueling to be out in the relentless heat but I was limited in how much I could create. As my business nevertheless grew, I was able to build a dedicated backyard studio. Moving the entire pottery process into my backyard has literally created the space I need to work more freely and creatively, and I am awed by the way this has been enabled. I look forward to hosting more backyard studio ceremonial workshops to share my space with our community. The romance of being outside, working with clay and sharing meals together is nourishment for both body and soul.

What advice do you have for women who want to turn their creative passions into a business?

You won’t know if it works or not until you try it! So just try it! I won’t lie, it will be hard.
Initially you’ll have sleepless nights and will work all the time! It’s not for the weak of heart but if you can dream it, then why not try and turn the dream into reality. Either way, at least you won’t have to wonder, what if?!

What does International Women’s Day mean to you as a female entrepreneur?

International Women’s Day is an opportunity to acknowledge and work with the women that are doing the amazing work of keeping our local economy thriving by running businesses and curating event spaces that keep experiences centered in the lifestyle and landscape of the Sonoran Desert. I love working with female-run businesses to offer something unique and meaningful to the community that celebrates womanhood and the feminine, such as the caramels and monthly curated items we made for the Crooked Tooth Full Moon box subscriptions for many years and coming up soon, is our second annual Spirit Pot workshop hosted in May at the ethereal JTH Tucson, an event often attended by mother-daughter pairs, couples, and best friends.

Are there any women who have inspired your journey—whether in business, art, or baking?

Having been raised by my mother, a strong single mother who ran her own furniture business to support us, I learned early on the value and possibility of turning a passion into a self-sufficient lifestyle. The lessons in independence and resilience that I saw modeled in her stayed with me and guided the dream of turning doing what I love into a sustainable business.

If you could give one piece of advice to women pursuing their passions, what would it be?

Do it! You can plan indefinitely but until you do it, it’s an idea on paper. If you have a vision that feels like an exciting spark within you and the passion to realize it, don’t be afraid to start. The best part of the creator community is people want to see you succeed. Put yourself out there. If you’re doing what you love, you will find your people.

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For more information, visit agavepantry.com.