DIGITAL EDITION

Fall 2024

This past week, while working on this issue and my feature story on LINC Malt, Cold Stream Malt & Grain and Grainmaker, the event they host together towards the end of each summer, gathering brewers, distillers, maltsters and farmers—and the people who love them—I went searching for an email to confirm some details about the weekend.

“brian estes linc”

A number of messages popped up; thinking I could narrow it down by filtering it by date, I clicked the arrow at the top of the column to find the oldest messages. The one I was looking for about joining a collaborative brew day between Uprise and Cervezeria Wendtland from earlier this summer was near the top, but above it sat an email from August of 2019. It was an outgoing message I had sent to Beth Robinette and Joel Williamson at LINC Food and their director of partnerships, Brian Estes.

I had never met any of these people before; I was just getting the magazine off the ground, working on the first issue which included a feature about tamales and was due out before the holiday season. Still new to Spokane, the email was an introduction of myself and the magazine, and our commitment to highlighting local food producers across the region and other folks in the community who seek to support them—despite it being just me and the magazine and those days.

The first time I actually met Brian Estes was in March of 2020. At that point, I had just published the second issue of the magazine–a stack of which lived cartoned-up in my garage and was affectionately referred to as “Mount Failure” for some time until I was able to chip away at it one recycling trip at a time.

The Covid shutdown had just taken effect and LINC, the Local Inland Northwest Cooperative, sent an email to say that they would be offering groceries for pickup at a few locations around town. I was already feeling cooped up inside, so placing an order and getting out of the house to pick up a box of groceries was at least something an idle food writer could do. I introduced myself to Brian in the back of LINC’s refrigerated delivery truck parked in front of Pathfinder Cafe on the South Hill, and we made plans to “catch up when this whole thing blows over.”

Our first catch-up took place about twenty minutes later when we both realized that I had been given a box with someone else’s order, so I’m not really sure who he thought I was the first time around, but the box had flour when no one else in town did, and that was enough.

This letter is part disclosure that LINC is an advertising partner of Edible Inland Northwest, but it’s also a personal reflection that I have needed after stitching together 20 issues of this magazine over the past five years.

Despite our initial plan to catch up and talk shop, Estes and I have still never had an official sit-down to discuss business or partnerships, but I feel like we have had entire conversations, industry debriefs and community strategy meetings in passing. Seeing a LINC sticker on the door of a local business while out making house calls, distributing magazines, or just running my own personal errands meant there was a chance for me to affirm that if Brian’s there, I’m probably welcome there, too. As I have come to know more members of Spokane’s brewing community, it is not uncommon for Brian and I to have malt-driven meet-cutes, tipping our glasses to one another from across the taproom while we each work on another project or partnership or magazine or malt. 

During these run-ins, I would often echo my desire to share the story of Grainmaker with the community, but schedules and logistics always made it tough to orchestrate coverage. But a year ago I made it a point to tweak the publication schedule so that I could tag along and get a glimpse behind the scenes of this celebration that brings together so many members of our local food and farming community along with a larger network of those who support them for a party that celebrates the behind the scenes, from the ground, base-work that goes into the things we do important and worthwhile.

Doing this 20 times has not been easy. There are jobs that I forget about each go-round until it’s almost too late. I’m always simultaneously looking ahead and playing catch-up. Trying to juggle the resources I have with where I believe they need to be placed in order to keep telling this, our story of local food, growth and community. 

But that email from before getting a single copy of a single issue onto the street–from before the coronavirus changed our industries and communities and communications in ways we are still trying to figure out, from before questioning my abilities and purpose and if there is a place for me or this magazine or our message when so many local businesses and people who I have come to care about during this time struggle to make things work–is a reminder of the hard work that has gone into creating this magazine, that it has always been about the long-game, that being intentional and trying to build something takes time. 

As I finish this story about Grainmaker and see that Beth Robinette and Joel Williamson and other friends I’ve made and folks I’ve met over the course of these 20 issues, that email is a reminder that I need to be more patient with and kind to myself. To everyone else I’ve met or sent an introductory email to since August of 2019, thank you for being patient with me and to anyone who I have yet to meet, you are BCC’ed here

To: Brian Estes @ LINC

Our goal at Edible Inland Northwest is to highlight our local farmers and producers and introduce them to a wide audience of readers who care about where their food comes from. 

I would love to get together and discuss how we can better support our local producers, share their stories, and get the word out about LINC and your member partners, so let me know what your schedule looks like these days and hopefully we can get something on the books.

Cheers,

Jeff Fijolek

Publisher, Edible Inland Northwest

jeff@edibleinlandnw.com

@jeffinspokane

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