"My job isn't the coolest thing about me"

Senior social media manager Jenn Crim writes her own cookbook and celebrates 'A Season of Food with Friends'

Jenn Crim with her new cookbook, A Season of Food with Friends

Our lives amount to more than our careers. This isn’t a lesson that came easily, but I’ve spent the past few years trying to live as if I know it’s true. Especially working in the social media industry, I struggled with blurring lines between my job and personal time because I could easily bounce between my social media accounts and the brand accounts. It felt like I could never truly detach from work—and as a result, it was easy for me to conflate who I am with the work I do.

I know my friend Jenn Crim, a senior social media manager from Nashville, Tennessee has also struggled with this. So, I was overjoyed when I saw a recent Instagram post where Jenn announced she wrote a cookbook titled A Season of Food with Friends. And it made me even happier that she made the book to share with her people and that it was inspired by Jenn’s involvement with the Nashville Food Project, an organization that brings people together to grow, cook, and share nourishing food for the sake of cultivating community and alleviating hunger.

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Speaking with Jenn earlier this week, I love that she’s made a life for herself outside of work—setting aside time to gather with folks in her community and daring to do something creative for herself and her people. I love that she made her cookbook to share, not to sell. I love that she’s focused on giving to her city and not just taking.

Over the past year, my life has looked similar. Gathering with writers where I live in addition to virtually gathering with writers from all over. Building a body of work I’m proud of apart from my professional resume. And even making my own book for my grandma because she wanted to hold my words in her hands.

I’m grateful that more of us are finding that work won’t love us back, so we must do the work of loving ourselves and each other. As you’ll glean in the conversation below, Jenn is a wonderful example of this, noting that she is a “person who is passionately pursuing curiosity and creativity.” And as she shared in the final words of her Instagram post: “[I] hope that if you feel so called to, you’ll find a meaningful way to give back to community this season, too.”

I loved reading about you writing your own cookbook. Where did the idea for this book come from?

I've always had this dream of making a cookbook. I never thought I would actually do it. But earlier this year, I was going through some tough stuff personally, and my friends really showed up for me. We would meet up for a meal, or they would come over and I’d make them a meal. When I was reflecting on that time, I realized, ‘Wow, that really was a season of food with friends.’

Also, I’m Italian, and I grew up cooking with my family. All of my best childhood memories are centered around food and gathering with people.

For the holidays this year, I knew I wanted to give my friends something meaningful. I wanted to encapsulate this season of food with friends and share those memories with them beyond just this season.

Why did you want to make the cookbook for your people instead of for sale?

I didn't want to monetize something I wanted to enjoy personally. I kept coming back to: how do I enjoy my life? How is this book an extension of that?

When I was in college, I wrote an actual book about my internship journeys. But I came to realize that everything we do is monetized these days. Every part of our lives is monetizable. While that works for some people, I wondered, how cool would it be to have something to simply enjoy? That seems to happen less and less these days. 

Cover: A Season of Food with Friends by Jenn Crim

Have people been asking where to buy it?

I've had people reach out and ask to buy the book, but I don't want to sell it. If you want one, I'll give it to you. But the whole point is really for it to be something that’s shared. It would be really cool if someone takes a recipe out of the book and passes it on to someone else.

What did you learn about yourself making this book?

It was me proving to myself that I was capable of holding to and following through on this little dream I had.

My boyfriend has told me, “Jenn, when you say you're going to do something, you do it. And that’s rare in people. Your follow-through is really strong.”

Back in June, I remember telling friends, “I'm gonna make a cookbook,” and it took me until November 1st to actually have it in my hands. But it was me proving to myself that I could do it.

I have a degree in graphic design, but I've never done a project like this before where I had to write all the recipes. I don't cook from recipes, so I had to make everything and write it down. It was such a layered project, but I proved to myself that I could actually do it, follow through, and hold it in my hands.

How has it felt knowing you accomplished what you set out to do?

I think the cool part about being on the other side of this book is that it's shown me I can be so many more things than just my job title, and I can exist in so many more mediums.

Someone that I really love and admire is Jane Goodall. I love how she’s taken her career and narrated movies, contributed to different books, and spoken at events. She hasn't existed in one medium.

I could direct a movie, or I could go write a movie, or I could write another book, or I could do something crazy that I've never even thought of. I could totally do something I've never done before and achieve it.

In your Instagram post about the book, you wrote that, when you first moved to Nashville, you wanted to get involved with a community organization, which ended up being the Nashville Food Project. Why was that important to you?

Seven or eight years ago now, I was nervous moving to Nashville because I didn't want to be someone who came to this city and just took. A lot of people come here to build their careers, and I think that's fantastic and lovely. But I knew that, if I was going to come here, I wanted to give as much as I took.

How did you start volunteering with them?

I lived in this little condo in Green Hills, and the Nashville Food Project operated out of this church kitchen across the street. My first year in Nashville, I was looking for ways to give back during the holidays, and I did a night with Nashville Food Project where we delivered meals to a community center and got to sit down with all these people, talk to them, and really share a meal with them. It was so transformative for me.

Jenn volunteering at the Nashville Food Project

What keeps you coming back?

I've always loved food and cooking and what that means to people. This is the most consistent year I've worked with the Nashville Food Project. I was just there last night, and volunteering with them has given me so much. Hopefully, ​​the people that we make all the meals for feel the same way. It’s such a special organization. What they do is so incredible, and it's good for my soul to be a part of it.

How have you been transformed volunteering with the Nashville Food Project?

It's really helped me see the bigger picture and a lot of things that I didn't always have the gumption to see before.

This year, I've gone through this season where I've become way more grounded and empathetic. I give a lot of people a lot of grace. My friends tell me I give more grace than anyone they’ve ever seen. I guess that’s because, when you're in a place where you're contributing to people other than yourself and working on something that's much greater than you, you realize how small a piece of the pie you are—and not in a bad way.

It’s given me way more context of things going on in the world than I had when I was in my early 20s. It makes me wonder, what really matters here? I care about friendship and us helping each other and showing up for each other—whatever that looks like for you and however you’re most comfortable.

How did the Nashville Food Project inspire this book?

It drove the intention behind a lot of the recipes in the book. I think what's cool is, when you walk into the Nashville Food Project, you never know what we're making. It's always a fun thing to find out, and we’re always prepping different parts of different meals.

There was one night where we were making salads, and they had buffalo ranch dressing. I love buffalo sauce, and I hadn’t thought about it in a while. I started making and perfecting this buffalo chicken dip. I swear I made this buffalo chicken dip for two months straight. [Laughs] So, that's in the book.

I love how creative Nashville Food Project’s meals are and how they care so much about the ingredients. Everything that we make there has so much intention and thought. I'm super type-A. For example, I'm super particular about the type of parmesan cheese I like and how I like it grated instead of shredded.

Volunteering with Nashville Food Project helped inspire a lot of the things where I was like, ‘I love doing this because I know that the taste is going to come out better—not because I'm bougie.’

It seems like they flip the notion on its head that soup kitchens, for example, are stale and lifeless.

Yeah. And they have so many amazing community partners who donate all of this food to them. So, we cook really seasonally. In October, there was a big apple picking day, which I missed, and I was literally so sad. But there was a lot of cooking with apples. We've been doing butternut squash for the last four weeks. Over the summer, we did a lot of citrus fruits.

Also, I’ve been exposed to working with a ton of different foods that I wouldn't normally cook with—like rainbow chard. One day, we were cooking rainbow chard, and I thought I should go home and make that. One night, I was helping, and they were making marinara sauce from scratch. I got to see how they made that. Then, I went home and took tomatoes from my dad's garden that he brought down, and I made marinara sauce.

At the Nashville Food Project, everything is done with intention, and their meals are so creative but also very accessible. They don't make things that you wouldn't be able to recognize the name of. They'll make a grilled cheese, but it’ll have really cool ingredients because they want people to feel like it's accessible to them without taking it out of left field.

Pasta made by Jenn Crim

You and I have both done social media marketing for brands for a while now, and this can be seen as glamorous at times while also being underappreciated. As you know, these jobs can demand a lot from us and often leave folks mentally and emotionally depleted. What are some things you’ve reckoned with in your career?

I've definitely reckoned with a lot. I think that, when you’re working with a brand so closely and publishing a lot of that content directly, it's super easy to feel very emotionally connected with it, and I think that's definitely something I've struggled with.

Last year, I kind of flipped everything I knew on its head. I spent so many years thinking I had to be chronically online, and I had to know everything that was going on to be an active contributor in the conversation and have something of value to say.

I got to this point where I realized that I actually do my best work when I’ve slept eight hours a night, when I’ve taken the breathing room, when I’ve allowed myself the life-space to be creative, and the work that I've done this year is some of the work I'm most proud of in my career.

I don't think that would’ve been possible if I hadn’t made that internal shift because I was just so buried in a screen all the time. I wasn't actively participating in my own life, and I wasn't actively being out in the world. 

A lot of social has shifted alongside that. Now, a lot of social content is people documenting moments. It's very moment-based. So, I tell my team all the time to make content for the Internet and use our brands as the backdrop.

If I had not taken a step back and considered how I’m showing up creatively and how being chronically online was serving me or my work, I don't think I would’ve come to that conclusion. I don't think I would’ve been able to lead my team to execute that way. I had to unravel a lot of the chronically online thoughts that get put in our heads as social media professionals.

What’s been valuable for you in making time to volunteer with the Nashville Food Project outside of your job?

In my opinion, it’s invaluable being around people who don’t have the same job as you. Also doing things like chopping vegetables or prepping turkey for two hours and not having a phone—just having that space to decompress.

There are times where I’m chopping zucchinis for two hours, but I'll be thinking it’d be really cool if we did this or this. It gives you intentional time to think and be a person. If I didn't have that time scheduled in my week, I don't know if I would hold myself to doing it as much as I do now.

What have you learned in disentangling your identity from your job?

Throughout my 20s, my work was my identity. I think that's because, for so long, I didn't feel like I was making a valuable contribution to anything outside of my job. This year, I’ve focused so much on my relationships with my family members, my parents, my romantic relationship, and my relationships with my friends.

Because I work for a company that has iconic brands that people are really dazzled by when they hear about them, I wanted people to think I have a cool job. But that’s not the coolest thing about me. I'd hope the coolest thing about me is that I show up for my friends, and that I contribute to my community, and that I care about being a good partner.

What advice would you give social media professionals, or really anyone, who’s struggling with work as their identity?

Have your own lane in addition to your job, whether that be volunteering, going to the library, or going on walks. It doesn't have to be some large thing. But whatever it is for you, have your own lane outside of your job and career. You can't put all your eggs in one basket. I wish I knew that when I was 24 or 25, but I'm glad I know it now.

Any final words?

In the age of the influencer, I think people forget that you don’t need to have social media followers to have influence. Especially working in social media, I think there's this stigma that you have to have a big platform to have a voice or do something flashy or cool. But you can do anything. It doesn't matter how big your audience is or how many followers you have on social media. If you have a dream, you can do it.

I couldn’t have gone and pitched this cookbook to a bunch of publishers, but I have a book in my hand, and I'm really proud of it. It doesn't matter that I don't have 100,000 followers on Instagram to share it with. I inspired one person, and that's all I care about.

This interview has been edited and condensed.