Hamersley's Bistro: Blue Green Colors Flashin'

*There aren't a lot of songs out there with vegetables in the lyrics, so instead I've used a lyric from the song that I was craving today, "Silver Springs" by Fleetwood Mac. The Mac is back.

As part of the Boston Homegrown book, I got to meet and photograph chefs all over the greater Boston area. Some of them were flying under the radar to the uninitiated, but there were a fair amount who were "famous" - well-established chefs whose names I had heard of before my foodie transformation. Gordon Hamersley is one of those chefs. He's been running Hamersley's Bistro in Boston's South End for over twenty years! That's extraordinary! Despite being a big deal, he was so generous with his time and his knowledge. I can not emphasize enough how much it meant to me when these super-busy chefs were enthusiastic about our book and willing to spend time and enthusiasm teaching me the ways of the food/restaurant world. Honestly. I was looking through these photos today and thought they deserved to be blogged! So, here are some photos of the food at Hamersley's Bistro!







A couple of photos of Chef Hamersley.





This is a really cool video by Robin Berghaus for Bostonia, Boston University's alumni magazine. The reason I'm posting it is because the video also features Ellery of Blue Heron Farm. Blue Heron Farm, in Lincoln, MA, is the profiled supplier that is partnered with Hamersley's Bistro in the book!

Happy spring, everyone! I hope everyone is out there getting their all-natural sunshiny vitamin D these days1

Chocolate Cake: You're My Favorite Work of Art

So, all of this food photography occasionally prompts ME to actually cook something. On this occasion, I BAKED. Now, as I've mentioned before, I'm much more of a "let's throw everything in this one pan with some olive oil and call it dinner" kind of girl. My dinners are usually delicious, but they're not very intricate and nor are they very photogenic. This time around, I opted for something that was a little bit of both! I got the recipe from Smitten Kitchen, a wonderful food blog. Every time I end up on that site, I leave with a recipe I want to try out! This time around I made Everyday Chocolate Cake.









I took these photos a couple of weeks ago, so the Valentine's decor was a lot more appropriate. Overall, I'd say the cake came out pretty well! It was really dense, so you definitely want a glass of milk to go along with it. Or maybe a dollop of whipped cream (which I don't eat). I was just happy it looked pretty! I made Doug take most of it to work with him so we didn't sit at home and eat it all by ourselves and he told me it was a big hit (although I suppose he could have been lying - how would I know?). It definitely wasn't perfect (yet), but I'd say it was pretty good for someone in the habit of eyeballing food measurements!

Boston Food Photography: Open Your Heart With the Key

Yay for food! The Mr. and I celebrated Valentine's Day together this past Saturday. We had dinner with three other couples. The men cooked and the women got to kick back, relax, and enjoy the meal! Knowing how decadent it was going to get, I brought my camera along so I could photograph our feast!

Fontina and pear and brie and green apple paninis with a tomato soup shooter.


Sun-dried tomato and avocado spring rolls.


Mixed greens salad with goat cheese, red onions, and craisins.


Rosemary chicken stuffed with an herb infused goat cheese paste (cooked under a brick) with a side of orzo and vegetables.




Homemade creme brulee with raspberries and blackberries!


We also got chocolate covered strawberries and vanilla milkshakes with kahlua. Talk about being pampered! Everything was so yummy! In our past lives in Los Angeles, the Mr. was a pretty darn good chef, so I knew what he was capable of! However, these days, after a long day at work, neither one us gets very creative with dinner (unless you count figuring out ways to only use one pan creative). It was the perfect Valentine's Day present! Thank you to the men for putting in a hard day's work and really getting creative! Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

XOXOXOXOXO

Verrill Farm: Carry Moonbeams Home in a Jar

For some reason, maybe it was the recent arrival of winter around here, I was thinking about my Verrill Farm photos last night. One of my favorite photos is of Steve Verrill eating the corn - that's apparently how to tell if it's ripe or not. I always approve of the taste testing method! Over the course of this project, I took so many photos at each of the places I visited and so few of them actually ended up in the book. I decided I was going to post the photo with the corn this morning, but then when I went to pull it from my files, I saw all these other photos that I loved that weren't included in Boston Homegrown. For instance, I love the photos of Steve and his wife Joan. Steve always wears a hat while working on the farm, so I thought it would be fun to incorporate it into some of their portraits. Verrill Farm also has an amazing farm stand and I highly recommend taking a trip out for some food! You can obviously buy local produce and even beef, but they also offer prepared foods, sandwiches, and baked goods. Yum! I've definitely been there just for lunch on more than one occasion!













*The song I used for this post doesn't actually have anything to do with the post - it's just a pretty lyric that popped into my head. Although I guess it does reference two farm animals, so it sort of fits!

Boston Homegrown 2011: Have Some More Chicken

Now for some food photography! For most of 2010 and 2011 I worked on a book titled "Boston Homegrown." I traveled around Massachusetts photographing farmers, fishermen, cheesemakers, and chefs. I got to meet wonderful people who were beyond generous with their time and knowledge. I've blogged about a bunch of my adventures, but still have so much more to go! In the spirit of the Year In Review, I thought I would post some Boston Homegrown photos from last winter...

First up is Coppa in the South End. Jamie Bissonnette is the chef and he is all over the place. I've even seen him cook in a skeleton ski mask. In the book, he's paired with Round the Bend Farm. You can see the photos I took there in this post.







Next up is T.W. Food in Cambridge. Yum! I highly recommend their Sunday brunches! The chef is Tim Wiechmann. Since I also photographed the restaurants' food suppliers, I got to take photos of Tim's own personal root cellar.









T.W. Food was paired with Drumlin Farm, which is not just a place for field trips! It is a real working farm that offers a winter CSA and they have a pretty big root cellar!







606 Congress still stands out as one of my most adventurous sessions for this project. The chef, Rich Garcia, prepared two dishes for me to photograph - one was lobster deviled eggs topped with caviar and the other was beef heart. Yikes! And I devoured both of them. Go figure! I blogged about it here.







606 Congress is paired with Blackbird Farm in the book. My trip to Blackbird is the only farm trip that left me with a war wound. During this entire project, I thought for sure I was going to fall in the ocean or get electrocuted by an electric farm fence, but nope. I escaped mostly unscathed. What finally got me was the barb wire (and my clumsiness). I now have a gorgeous scar around my arm from where I scraped along the side of it! Lucky for me I think it adds character. Sure, I can't be a supermodel anymore, but that's okay. I blogged about Ann Marie Bouthillette and her farm here.

The following photos are from my day with Chef Nuno Alves who works at Tavolo. So many things about this day stand out, not the least of which is because I was at his house and not at his restaurant! Since his Portuguese background, and his parents, are such huge influences on his cooking style, he wanted both of them to play a part in what he prepared for me.







I blogged some other photos from the day here. Tavolo is paired with Seafood Specialties, which is run by Chris Edelman. Chris also runs Wulf's Fish Market in Brookline, which is where I met up with him for our session. Stepping into that store is like stepping into another era, which is entirely the point.







I first met Chef Jason Bond when he was at The Beacon Hill Bistro, but since then, he's opened his own restaurant in Cambridge. Bondir continues to receive rave reviews.







Bondir is paired with Pete and Jen's Backyard Birds. I've really enjoyed getting to know Pete and Jen and the work they do! I loved buying my chickens from them this year and can't wait until it's time to do it again!

Tastings might win for being the restaurant farthest away from Boston, but it's still worth the drive to Foxboro! When I photographed there, Matthew Maue was the chef, but since then, he has left and Chef Ben Lacy has taken over. The philosophy has remained the same, though, and the restaurant is still committed to working with Brambly Farms, who I profiled here.







The Gallows is one of the newer restaurants in Boston's South End. The chef there is Seth Morrison. He prepared some nice hearty winter food for me to photograph! I also loved the decor in there!







The Gallows is paired with Snappy Lobster in the book. They are the guys responsible for sending me home with live scallops and whelks, thus providing me with my #1 most adventurous day on this project. And that doesn't even count the fact that we were out on a boat in freezing weather!





All in all, every day I worked on this project was a new adventure. I loved photographing the amazing dishes that each chef prepared and I loved narrowly cheating death (or just minor electrocution or injury) every time I visited the farmers and fishermen! I'll try to continue to blog more from this project as we lead up to its publication, which will hopefully be this spring. The photos featured in the book are just a fraction of what I shot, so it's fun to complete the story here! If you consider yourself a foodie, or if you're just looking to check out some new (to you) restaurants, a lot of the places I photographed are featured in the Best of Boston lists!

Check out this one from Boston Magazine and this one from the website Eater.com.