About the Picnic

We're Katy and Ilana, two travel nerds with culinary backgrounds. 

Ilana

Ilana is our photographer: she documents us at our best and our worst. She spent the last year working as a photographer and marketing manager for a local Seattle company, while also doing freelance recipe development, recipe videos, and various photography projects. After a handful of jobs in the food industry and three years at the Culinary Institute of America, she traveled around the country working for a farm dinner company.  

She lived in four states by the time she was 18 and has had a hard time staying in one place since. She was mostly raised in Seattle, though, which explains why she wears Birkenstocks with socks and isn't at all ashamed of it. She loves graffiti, green tea, dad jokes, and leather goods. 

Her spirit vegetable is the Indigo Rose Tomato, which makes her a rare breed and super independent. She's a badass, energetic and charismatic woman. She's a passionate workhorse and knows how to get stuff done. 

Katy

Katy is our writer: the one who manages to put our antics into words. She spent the last five years in and out of New York, working as a sous chef at a major New York City restaurant, while intermittently traveling and pursuing writing projects. Her writing has been published in multiple online platforms and quarterly magazines. 

She grew up in Boulder, Colorado and likes kale just as much as you'd think she would. She's also obsessed with regional ice cream flavors, especially blue moon. She got a taste for the road when she followed her favorite band around the country in lieu of going straight to college. 

Her spirit vegetable is the Purple Kohlrabi, which makes her sweet but with a sharp bite. She loves to argue about things like the moon landing and is almost always brainstorming a conspiracy theory.