Real Food Real People

She has seen the food system from the bottom to the top, and shares her wisdom as we launch Season 2!! Meet Elena Gonzalez, and hear about her incredible journey from humble beginnings on a farm in Mexico to earning culinary praise here in Washington state.

An intense battle with mental illness took Duane Brandsma away from his family's farm and the work that he had cared so deeply about. Duane gives an inside look into the deeply personal details of what really happened when he says he "cracked," and why he's now speaking out about the mental health crisis among farmers.

Growing up in Guatemala, Enrique Mendoza never expected that he would one day run his own dairy farm here in Washington state. But after working for Everson-area dairy farmer Jerry Van Dellen for several years, Enrique found he loved dairy farming and began working toward owning his own farm.

Host Dillon Honcoop's grandfather produced milk for 45 years and raised a family on a small family dairy near Lynden, Wash. 90-year-old Lawrence Honcoop sits down with his podcaster grandson for a personal reflection on the challenges and triumphs he faced over the years, all the way back to being raised by a single mom with her own small farm just out of the Great Depression.

She's a high school teacher and first-generation organic blueberry farmer who, along with her husband, grew her farm from the ground up. Oh, and they distill craft liquor, too. Mariah Butenschoen of Breckenridge Blueberries and Probably Shouldn't Distillery shares about the risks and the hardships they faced on their journey to realize a dream that many said wasn't possible.