Local Food Chronicles

The problem

Susie Sutphin had spent years publishing Foodlust, a deeply personal chronicle of farms, food systems, and community resilience across the Sierra and beyond. When she lost access to her Weebly site, the archive seemed gone: hundreds of posts, photos, and context trapped in a platform she could no longer reach. Copy-pasting from the Wayback Machine felt overwhelming. She needed the archive restored, browsable, and editable without depending on me for every small change.

Approach

I was referred by Jan Holan to help recover what mattered and give Susie a site she could own again. After reviewing the archive snapshot, I proposed a practical path: automated recovery from the Wayback Machine, conversion into modern content files, and a fast static site with an editor she could use without calling me for every typo. I also helped develop the Local Food Chronicles logo so the revived archive had a cohesive identity beyond the recovered posts. A Python pipeline crawled pagination, downloaded images, and converted 146 posts into MDX. I then built an Astro site with tag filters, keyword search, post pages, About and Contact, and TinaCMS for client editing, deployed on Cloudflare Pages with a custom domain.

Process

1. 1

   Discovery

   Reviewed the Wayback snapshot scope after referral and outlined scrape → format → import → refine.

2. 2

   In-person kickoff

   Met locally to align on vision, editorial control, branding, and long-term ownership of the archive, including direction for the Local Food Chronicles logo.

3. 3

   Recovery

   Built a Python scraper to handle Wayback quirks: pagination gaps, duplicate listings, placeholder pages, image extraction, and HTML cleanup.

4. 4

   Conversion

   Scripted conversion from recovered JSON to MDX content files and relocated public image assets.

5. 5

   Site build

   Shipped an Astro static site with the new logo, content collections, responsive layout, tag filtering, search, and fallback art for posts missing images.

6. 6

   CMS integration

   Configured TinaCMS for posts, pages, and editable homepage fields with admin path redirects for Cloudflare Pages.

7. 7

   Client review

   Shared preview URL and a Google Doc for structured feedback on accuracy and formatting.

8. 8

   Handoff

   Delivered CMS login, domain setup, and documentation on what she can edit vs. when to call me for larger changes.

Outcome

146 blog posts recovered and published across 2011–2013; client can browse, search, and edit content independently on a fast static site.

Stack & services

• • Archive recovery
• • Logo development
• • Static site build
• • CMS setup
• • Deployment & handoff