Chef in the Garden and a Sweet Paul Giveaway!

Spring is here. Things are at last changing. The profusion of blooms of all kinds is happening. If you follow me on Instagram, you have seen me get punchy over flowers, trees, and anything else which as been showing itself spring. Yesterday I had the unique opportunity to accompany one of my farmer friends for a field trip, as he dropped off goods to chefs at the best restaurants in town. Everywhere the day took us, there were redbuds, dogwoods, forsythia, and cherry blossoms clamoring for glory.

But I digress. I am doing a *very special* giveaway. Scroll down for a chance at the amazing goodies… 

These images are the path of a longer-term project. Jim and I photographed a unique farm-to-chef-to-table event last year which epitomized what it means to be part of Community. The fact that it was chock-full of sublime flavors and a total blast didn't hurt any. The story just got printed for this month's Birmingham Magazine, and it looks beautiful.

Will and Liz from Heron Hollow Farm - you've seen them here and here - provided one of their pigs for the roast. The five-course meal included all kinds of veg and foraged treats from the kind gents at Mt Laurel Farm, the incredibly pastoral setting for the event. Due to its first-time success, they are repeating this event, with the next Chef in the Garden dinner on May 3rd. Just in time for beautiful spring produce! Click here for tickets!

I am falling in love with all that it means to get to know my farmers.

There are so many more photographs from that beautiful experience. Order a copy of the magazine here to see it in print! As I said earlier there is a larger project underway, so with any luck you will have a chance to see the spectrum of amazing images all together. I'll keep you posted!

And now for the giveaway!!! 

My friend Sweet Paul, *just* released his wonderful new book, Eat & Make: Charming Recipes + Kitchen Crafts You Will Love, and he has offered a SIGNED COPY to one lucky reader of this blog. We have had a great time making beautiful work together over the years, and so I know firsthand how much love he poured into the making of this book. I hope you will enjoy it every bit as much as he had fun producing it.

In order to qualify for the giveaway, follow me in my daily fun over at Instagram. Then leave a comment here: tell me what fun or delicious thing you are especially looking forward to as we finally revel in spring. Please include a link for contact should you win! Due to mailing rates, this giveaway is only eligible to residents in the continental United States, though I LOVE ALL my readers! Cut-off to qualify is April 20th, at 11:59 EST. I will announce the winner the week following…. so stay tuned!!!

Very soon I'll post more great projects that are now complete. I feel incredibly grateful for the community sprouting up everywhere and the gorgeous stories I am taking part in to tell. Have a beautiful weekend!

Where I Stand and the Road Ahead

I've been thinking about how to devote more time to writing here, sharing my challenges, adventures, and progress along my path. Of course, it has been nice to be so busy with many wonderful freelance projects. I need that. Gotta bring home the bacon somehow, and batting my eyelashes at a farmer friend isn't going to do it.

Here are some of my favorites from my newest feature over at Anthology. It's a French custard, called a flognarde (and really simple to make)...

 

Since I've been freelance again in an entirely new land, my husband and I have done some fancy footwork to establish stability. I am so grateful for the connections made with - and through - new friends here, and wonder how long this grace will bolster us. I am also grateful for cultivating solid relationships with my clients, and as time has worn on, their belief in me. It has made all the difference.

I know I don't share as many recipes here as I once did. I carry a certain amount of guilt about that, as if I am not taking care of y'all, but I wonder if I'm projecting and if it even bothers you at all. My hope is that you relish the bounty in the step-by-step stories I have been creating in my column over at Anthology - for over 6 months now! - and that their beauty and information (and the link to the recipe, too!) is consolation enough. Check them all out if you haven't seen them already: numbers one, two, three, four, five, six, and now, seven.

What I really am saying is, what do you love that I provide? Are you missing out on things you feel I used to share? Is there anything you want to see more of? I always have a nagging feeling I need to write more. I hide behind my pictures and often hope that's good enough. They speak so well. I am self-conscious of my writing and so, when there's lots of new photography I've produced - like the wonderful recent trip to be with some beloved farmer friends - I plaster it all over and then whisk off to the next project.

Cooking and styling, in addition to my steady shooting - I love this whole picture. I want to share so many moments in food process. There's something about that which is deeply important to me. As a result, sometimes there's less of a volume of work produced, but with a farther exploration into each. I have fun with these stories. I hope you do, too.

So, here's to sharing in all of the "nexts"….

There's housekeeping to be done and writing to do, and a long-term project simmering. Thank you for accompanying me this far, and your support and delight in anticipation for what's to come!

Chinese Chili at The New York Times, Leading Ladies at Birmingham Magazine

I am producing some exciting new stories with the New York Times, one of which debuts today.

Somehow the writers managed to marry the Chinese New Year with the afterglow of the Superbowl in a story about warming Syrah. I prepared, styled, and photographed this recipe which ties them nicely together. And it is quite warming; great for the northeast which is still being hammered by snowfall, as well as my hometown, where my parents report record-breaking snows... It would have been quite at home too with the Snowpocolypse the South experienced a week ago.

Here are a couple of my favorite outtakes, and the link to the full story.

Here in Birmingham the February issue of Birmingham Magazine is out and it looks really good. My photography is of three prominent women who laid the groundwork towards the recovery of this fair city. It looks gorgeous, if I do say so myself. Here they are:

May the contributions along my journey resemble - even a teeny bit - the accomplishments of these women.

Right now I am working on a wonderful recipe for my next Anthology feature. Here's a peek...

Look forward to it soon... :)

French Rustic Collards, Melted Onion, Mushroom Pie and New Work at Birmingham Magazine

I've been on a pie kick. If you didn't see the fabulous meat pies I made for Anthology, you can check them out here. They're part of my monthly column where I produce, cook, and style - and of course shoot! - the process and results. Every bit yummy. I love my work!!

Since it's winter - it SNOWED here yesterday, and I'm in Alabama! - it is the perfect time for soothing foods. So many of us have been affected by the strange turn in weather, with new concepts like Polar Vortex becoming commonplace. That can't be a good thing....right? But, I was temporarily seized by the snowy wonderland outside my windows as I bustled around preparing this dish.

Inspired by the collaboration between Goop and Food52, I thought to throw a recipe in the hat and see what fun it would produce. I had lots of fun making and eating this delightful pie, and I hope you will, too.

The full recipe is here. I'd love to hear if you try your hand at it! And when the time comes to vote, I'll let you all know. :)


Here now are some of my favorites from my feature with the wonderful ladies at Birmingham Magazine. Asked to produce a lifestyle story about a small Basque community relocated to The 'Ham, I spent a day photographing a delightful couple and their three equally sweet young daughters. Full story - minus the images :( -  here. You can request a printed copy by contacting the publisher.

 

It has been tremendous producing diverse work with such good people. I feel blessed.

There's lots to come, like an extra special story at Anthology. It will debut on Valentine's Day. And more... Join me on Instagram for peeks into the projects as I produce them.  Thanks for visiting!!!

Now on Instagram

Now there are more ways to see the delicious things I am up to. For behind-the-scenes, quiet moments, and general delight.... See you there! 

What it is to Farm

It's pretty amazing to know that there are people who dedicate their lives to growing food and bringing that food to the public. On a daily basis, I make efforts to deepen my relationship with the food I consume, and to draw closer the people who provide it for me.

In that vein a couple months ago, I decided to jump in and participate in the work that goes in to growing food for a stand, one at our local farmers market. The experience was wonderful, as you might guess, and also quite humbling.

In my new home, luck has it that I only have to travel an hour in any direction to find great farmers. Our local market is just eight minutes away and rivals my trusty greenmarket back in NYC. On our first trip - the first stand I decided to stop at - I spotted Heron Hollow Farm. I was initially drawn to the gorgeous fruits and veggies, and then to Will, his wonderful wife Liz, and their sweet babe Ava, whose gaze is the intense stare of an old soul.

Each week their stand presents a colorful bounty in-line with the season. We have found (and hungrily taken home): neat piles of heirloom tomatoes; firm, bright, tiny turnips; every color pepper imaginable; bundles of wild greens; potatoes with great names (and even better flavor); firm, dark blueberries; perfectly ripe okra; foraged chanterelles; pastured eggs; and both goat and cow dairy products.

Throughout the years I have learned what great versions of this-or-that vegetable or fruit look like, feel like, and smell like, resulting in some damn good eating. When I honor eating with the season and locate food that is only lightly traveled, I am rewarded with peak ripeness provided by someone who nurtured that food him or herself.

Supermarkets actually rob us of this choice in selling us a wide variety of fruit and veg year-round. Groceries showcase uniformity rather than the uniqueness nature creates, dumbing down our access to the kinds of a carrot or a tomato, etc., we can even be exposed to. The stuff masquerading as real fruits and vegetables in supermarkets is almost completely machined - picked pre-ripened and necessarily flushed with gasses to achieve their rosy hues; shipped hundreds if not thousands of miles and losing flavor and nutrition as a result; and handled by people who themselves are kept on a threadbare existence.

When we buy at supermarkets we vote to sustain the infrastructure that bolsters Industrial Agriculture, including environmental costs like chemical waste in our waterways and burning fossil fuels into our atmosphere. Is that what we want for our future, or even now?

Heron Hollow and countless other small, local farms like it empower us by showing us that heirloom fruits and vegetables can be grown without industrial pesticides, fungicides, and fertilizers.  What started out as a college hobby, and what brought Will and Liz together, has evolved into a holistic approach that would make Joel Salatin proud: animals live happily in their natural ways, work is done largely by hand, and they use tried-and-true methods like compost and permaculture to grow healthy, amazing food. To nourish yourself and your family with the food a small farmer toils over day-after-day is about as elemental as it gets.

Each week, they do the bulk of the work pulling the (literal) fruits of their labor from the earth. For all my years in New York's aggressive hustle, I was set to task in keeping up with their schedule. Will quipped, "we're *reasonable* farmers" when we asked if they start before sun-up....So we toiled from 6 a.m. on, from one chore to the next, and it was a race against the sun bearing down on us all.

Thank you Will, Liz, Ava Rose, Denise, and Brian for sharing of yourselves. You are helping others to grow their appreciation of what it means to grow food.

 

"Ma mere" with Ava, as mama carries food scraps to the pigs

During the hottest hours, we retreated to the "swimming hole," a falls-fed flowing stream

I hope by now you have fallen in love with this pastoral view.

At sundown, the eleven-hour day only represented the beginning. After everyone gathered for a gratifying dinner of herbed goat's cheese, homemade bread, fresh sliced tomatoes, home-smoked bacon, and a veggie stew, the next tasks were to sort and wash the day's take, and complete the evening milking and feedings. This was work carried on into the latest hours of the night, followed by just a few hours of sleep before driving it all to market. And let's not forget: week in and out Will and Liz and farmers just like them oblige many a curious (if not demanding) market patron, with cheer, smiles, and patience, on just the vapors of sleep..... pretty awesome indeed.

We love being reminded of the care put into each tomato sitting on our counter at home. Each morsel is enriched by the relationships we have - and continue to - cultivate. Please support small, local, family farms. You'll eat worlds better and have the satisfaction of knowing that you are directly supporting members of your community. If you want to learn more, here, here, and here are good places to further your own understanding. Share this story with friends, and say "hi" to the folks providing us all with good food.