I’ve been doing a lot of food writing
But not here. I’ve been busy churning out quite a lot of content at work for the Harvesting Resilience grant project awarded to us by the State of Washington Tourism (thank you, SWT!). Before I get personal if you’d like to dip your toes into Thurston County’s local farm-to-table food movement, head here:
I think every creative who uses the medium they love to also put a roof over their head struggles with work-life balance.
I do.
In the past three years, I’ve written more and been published more (even if it is “just” our work website) than I have since I’ve been writing. This is a good thing because writing every day keeps me limber, but it also comes with some emotional and mental hiccups I’ve had to navigate. I don’t know if I’m like other writers or unlike other writers, but writing takes a lot out of me, especially when it’s a lot of short-form content about a wide variety of topics.
Quick disclaimer: I work for a destination marketing organization responsible for promoting tourism in Thurston County, Washington. It’s my job to create content that showcases the incredible things to do in and around the Olympia region (the state’s capital, not to be confused with the Olympic National Forest, which is more common than you might think). Located handily between Seattle and Portland, it’s a haven for nature buffs, outdoorsy types, and folks needing a break from the daily grind of city life. It’s also home to makers, producers, and growers with remarkable stories to tell.
I get to tell those stories, and I’m grateful for the opportunity, but the content I publish on our website doesn’t lend itself to long-form writing. And it shouldn’t. Technical stuff like SEO and UX necessitates creating content that provides an easy yet meaningful experience for potential visitors. I can’t wax eloquent or get too far into the weeds, or readers will bounce. Instead, I try to give them enough of the story for them to see themselves here. I’m baiting the hook, but I can’t spend all day in one spot (wink to any of my friends from the fishing industry who might be reading).
The Harvesting Resilience grant project made it possible for me to scratch a bigger itch by writing about the collaboration between Thurston County growers and local restaurants. Not unlike my favorite food city, Portland, this food movement has been slowly developing and growing in Thurston County, which has a much smaller footprint. Agriculture has always been an important component of our region’s economy, and the value of agricultural goods sold in 2022 was over $122 million. However, the cost of running a farm has also gone up in the past two years, and producers have watched their net farm income decrease over that same period. The partnerships I highlighted in this project were a projection of hope—food growers and food suppliers working together to produce a better product but also producing better consumers.
It all starts with our love of good food. At least, that’s where it starts for me. Landing in western Washington four years ago with nothing in front of me but possibility, I set out immediately to explore my local food scene, which happened to be just 50 feet or so from my sister’s front porch. Watching her transform a beat-down and cast-off piece of land into something fertile and productive has been eye-opening (and inspiring—so proud of you, Jen!). We all want to eat well, but I wonder how many of us know just how much work it takes for that to happen. Spend a week on a working farm and you’ll be hugging a lot more farmers.
Shona’s Food Company in Chehalis was my next stop. Shona turned me on to local farmers and growers here in Lewis County, where my sister and I live, then took me to dinner at Chicory. I recognized right away that Elise Landry and her team were doing something special. She was cooking food she loved (throwbacks to her Cajun heritage) but using seasonal, local ingredients from farms in her own backyard. One of the main reasons she and her husband, Adam, decided on Olympia to open a restaurant was the abundance of products they could source locally. As she mentioned when I interviewed her for this piece, “Being this close to local ingredients, it just made sense.”
While all of this sounds ideal—and in a perfect world, every restaurant would be sourcing ingredients locally if they had the opportunity—the reality is that it’s still really hard to do. Sourcing locally means cooking what’s in season (challenging if diners are clamoring for tomatoes in winter), it means paying more for organic ingredients, and it means discovering farms that may be so small they’re unable to market themselves effectively.
In other words, I have a lot to say about Thurston County’s food movement, and I’ve been able to do so somewhat with this grant. It’s enough to pique a foodie’s interest who may be traveling to the area (goal accomplished for the destination marketing organization), but it’s not nearly deep enough to satisfy my craving for in-depth storytelling behind amazing food. In order to do that, I’ve got to go deeper. And I plan to, right here in this space.
Some of my favorite stories from the Harvesting Resilience are:
Slow Food Greater Olympia: Good, Clean, Fair Food For Everyone
Where Learning Grows: Exploring Dancing Goats & Singing Chickens Farm
This is just a “warning” that you may see these farm and restaurant stories show up here at Crunch Creative with a closer look into their magic-making process. I hope you’ll give them a chance.
