Food Ink 22

New project called Food + Feelings

(3 minute read)‍

Hello friends and farmers,

Today, I have an exciting announcement to share... It's why I haven't sent a newsletter in several months, along with a few other behind the scenes projects, including:

• I added a section to my website to house all old editions of Food Ink, serving as an archive of sorts so they're all viewable there. And so the website doesn't jankily send you to another place to view them.

• I updated the sign up form on my website builder (Webflow) so that it directly links into my newsletter manager (SendFox), which doesn't affect you at all but I was proud of my little HTML hacking to seamlessly integrate the two. This update also allowed me to move away from relying on Zapier, which I had to start paying for because of the higher volume of signups! (Still not sure where you're all coming from 😅).

• We also finally did the Chinatown Night Market! Choy Commons, a collective of AAPI farmers, teamed up with chef Yong Shin of Insa Brooklyn and Kimberly Chou to offer a menu of small bites highlighting some of the produce grown by our farmers. Sorry I didn't give the heads up here after the other one got rained out 😬 - catch the highlights here. We sold out of all the food, which felt great, and validated one of the food products I've been ruminating on for a long time now. (Stay tuned for more on that soon!)

The last and major project, and the thing holding me up from sending a newsletter for a few months, was finally (FINALLY!) launching this podcast: Food + Feelings.

Specifically, what took so much time was the agonizing over putting this, and myself, out there. The editing, figuring out hosting and distribution, creating the cover art, finding the music, recording the intro - all of that took time, too. But the agonizing; oh, the agonizing. Fear, shame, impostor syndrome, procrastination, self-preservation - all of the above. Making this public was a real struggle for me, and the point in doing so is to overcome my fear of judgment. Not to evade judgment but offer myself up for it, and then be okay with the outcome. And do it over and over again.

So, whether you listen to 5 minutes of it or somehow get through the whole thing, listening in the background while you do chores, drive, work, etc., I want to thank you for participating in my exposure therapy experiment. 😊

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Some context and an overview of the Food + Feelings podcast:

Since my deep dive into agriculture and food systems three years ago, I've realized I was still only skimming the surface. Food touches everything, not just health and nutrition, but policy, economics, equity, labor, wealth, power, and control. The more layers I peel back, the more layers I realize are there. My journey into ag started with climate anxiety but now encompasses so much more. Through Food + Feelings, I want to keep exploring the breadth of issues and topics that intersect with food, the truths that evade us and the myths that lead us astray, the things that we never learned about but definitely should know as we hurtle towards an increasingly dystopian future because climate change. And democracy. And power to the people.

I'll seek out and interview folks doing important work in the context of food. Plus, I'll also be throwing in some talks with people doing cool food or farmy things that resonate for other reasons, be they cultural or otherwise. The feelings part will come into play pretty much by default, because there are a lot of feelings around food! And, if you've been a part of my newsletter for a while, you know that feelings and emotional literacy are a big part of this whole thing. If you haven't, peep the archive of past Food Ink editions.

Show notes for each episode, as well as audio embeds and links to the show for all podcast players, will live here on my website.

That's all for this edition - no links, articles, clips, or reviews to share this time. Go listen to the podcast please! More to come next week. Probably.

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Betting the farm,

Edlin