Before eating local was fashionable it just tasted better.

Twenty years ago Carolyn Goodwin was a regular patron of the Pike Place Market when she first developed a taste for talking with the farmers who could share their culinary wisdom.

It was a love of the finest quality food that first sparked Goodwin’s drive for farm fresh and has since helped form the local food network on Bainbridge Island.

After moving to the island in 1997, she began frequenting the Saturday market. She was introduced to island farmers Betsey Wittick of Laughing Crow Farm and Brian MacWhorter of Butler Green Farm, both of whom were hard at work building a supply of local food. Goodwin saw a missing link and a solution.

“These farmers were working 16-hour days growing wonderful food, but they had hardly any promotion,” said Goodwin. “I wasn’t a farmer myself, but I knew I had something that I could contribute.”

Her resume includes a journalism education from Western Washington University, experience as a one-woman community newspaper editor/publisher, executive level positions in corporate marketing, and her current status as owner of Marketability Group, a marketing and creative design firm.

This combination of skills came together back in 1998 in the first edition of Island-Fresh News, a monthly newsletter for the Bainbridge Farmers’ Market that gave updates on what was available at the Market and put farmers’ faces behind the food.

The mail-out gave a market report of available goods and put a face behind the food. Goodwin quickly found that her love of food was an easy way to meet people in the community. Connecting over food was simple and the island network was growing with speed.

From there she connected with Sallie Maron, who was the genesis behind Sound Food, an offshoot of island nonprofit Sustainable Bainbridge.

“We had tea at Blackbird Bakery and the sparks were flying,” said Goodwin.

Goodwin’s volunteer efforts have helped Sound Food blossom, with an online publication and website connecting curious taste buds with growers.

For the last three summers, Sound Food operated a middle-of-the-week farm stand at the Bainbridge ferry terminal, which grew into the daily market now in operation at Bay Hay and Feed in Rolling Bay.

“Promoting just the farmers wasn’t enough,” said Goodwin. “You have to think of a big-picture, system approach where you equip the producers with a place to sell, you encourage the customers with quality products. It’s a network that has to come full circle from the farm to the table to the compost and back.”

Sound Food is now 4-years-old and Goodwin is still bursting with ideas for the future.

This year she worked with former Sen. Phil Rockefeller to create the Cottage Food bill, which promises to make it easier for small producers to bring their products to market. The bill removes regulations requiring food processing in a certified commercial kitchen and allows small producers to secure a permit and health inspection to process food in their own kitchens.

With new farmland popping up on the island and a rising popularity of backyard chickens, it appears that Goodwin’s passion is satiating a local food hunger.

Sound Food has no shortage of projects and dreams to continue building the infrastructure, with the firm belief that the farmers and connoisseurs will follow. Next on the list is an online forum to make quick connection between local restaurants and Kitsap County farmers.

“It’s the easiest way to build community,” said Goodwin. “Local food always tastes better, and you get a special pride in being able to tell a story about the person who raised and cultivated the food on your table.”

– Jessica Hoch